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Theatre tells the science

Life of Galileo: Bertolt Brecht staged the conflict of men search

It is not easy to talk about science to the general public. Even more difficult is to talk about the dynamics of socio-political issues related to science. If we try to do it in an artistic way (eg through the cinema or theater), we encounter an epic challenge. No coincidence that there are few films and / or plays that deal with scientific issues.

A milestone in this field is certainly the work "The Life of Galileo" by Bertolt Brecht German. In a lean and very effective, says Brecht of a Galileo who, inflamed by his own discoveries in astronomy, is focused on spreading the new way of conceiving the universe. This new world view is considered heretical by the Church that pushes Galileo to renounce all his discoveries, "recant."

The Brecht's Galileo is a very complex and at times heroic. For example, heroic and difficult to interpret and 'his recantation. Accusation of his disciples that he had bowed to the power of the Church, Galileo says, "better than empty hands tied." Do not recant would lead to the death sentence of Galileo (as had happened to Giordano Bruno) and perhaps the entire astronomical research of which he was an irreplaceable member suffered a breakdown. Galileo to recant, and then deciding to live secretly pursuing his studies on the motion of celestial bodies, and finally manages to deliver it to Andrea, his trusted disciple, which is managed in the Netherlands, the nest of the independent thinkers of the time.

Andrea is a perfect character to try to understand the complexity of some decisions related to science. Andrea, who grew up under the influence of Galileo, developed a love for the analytical method of genuine science. Later, young and full of enthusiasm for new astronomical theories, decided to leave Italy: "I go, I am a scientist," he says. The same Andrew, the news of Galileo dell'abiura, depressed states, "Unhappy the country that has no heroes." Only later in the text, Galileo will answer: "No. Unhappy the country that needs heroes. "

should not be too much effort to see that this story is 400 years old history now. In Italy today there are many of Galileo, less gifted but equally dedicated, many more are leaving Italy's Andrea to places where scientific research is given greater value. If it is true that no longer exists, the court of the Inquisition, the fact remains that those who decide to reduce (or should I say eliminate) the funds for research performs an act of censorship "post-modern." The forms are different but the problems now facing the world of science in Italy are all too similar to the Galilean vicedo.

MARCELLO HUNTED

"Life of Galileo" by Bertolt Brecht is currently on tour in Italy, in a co-production Teatro Stabile del Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Theatre of The Incamminati, directed Antonio Calenda. The dates of the tour you can find here .

In the picture of Thomas Le Pera, Branciaroli Franco plays the role of Galileo.

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A night with Galileo

Four hundred years ago Galileo Galilei was the first to observe the sky with an instrument more powerful than the human eye: a telescope. His revolutionary views have changed forever our conception of the universe, laying the foundations of modern astronomy, which since then has developed a virtually unstoppable, especially in the last century. Galileo's telescope was, of course, almost rudimentary compared to the powerful tools available to contemporary astronomers, able to peer into the hidden mysteries of the cosmos and distant. But let us take a step back and put ourselves in the position of Galileo to retrace his great discoveries.

If most advanced telescopes of the time allow, in the best condition to distinguish even a car on the moon, the little telescope of 1609 had a much lower resolution: the smallest of details that allowed distinguish on the Moon, the celestial body closest to us, a hundred miles were great! Yet this resolution was sufficient for Galileo to observe the craters and mountains Moon, and demonstrate that the moon is a celestial body incorruptible and perfect as it was believed at the time. Similarly, observing the Sun, he found dark spots on its surface, the "sunspots", which is painted surface of the Sun temporarily colder than average, an ordinary process for a star. Galileo noticed that these spots are in progress: they appear and disappear at different points. Even the Sun, then, is not perfect and immutable. A new science was born, and no experimental evidence based on indisputable dogmas.

Other objects of the first Galileo's observations were the two largest planets of the Solar System Jupiter and Saturn. Discovered four moons of Jupiter, called the "Galilean moons", which revolve around the great planet exactly like the Moon revolves around the Earth and the Earth around the Sun, confirming the Copernican view of the world. Saturn was in fact the first to see a strange structure nebula surrounding it was a few years after the Dutch astronomer Huygens to discover that these are the famous rings, a structure of dust revolving around the planet, forming a kind of disc.

The discovery of a very large, and have never been seen, further outer ring of Saturn, made three weeks ago by the Spitzer Space Telescope, which observes the universe through infrared light, reminds us that even four centuries after the first observations of this planet, there is still much to discover: it is never too late to be amazed by the cosmos.

With this approach in mind, last weekend all over the world have been celebrating the Galilean Nights, a global event and an integral part of the 'International Year del'Astronomia . To discover the universe and learn to look with new tools, with new eyes, more than a thousand events have offered the public an opportunity to observe the sky, where Jupiter, Saturn and the Moon were all particularly clearly visible.

In Campania, the Science Centre of the Fondazione IDIS-Città della Scienza, Naples , opened the door for a weekend is dedicated to Galileo to Darwin , of \u200b\u200bwhose birth falls this year the two-hundredth anniversary, while in Acerno, in the province of Salerno, the Scientific-Cultural Association has organized a hemispheres Star Party with the observation of so-called "Galilean objects" in the beautiful setting Picentini.

CLAUDIA MIGNONE

the picture (NASA), an artistic representation of the new, giant ring discovered around Saturn with the Spitzer Space Telescope . The ring starts at about 6 million km from the planet, and extends for more than 12 million km.

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The varied garden cosmic

Over the years, astronomers have come up with new technical details in order to observe the sky. A technique that has found enormous success is that of "survey", or catalogs of galaxies . These observations more or less large portions of sky in order to detect astronomical sources, especially the weakest and most distant .

The result is a map of the sky, instead of describing the position of planets and constellations, reconstructs the distribution of galaxies in the universe. For each galaxy, the light emitted is measured, the distance from us and other properties that are then used by astrophysicists to study the possible models of formation and evolution of galaxies. Over the last decade this field of astronomy has grown a lot thanks to the proliferation of ever more accurate survey.

One of the findings shared unanimously by all these surveys is that the galaxies in the universe are not distributed evenly but tend to be grouped into structures that are called groups or clusters of galaxies . If you look at regions very large universe, the same clusters appear to be part of a distribution made even more difficult to superclusters, filaments and empty regions (see diagram).

Moving from these observations to detailed models for the explanation of the processes of formation and evolution of galaxies is not easy. The basic concept however is quite familiar. Think of a survey of galaxies as a picture of a plant full of flowers. Some flowers are not yet in bloom, others are in their full splendor, and others are already dead. In this context, our minds easily trace an evolutionary sequence. The galaxies in the survey are like flowers in plants, each with a different developmental stage. It is the responsibility of astrophysical theories describe a galaxy as "blooms" and evolves. Currently, the scientific community there is general agreement on the factors that lead to the birth of a galaxy, but its developmental stages are still under debate.

MARCELLO HUNTED

In this image from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS ), Earth is the center and each point is a galaxy. The galaxies are color coded according to the age of their stars (the red indicates the galaxies with old stars). The zoom in the right pane shows a cluster of galaxies.