Violence of stars

Ivan Kozlov - about the "Book of Genesis" Guido Tonelli

When everyday news and events finally cease to bring at least some comfort, it seems to be a good idea to turn to questions truly eternal and causing interest at all times. For example, what could be more global than the question of how and why the universe appeared? It is not possible to unequivocally respond to it in the smallest details, but thanks to the Italian physics, Guido Tonelli and his “Book of Genesis”, you can find out (and, most importantly, to understand) that the most relevant and difficult scientific research is said to this score.

Starting from February 24, 2022, we were all in the face of the advancing barbarism, violence and lies. In this situation, it is extremely important to preserve at least the remnants of culture and support the values ​​of humanism - including for the sake of the future of Russia. Therefore, the editorial office of Gorky will continue to talk about books, reminding our readers that the world remains in the world and fiction.

Guido Tonselli. Genesis. The general history of origin. M.: AST, Corpus, 2022. Translation from Italian Dmitry Bayuk. Content

Guido Tonelli is a famous Italian physicist and invited employee of the Laboratory of Cern, who was directly involved in the experiments that led to the opening of the Higgs Bozon. And Tonselli is a popularizer of science, and, as you can understand after reading his “Book of Genesis”, an excellent popularizer. The fact is that Tonselli is not just a good storyteller and not just a scientist who knows how to express his thoughts in an understandable language. Being understandable to him is a conscious aspiration and a real mission that he declares at the very beginning of the book (as if it is not very surprising that a person who has put a hand in the discovery of the Higgs Bozon is inherent in some messianism). He is deeply convinced that modern scientific data on the origin of the Universe should not only be known to every person, but also to occupy a place of honor in our picture of the world, just as the myths of creation were known to every resident of any ancient Greek policy and took on absolute truth. Otherwise, Tonelli questions the very existence of society - after all, in his opinion, modern scientific views on the origin of the Universe "changed the principles of introducing new points to any social treaty, opened unexpected opportunities and risks, predetermined the future of subsequent generations."

Therefore, the main task that he sets for himself is to overcome the complex scientific terminology, which becomes an obstacle to a non -specialist. Fortunately, in his opinion, this barrier is easy to overcome, and the ordinary language is quite suitable in order to explain key concepts and make the picture of the world that is now formed by a science available to each of us.

Tonelli calls his book about the origin of the Universe “Book of Genesis” (this is again to talk about messianism), because he wants each of us to have “our own great story about the origin of the world, as modern science represents it.” He divides it into chapters, respectively: 13.8 billion years of the existence of the Universe in its interpretation are laid out for seven days of creation, the longest of which lasts most of this period, and the shortest (but, of course, the most important) - 10-132 seconds . I must say that it is the most interesting part of the book to this tiny period - the very beginning - the story of the most advanced scientific discoveries, views and hypotheses regarding exactly how exactly “all arose from nothing” is concentrated. In the presentation of Tonselli, this infinitely curious but difficult question is quite easy for perception, although it is directly related to understanding of quantum physics as such. It becomes closer to the middle - when it comes to the emergence of the particles known to us and the smallest details of the material world. It is simply impossible to do without a monotonous listing of their names and ways of their interaction, and even the author’s branded techniques like the “Humanization” of phenomena, objects and processes do not help revive this part of the narrative. And this technique, he must say, loves: in his interpretation, soulless particles of substances or various types of fields turn out to be kind or cruel, the stars do disproportionate violence and show mercy, photons languish, are horrified, experienced by the joy of liberation and the like. It sounds somewhat naive, but in reality it turns out to be very useful.

Most of the second half of Tonelli’s book - approximately from the moment of the formation of the first star, which, according to the author’s timeline, occurs on the fifth day of the creation - is rather “a repetition of the passed”, that is, voicing relatively widely known facts about the nature and type of heavenly bodies, the structure of galaxies and, in particular, the Milky Way and our solar system. Here, in recent years, revolutionary scientific discoveries have been made slightly less than relative to the first moments of the existence of the Universe, so many facts may be familiar not even to the reader that is too competent in matters of the world order, but to repeat them, of course, is useful.

Another advantage of the book (however, not indisputable, to an amateur)-Tonselli does not hit a slight scientific scientist, although, given his goals, this path would be quite obvious, especially since many authors of popular science literature go along it. Their approach is even good in itself, but over time it tires-for example, due to the abundance of optional retreats, excursions to modern culture or, even worse, endless self-loving, when a story about a particular field of scientific research is conducted in the pot of gonzo-journalism, replete with the stories about what the journey the author made and what adventures waited for him on this Not easy (and most often completely unknown to the reader) the path.

Simply put, Tonselli has everything in the case and everything is in moderation. He, of course, does not deny himself the details of the biography of scientists mentioned in the narrative or a story about one or another scientific curiosity (so we, for example, learn that the discoverers of microwave background radiation initially took him beyond the fact that the pigeons were put on the antenna, and the astrophysicist Fritz Zvikki, who opened the dark Matter, popularized the term “spherical bastards”), but all this does not distract at all from consistent and even dry presentation. At the same time, Tonelli remains to the extremely lyrical, which is most clearly manifested, for example, that he loves musical terminology to the degree of abuse.

“In this inhospitable place there is nothing that would be adapted to it better than protons. Like the primary notes of the future sound row, they will have to develop in whole symphonies eventually. These primary notes, combining with each other with an unthinkable number of methods and starting from the inevitable novelty lying at the source of all subsequent transformations, will open the way to the most unexpected variations and encouraging reprisals. ”

Perhaps, perhaps the main minus of the book - the desire of Tonselli to embrace the immense (which in the context of its main topic in itself sounds ironically). By the end of the “Book of Genesis” it seems as if the author himself was unnecessarily relieved into his high mission, and the name he chose predetermined both the high pathos and the optional all -the -excitement of the narrative. According to the composition, the creation ends at the moment when a person has gained the ability to formulate words and transmit knowledge when the first sign system arose, when "at a certain moment of our history someone began to tell." The final part of the book dedicated to everything that happened after this solemn epoch -making event is more likely resembles a concise cultural essay - it looks good as an element finishing the composition, but it looks too chaotic: it is clear that Tonselli really wants to develop each of its many thoughts on the role of culture and philosophy, the peculiarities of the structure of the human brain or the specifics of the mythology of different peoples, but in the book in the book. All this simply does not fit - which, perhaps, for the better.

Be that as it may, the book of Guido Tonelli should be read regardless of how well or bad you understand modern scientific theories regarding the emergence and evolution of our Universe. If your level of knowledge leaves much to be desired, everything is popular and explained to you. If it is already good - this is a great chance to update your knowledge that concerns the so rapidly developing field of science.

But this is not the point at all. Tonelli’s book needs to be read in order to penetrate the feeling of a permanent miracle that is constantly being with us (yes, there is some pathetic in this, but it is too easy to get infected from the author). He is not just masterfully and clearly builds a chain of events that led us from the random fluctuation of the vacuum to the emergence of a reasonable person - Tonelli makes a special emphasis on events that did not occur or occurred, although with a huge degree of probability they could not occur. In general, we ourselves understand that our existence became possible thanks to the chain of amazing accidents, but we are so accustomed to this thought that we perceive it as a kind of given. Thanks to Tonelli, it is possible to look at this fact with a fresh look - and he is amazed at him, as for the first time. All this would not be if the light did not prevail over darkness: and this, it must be reminded, did not happen at once-the heavy and stressful struggle of darkness and light in the universe ended only a billion years after her birth, its outcome was not obvious, and it often seemed (if someone who might “seemed”) that the darkness was even formed for a long time. Bold in complete opacity. Or if the process of forming all the primary nuclei in the universe took not three minutes, but a couple of minutes more - in this case, the Universe would have used up too much hydrogen, and that would all end, because nuclear reactions in the stars would not have launched and the universe would have remained dark and boring. In short, our life is not just the result of a series of accidents. This is the result of a series of incredible, impossible, fantastic accidents. A completely different matter, right?

And besides, if you describe the process of becoming the universe as meticulously as Tonelli does, then one cannot but notice the main thing - a gaping void at the very beginning. That is, in itself. In that infinitely brief moment, when the bubble of fluctuation in a vacuum suddenly goes crazy and begins to spread in all directions at a frantic speed (more precisely, to a certain “outside”, in which there are no “sides” yet). All further - or almost everything - modern science can describe by presenting this (including the most egregious accidents) as a result of the work of certain physical forces, fields and types of interactions.

But what happened to the very bubble, from which absolutely everything happened inside? More precisely, why did this happen?

“The primary field at Gut, on the contrary, turned out to be very dynamic; As in a fairy tale, the prince’s kiss cut off the dream of a beauty, but only for the shortest moment, although sufficient for unthinkable witchcraft. This fleeting awakening, which for a split second froze the field in a state of false vacuum, gave rise to the power of repulsion, which was extremely rapidly changing over time. It is monstrous while the field is frozen, but quickly subsides as soon as the field comes out of the state of the false vacuum. Alana Guta anti -gravity, launching the expansion at the time of the birth of the Universe, exceeds the cosmological constant by a hundred orders. It was this extreme negative pressure that caused the monstrous velocity of inflating. It was an explosion. ”

This means that one of the leading world physicists and specialist Cern reports that at the beginning of all there was an “unthinkable witchcraft”. Well, we will write down.