“I photographed a black hole, science brings peace”

“Science bears a great responsibility and we have seen it especially in the years of the pandemic: it must know how to spread it without underestimating it. Above all, science is able to unite people and build bridges: in the international collaboration that led us to photograph the black hole at the center of our Milky Way, there was Experts from different nations, races, cultures and religions, united by the same purpose: knowledge and culture, according to the Procida 2022 motto, do not isolate each other…and bring peace.”

This is how astrophysicist Mariafelcia de Laurentiis spoke at the opening of the “Exercises on the Future. Conversations on the Contemporary and Anthropocene” initiative, sponsored by Knowledge for Business in the context of Procida, the Italian capital of culture 2022.

De Laurentis participated in the EHT Collaboration, which on May 12 revealed, for the first time, an image of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way, 27,000 light-years from Earth. “We astrophysicists – he said – are more like archaeologists of the universe, eager to embrace the unknown. The image documenting the black hole at the center of our galaxy is an extraordinary result – he commented – that helps us understand the complexity of the universe.”

Astrophysicist, Event Horizon Telescope Project Scientist, Mariafelicia De Laurentiis, Federico II Professor and Researcher at the National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Naples, De Laurentiis, Presented by Procida Mayor, Dino Ambrosino, speaks with Amelito Bicerno Cerasso (CEO) Medark and President spoke Tec-Up) and Francesca Cucco (Programs Director at Innovation Village) also spoke of equal opportunity for access to the scientific career: “At universities and research centers, we try to open doors for women, and get women to understand gender differences in fields like astrophysics. Maybe. In the past. Men could study more than women. Now, however, women have the freedom and right to dream of becoming a scientist. He has achieved extraordinary results like these.”

“Exercises on the Future” is a project that includes five other meetings with personalities from the cultural and scientific world on the 22nd of each month, with the aim of bringing to life a reflection that crosses the topic of borders from different angles, in order to draw this outline. A future in which this word is no longer synonymous with barrier.

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