African Gorean Slaves

The disappearance of Majorana - Leonardo Sciascia (1975) Salvador Allende




In this book, whose content ranges from the novel, the essay and documentary, Sciascia traces the figure of Ettore Majorana and investigates possible reasons for its disappearance from social life. Suicide? Escape? The physical scientist is described as an introverted, backward bearer of science, of which however seems to be ashamed. Defined by scientists such as Fermi's like one of those genes that appear once or twice at most during the course of a century, Sciascia, Majorana imagine that could have a glimpse of scientific studies of the dangers that science and especially physics, was about to prepare. Sciascia and the Majorana studied the behaviors they derive from them a picture of a man similar to the characters and mystifying drama of Pirandello much preferred that the physical and compares well to the writer Stendhal as a precocious genius. Short book, but which seem in the present let us reflect on how our science can be used against us and against our lives. Had he guessed Majorana that the blind enthusiasm of the boys in Via Panisperna and other scientists for their physics would have led to the creation of the atomic bomb and the risk of the destruction of all humanity? This is no doubt that the Sicilian writer wants to lodge in our minds. And was it not explained its "chat" with the fact that Heisenberg was losing sight of the man and overestimating his science? It is no coincidence that Heisenberg, who, "to put it trivially, is a philosopher," is one of the few people that Majorana closest relationships?
The last chapter is perhaps the most evocative. Sciascia has picked up a voice of a scientist who claimed he had retired in a convent. What is hidden in the convent or may have hidden the body disappeared from the company, in fact, is not excluded. However, another item has come to the writer of Racalmuto, namely that members of the crew of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, it is, a prey to remorse, a refugee in the same convent. Assuming that the two are really met in the convent, this is not a sign of destiny?

A tear in the paper sky - Lea Ritter Santini

The novel follows this essay by Lea Ritter Santini. The rift in the sky paper refers to a passage from

"The Late Mattia Pascal"

. Just this:

"Blessed are the puppets of wood on whose heads the fake sky is preserved without tears! Not anguished perplexity, or restraint, no hitches, no shadows, no pity, nothing! And they can wait and bravely take their comedy tastes and love themselves and take into account and value, without ever suffering vertigo or dizziness, because of their stature and their actions that sky is a roof proportionate .[...]"

This is stated in the novel the protagonist Pirenadell Mattia Pascal. And as Mattia Pascal, wants to avoid Majorana conventions, and I quote the text of the essay, "the painful, unnecessary duty to live according to his role, placing, fading, assuming another identity."

In this essay, follow each other with regard to works that have addressed the issue of possible conflict between science and morality, between science and life, as the "Life of Galileo" by Bertolt Brecht and "The Physicists" by Dürrenmatt.

Why focus on a novel Majorana? Why, in the words of Lea Ritter Santini, and I will end,

"her story would like to express existential malaise, insecurity, deep anxiety, the lost faith in a world more understandable and manageable with human categories.