What is time? Does it really exist or is it just a massive illusion? Will we ever be able to defeat his relentless onslaught? This “question from the origin of the world”, as characterized by the internationally renowned physicist, Guido Tonelli (Guido Tonelli)and one of the CERN scientists who starred in its discovery boson of Higgsexplores it in his latest book, which he presents today in Athens.

Time is not an abstract concept, Mr. Tonelli explains in his book “Time- From the myth of Saturn at Cern(Dioptra publications). It occupies the Universe, mutates, vibrates, oscillates. The professor at the University of Pisa and physicist at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva embarks on a journey through History, Science, Art and Philosophy to help us better understand the concept of time and our relationship with it , but also the rhythm of our internal time. He presents his writing journey today at the bookstore “Books and Life” in Athens. One day before the event, Guido Tonelli met scientists and journalists under the dome of the Doridis telescope, on the hill of Pnyka.

Mr. Tonelli spoke about his concepts space and his of time in the Universe, but also for human time. To the questions surrounding time, he recalled, “humanity tried to answer and this effort translated into a revolution that led to the creation of works of art, poems and architectural monuments and gave birth to philosophical currents and religions”. “Mankind has always dreamed of stopping time, of being able to intervene and control it. Science, however, has found that time stops inside black holes. Of course, I would not recommend any of us to approach black holes because they are extremely dangerous!”, he added with humor.

The book about time is the second authorship of Guido Tonelli, after “Genesis – The great story of the origin of the world”, about the creation of the Universe, which is published by the same publishing house. He also announced yesterday his third book entitled “Materia”, which will be released next fall, and referred to the need that drives him to write about scientific issues addressed to the general public.

“The reason that prompted me to write the books is that I am reaching out to my city, to my community, to the readers, in an effort to share with them the beauty of all these concepts. Because these are truly beautiful concepts that should in no way be understood only by scientists and not by the rest of the world. And they are important, because when science changes with its discoveries the whole social structure, you understand what is the impact and influence of these concepts”, he underlined.

In the same context and after a related question about the doubts accepted by scientists, he commented that “when man fails to grasp that behind the achievements there are specific theorems and concepts, then disbelief is born”. He highlighted, moreover, the need “to articulate, to explain, to open the doors of our laboratories and to show that there is nothing hidden under the sun to destroy these traces of distrust and doubts”.

In addition, Mr. Tonelli spoke about the importance of dialogue between the sciences that deal with nature and those that deal with man, as “man is a unique and unrepeatable species”, as he characteristically said.

“The first thing I teach my first-year students on their first day in the auditorium is that Physics will help you understand so many things from the real world around us. But none of its laws can help you understand the enormity of human relationships, why we fear certain things, why we like certain works of art, or why we fall in love with certain people. These fields cannot help us to formulate what is right, what is wrong, to remove the injustices that exist today, because there are much more experienced people who deal with this, the philosophers, the artists, the poets, the historians, those who they deal with the humanities, which for centuries have dealt with human behavior.’

From the discussion about the Universe it could not be absent higgs boson, as he himself is one of the “fathers” of its discovery at CERN. Explaining the role of the boson in giving mass to the elementary particles of the Universe, Mr. Tonelli emphasized that “the discovery of this element was truly unique, of fundamental importance, because it helped us understand that without it, the Universe would not be what it is today which we know”.

It is noted that Guido Tonelli has received the international Fundamental Physics Prize and the Enrico Fermi Prize of the Italian Physics Society in 2013, while a year later he was awarded an honorary medal by the President of the Italian Republic.

*The event will take place today, Thursday, February 15, at 7 pm, at the “Books and Life” bookstore of “Dioptra” publications (Solonos 93-95, Athens). The biologist and journalist, Spyros Manouselis, and the Professor of Physics at the Universities of Hamburg and Birmingham, Kostas Nikolopoulos, will talk with Guido Tonelli. Entry will be free. During Mr. Tonelli’s meeting with journalists yesterday, the internationally renowned physicist was introduced by the astrophysicist and manager of the Visitor Center of the Observatory in Thisio, Fiori Metallinou, who recalled that a basic service of the National Observatory of Athens when it was founded in 1846 was to it does with time, i.e. with the calculation of the official time of Greece.