Margherita Hack

thumb| Margherita Hack (12 June 1922 – 29 June 2013) was an Italian astrophysicist and scientific disseminator. Quotes Quotes are arranged in chronological order I think you can understand time just by the fact that everything, everything changes. Everything ages. You’re born, you die. The living beings as the objects if they are new, then they become old. Even the stones, even in our Earth, aged four and a half billion years, has changed enormously. So we can define time only thanks to the fact that everything changes. Interview with Euronews' Claudio Rocco in 2011; as quoted in "Science says 'ciao' to Italy's Margherita Hack: the 'lady of the stars'", euronews.com (1 July 2013). I’m an atheist in the sense that I do not believe in God, I do not believe in the afterlife. I believe that the soul is our brain. It’s impossible to scientifically prove either that God exists, or that God does not exist. The idea of God does not convince me. I prefer to believe that there is matter and that matter has the properties we observe. … When I pass away, if I meet God, I will tell him I was wrong. Quoted in "Goodbye Margherita Hack, “The Lady of the Stars.”", iitaly.org (1 July 2013). I believe that killing any living creature is a bit like killing ourselves, and I see no difference between the pain of an animal and that of a human being. Qualcosa di inaspettato, Laterza. Eve's fault was to want to know, experiment, investigate with her own strength the laws that regulate the universe, the earth, her own body, to reject the teaching lowered from above, in a word Eve represents the curiosity of science against the passive acceptance of faith... Le mie favole. I had finished high school and trained hard for those races. At the stadium was my whole city, it was a great honor for me. At that time the victors swore loyalty to their country and fascism. A ritual formula that was uttered during the awards ceremony. I had won the gold medal, I had to swear too: I did it. [...] An act of cowardice. [...] That oath was a compromise with myself. [...] We promised to obey the homeland and the regime and for me that was a kind of perjury, because I had been against fascism since the racial laws came into force. Ilaria Sacchettoni, Margherita Hack: Giurai fedeltà al regime, Corriere della Sera, 29 July 2010. In Margherita Hack: Giurai fedeltà al regime, pressreader.com It is shameful that people who claim to be Christians are attacking in a fundamentalist way a person who has been dead for 17 years (Eluana Englaro), who has no way of defending herself and who when she was alive had always declared that she did not want to be subjected to therapeutic obstinacy. Worse still, however, is that it is politicians who interfere: those who want to act against the ruling of the Court of Cassation, but also the passivity of the left and the Democratic Party, which has had an extremely weak reaction against the interference of the Church. Eluana, Margherita Hack: "Accanimento fondamentalista", MicroMega, 4 February 2009. Walking doesn't work for me, cycling is better. It's a less tiring means. Until recently I cycled often, deriving balance, desire to do and will. Diario di un incontro. Margherita Hack e Marco Santarelli, Zikkurat edizioni & lab, 2010, p. 49. Science cannot give a total answer. So the mystery is certainly there. If when I die I find out that there is eternal life, I will tell God that I was wrong. And maybe all in all, it would be nice to be wrong. [...] Jesus was certainly the greatest personality in history. His teaching, if it has endured for 2,000 years, means that he truly had something exceptional: he conveyed values that are essential even for a non-believer. Dove nascono le stelle, Sperling & Kupfer, Milano, 2004, p. 198. ISBN 8820036258. I remember the dawn of February 15, 1961 [the day of the solar eclipse] when dozens of professional, amateur, and curious astronomers crowded Mount Conero, near Ancona. The air was clear and cold, olive trees covered the slopes of the mountain, birds waved at the sunrise, only to fall silent again a few minutes later. We were ready and tense to photograph the corona and measure its polarization at various distances from the edge of the solar disk. Here are the whitish bumps,here are the crown plumes, and a great silence, interrupted only by a few howls of frightened dogs. Four minutes and everything was already over, the slice of Sun had already erased the night. From the preface to Emilio Sassone Corsi, Il Sole Nero. Alla scoperta dell'eclisse di Sole, Gremese Editore, 2005. From an ethical point of view, it is heartbreaking to think about the suffering these animals are subjected to, real meat machines, bred to gain rapid weight, to reproduce rapidly in overcrowded conditions, to satisfy the throat of the human animal that believes itself to be the master of all other species, when in fact it is very possible to live without meat, like the undersigned, a vegetarian since birth. La mia cucina vegetariana, May 2010, n°. 6, monthly, year 2. My political conscience was defined especially in '38, with the racial laws. I argued and argued with my classmates to assert my ideas and, only thanks to the outbreak of war, the explicit manifestation of my anti-fascist beliefs did not cost me a repeat of my senior year of high school. Daniela Mambretti, L'astrofisica Hack, stella dei "Littoriali" del fascismo, La Provincia di Como, 10 August 2010. Hypatia represented the symbol of the love for truth, for reason, for the science that had made Hellenic civilization great. With his sacrifice began that long dark period in which religious fundamentalism attempted to stifle reason. Focus storia, n°. 47, September 2010, p. 68. Astronomy has taught us that we are not the center of the universe, as has long been thought and as some want us to think even today. We are just a tiny planet around a very common star. We ourselves, intelligent beings, are the result of stellar evolution, we are made of the matter of the stars. Umberto Veronesi, Dell'amore e del dolore delle donne, Einaudi, Torino, 2010, p. 69. ISBN 978-88-06-20133-3. [Speaking of one of her cats] His name was Ciccino, he was with me from 1932 to 1943, I studied with him on my lap, from sixth grade to third year of university. During the war he managed to accomplish a historic feat. The food was rationed, but he slipped into a fed's house and stole a form of pecorino cheese from him. With that piece of cheese in his mouth bigger than him he managed to get home. But they saw it and I had to give back the form. He was so ill that to console him I gave him my food ration. Maurizio Costanzo, Preferisco i cani (e un gatto), Mondadori, Milano, 2011, p. 61. ISBN 978-88-04-61429-6. I am convinced that nuclear is needed. There are many irrational fears but one cannot decide on the wave of emotion. Rationality is needed. [...] It is precisely my environmentalism that makes me say yes: nuclear power is the source that, all things considered, pollutes the least. Hack: «Sono convinta che ci sia bisogno del nucleare», ilpost.it, 15 March 2011. We're back to the Middle Ages if the vice president of the country's largest science and research body says these nonsense. [...] He (Roberto De Mattei) is the master of believing and having faith, to the extent that he likes it most. But he can in no way claim to profess anti-scientific theorems. Or certainly not scientifically provable. [...] It's to go into hiding, to be ashamed. In fact, abroad they ask us above all how we tolerate a government like the current one. And fortunately, our universities, despite all the problems they have, manage to be good universities. When our researchers go abroad they make a fortune, when they submit projects to the European Research Council they reach the very top positions: fortunately this saves us. From an interview by Margherita Hack: «Le bischerate di De Mattei? Come se non avessimo già altro di cui vergognarci...» ., il futurista, 12 April 2011. (About the Higgs boson) I even call it God because it is the particle that explains how the matter of other particles is formed and since these are the ones from which everything then derives – the stars, the elements we have on earth, including those that make up human beings – this particle is truly God. Margherita Hack shock: «Il bosone è Dio», Ilsole24ore.com, 4 July 2012. This confirms Peter Higgs' theory, a theory that explains very well the phenomena observed and the experiments performed with particles and which hypothesizes the need for a particle much heavier than the proton (precisely the Higgs boson) capable of explaining how all other particles are created, that is, they form and take on mass. This boson looked phantom. There have been many years of searching without being able to find it. Now it seems certain that it exists and therefore the theory would be confirmed. Margherita Hack shock: «Il bosone è Dio», Ilsole24ore.com, 4 July 2012. [...] we dream of the social conquests made under fascism today, which is saying something. It wasn't just about trains on time. Family allowances for dependent children, scholarships to provide opportunities for the less well-off, land reclamation, social housing. This is because only ten years earlier Mussolini was actually a Marxist and maximalist socialist who brought with him a sense of the social, of the people. I'll tell you, in a certain sense fascism modernized the country. It was a dictatorship of rose water against Nazism: if Mussolini had not signed the defamatory racial laws, he would have died a natural death like Franco. It remains a dictatorship, but also an expression of Italianness. A less ideological analysis should be made on this. Margherita Hack: "Le conquiste sociali fatte sotto il fascismo oggi ce le sogniamo", Blitz Quotidiano.it, 27 March 2013. Secular ethics and, in particular, the ethics of atheists, who do not believe in any higher entity that is not better defined, but only in the fact of the existence of the matter that gives rise to the structures present in the Universe, from which living beings also originate, from the simplest to the most complex, is based on respect for one's neighbor, whether man or animal, and can be summarized by the commandments of Christ, who was certainly not a son of God, but one of the greatest figures of humanity, who preceded his time by many centuries: "Love your neighbor as yourself" and "Do not do to others what you would not want done to you." Fermiamo la nuova "santa inquisizione", SocialNews.it, 4 novembre 2009; citato in Margherita Hack morta a 91 anni: l'astrofisica tra ricerca e diritti civili, il Fatto Quotidiano.it, 29 June 2013. [On Enrica Calabresi, her teacher at the Galilei high school in Florence] I saw her kicked out of school overnight because of the racial laws. This opened my eyes to what a dictatorship can do and marked a rift in me: that's when I became anti-fascist. At that time I met her on the street. A slender figure, dressed modestly, walking close to the walls, probably headed for what I have now learned is his home, on Via del Proconsolo. He looked like a hunted animal to me. [...] I wanted to tell her my sympathy for what was happening to her, but I didn't have the courage. I never forgave myself for that. Years later, on a program by Piero Angela on the Specola in Florence, I learned that in the following years he had taught Jewish students expelled from public institutions at the Jewish school on Via Farini. And that in 1944 she had been arrested and taken to Santa Verdiana, a former convent transformed into a prison. He escaped deportation by suicide. Perhaps she had lost the will to fight, perhaps the enthusiasm that had sustained her thanks to teaching had faded. From an interview by aniela Gross, Pagine Ebraiche, agosto 2010; in Margherita Hack (1922-2013): "Ho scelto la libertà nel nome di Enrica", moked.it, 30 June 2013. The idea of God is born to explain what science cannot explain. Science says what stars are, how they work. We know how to reconstruct a family album of the universe but we can't say why it's made that way. And here God was invented. God is comfortable, too comfortable. But it's a childish idea, like Santa Claus. From a speech held at the Congress "Science and Faith", Organizzazione Istituto Religioso Euromediterraneo, 2013. In a certain sense, doing science is like hunting for the killer, with the scientist in the investigator's shoes. Qualcosa di inaspettato, ch. II, § 1, A caccia dell'assassino, Editori Laterza, 2013. ISBN 9788858109854. Interviews From an interview by Donatella Mattalia, Preferisco il protone al paradiso, 'Panorama, 19 May 205</small>Doubts about whether God can exist? Nobody. Never had great leaps towards religion, of any kind. I never believed in anything too much, then I believed absolutely nothing anymore. The idea of an impersonal God will be more acceptable for reason, but it is still a loophole to explain what science cannot yet explain. But this way it's too comfortable, too easy. I think the brain is the soul, I don't believe in life after death, much less in a condominium version of heaven, where you can meet friends, enemies, relatives, acquaintances again. Moral laws were not given to us by God, but they are no less important for that. This should be the dominant ethic, without expecting a reward in the afterlife. Without ethical laws there would be the pack and not society. And values common to believers and non-believers, forgiveness, not harming others, solidarity should be taught. But, above all, one should learn to doubt, to become skeptical.From an interview by Mirella Parachini and Luigi Montevecchi, Conversazione con Margherita Hack, Agenda Coscioni, year I, n* I, October 2006The task of science is to try to understand what are the laws that govern the universe, our life, our planets, without resorting to God. By resorting to God there is no longer any need for science. It's as if God were giving us crossword puzzles, after all, if they're not done, he explains everything. The task of science is precisely to do without God. Trying to understand with your own reason. There is no need for autonomy, I believe that many believing scientists see this light of God not as a guide for the progress of science, but as a personal matter. As she also said before, science and faith are on two different planes, there are believing scientists, non-believing scientists. The scientist is based on reason, observation, and experiment, whether he believes in God or not. The unbeliever has faith in the progress of science and its usefulness, in its contribution to the progress of humanity. That's what I always say, even being an atheist, like being a believer, is a faith because I can't prove either that God is there or that he isn't. I don't believe because the idea of God doesn't satisfy me, I can't pretend to prove that God isn't there. The idea of God seems absurd to me because it seems childish to me, but this is a personal opinion. It becomes fundamentalism to demand that evolutionism exclude the presence of God. One can be a believer and, based on observation, and believe in progress from brute matter to living beings. <small>Vegetarianesimo e diritti degli animali con Margherita Hack, 'asia.it, 28 November 2008 Animals are creatures of this Earth, they are our brothers and therefore it is not that we should consider ourselves objects at our disposal. They are living beings who have the ability to love and suffer and therefore we must treat them just like brothers, like younger brothers. We have a more powerful brain, but that doesn't mean we have to abuse them for it. I think school children should be taken to see what slaughterhouses are. Slaughterhouses were once in the city, today they have taken them far from the cities and no one knows what happens anymore. For children, meat is a beautiful cellophane roll found in supermarkets, and they don't even know the suffering that was caused to the animals that supplied the meat. I would never eat it [the meat], because it seems truly atrocious to me to kill millions and millions and millions of animals... it is truly a massacre every day on earth. When I see an animal, when I see its behavior, especially from an affective and instinctive point of view, I recognize myself. They are so similar to us. From an interview by Alessandro Sala, «Mai mangiato carne in vita mia. E mai lo farò», corriere.it, 16 February 2012 It's also simply demonstrated by my being here: at my age, I arrived in fair condition, and being a vegetarian didn't stop me from practicing basketball and track and field in my youth, and with satisfactory results: I won a couple of college championships in the high jump and long jump, and I finished third in the overall championships. I don't eat meat because I love animals and respect them. But there are also scientific reasons: I cannot think of eating meat from animals from intensive farms, where they are no longer animals but meat machines. They are stuffed with antibiotics and live unnaturally. So theirs are sick meats. An Eskimo has to eat fish, he has nothing else. And where there is misery they certainly don't have time to think about animal rights. But they are extreme cases. At the root of it all is this misconception that you can't do without meat. We need to change our mentality, make it clear that we can live very well without it. Libera scienza in libero Stato Margherita Hack, Libera scienza in libero Stato, Rizzoli, 2010. Incipit For a few years now, there has been a lot of talk about «innovation», a magical word that should allow the countries of the industrialized world to withstand competition from emerging countries, which produce the same things at enormously lower prices. Innovation therefore means imagining new ways of producing the same things at a lower cost, or inventing new products, from the most complex to the simplest, that somehow facilitate our daily lives at home or at work, or machines or tools that are easier to use than existing ones, or creating contraptions and making them indispensable. Quotes In contrast to such a worrying overall picture, current minister Mariastella Gelmini has accepted unbearable cuts to schools of all levels, drastically reducing not only resources but also the number of teachers and class hours. (p. 25) As if that were not enough, even the Pope (Benedict XVI) allows himself to accuse scientists of being arrogant and greedy: «Modern science sometimes follows only easy profit and attempts to arrogantly replace the Creator, without being able to elaborate ethical principles, putting humanity itself in grave danger.» And, data in hand, Italian scientists simply don't deserve these accusations: at over thirty, a researcher earns just over 1,000 euros a month, and a full professor at the end of his career doesn't exceed 80,000 euros gross per year. (p. 30) As always in our country, when it has to be cut, culture and research are cut, evidently considered a useless luxury. (p. 48) (About Giordano Bruno) Modern astronomy demonstrates how true his intuitions were. (p. 90) It was not until 1965 that the Second Vatican Council deplored the Church's error regarding Galileo, but nearly another fifteen years passed for Pope John Paul II to establish a papal commission and publicly recognize Galileo's greatness and the suffering inflicted on him by Church bodies. [...] However, there has never been official rehabilitation. (p. 90-91) But the Church's interference in science is not over. If one is careful not to intervene in research relevant to abiological sciences such as physics or mathematics, the case is very different when it comes to the biological sciences, or life sciences. Recent examples are the pressure on deputies and senators who, due to their scientific ignorance, gave birth to the shameful Law 40 on assisted fertilization, the obstacles placed in the way of a living will, that is, the conscious declaration that one does not want to undergo aggressive treatment, the impossibility for a terminally ill patient to obtain euthanasia, not to mention the obstacles placed in the way of drafting a law for the rights of de facto couples, both straight and homosexual. In short, science is humiliated by politics, which in turn is subservient to the Vatican. (p. 91) But the government is more papist than the pope because it only funds projects using adult stem cells, although studies on embryonic stem cells are legal as long as «the destruction of embryos does not occur in Italy and the cells are imported from abroad». A fine example of hypocrisy! (p. 93) Despite the openness of the Catholic Church, once again our political class proves more papist than the pope. It was Letizia Moratti herself, when she was Minister of Education, who removed the teaching of evolutionism from elementary schools, only to be forced to hastily backtrack. The precedents for this brilliant idea date back to 2003, when the Province of Milan, led by Ombretta Colli of Forza Italia, and the Municipality, with Gabriele Albertini as mayor, sponsored a conference organized by the National Alliance and the Student Alliance entitled Evoluzionismo: una favola per le scuole [Evolutionism: A Fairy Tale for Schools]. Following a revolt among teachers who saw nearly two centuries of scientific discoveries removed from their curricula, Minister Moratti reconsidered and appointed a commission chaired by Nobel Prize winner Rita Levi-Montalcini, tasked with providing precise guidance on the teaching of evolutionary theories. And, as an obvious conclusion, it is recognized that the teaching of Darwin's theories must be ensured from elementary school onwards. (p. 98) Fear of pollution and an anti-scientific mentality push our mass media to often laughable ads. (p. 107) The proportion of GDP devoted to research is lower than in all the major European countries, and the number of researchers per 1000 inhabitants is less than half of France, Great Britain and Germany. These data alone demonstrate the lack of interest and appreciation for research, yet the number of publications in major international journals and their citations compare well with the output of researchers in these countries, proving that, despite limited funding and bureaucratic delays, many of our universities produce good research. (p. 113) The low regard which our political class and particularly the more recent class gives to education, universities and research is the consequence of the low cultural level of the great majority of those elected to Parliament. Quotes about I learn the sad news with emotion. She was a prominent figure in the world of scientific culture, who, with her studies and her commitment as a teacher, consistently served and honored Italy, including internationally. At the same time, it represented a strong example of civic passion, leaving a noble mark on public debate and dialogue with citizens. I participate with sincere feelings of closeness to the condolences of all the people who loved her. Giorgio Napolitano, quoted in Margherita Hack morta a 91 anni: l’astrofisica tra ricerca e diritti civili, Il Fatto Quotidiano, 29 June 2013. She is the icon of free thought and nonconformism. Umberto Veronesi, Dell'amore e del dolore delle donne, Einaudi, Torino, 2010. ISBN 978-88-06-20133-3, p. 70. She was a great athlete, champion in the high jump and long jump. She was a staunch animal rights activist, she was a vegetarian –she didn't eat meat– she was an anti-speciesist and, from there, she showed all her love for animals. She was a person who, for seventy years, shared her earthly journey –so to speak– with her husband. She was a distinguished writer. She was also a politician –I remember her– elected in the Lazio constituency, in the 2011 regional elections, and then left her position to the younger people. She was a person who fought for civil rights every day of her life. Walter Rizzetto, quoted in Verbatim Transcript of the Italian Chamber of Deputies - Assembly Session n°. 44 of 2 July 013. She was a great researcher, a great fighter for the secular concept of freedom of research, and a great woman. Margaret was not afraid to also be an atheist, in the name of the freedom of science. Giulio Giorello, quoted in Margherita Hack morta a 91 anni: l’astrofisica tra ricerca e diritti civili, Il Fatto Quotidiano, 29 June 2013. Hack was able to break into the media world above all for her political stances, which made her unique, together with Odifreddi, in the reserved and usually scrupulous world of scientists. Francesco Agnoli, quoted in Il Timone, May 2010. The news of Margherita Hack's passing saddens me greatly. She was an extraordinary figure, beloved by young people for her ability to explain science with great simplicity and the first woman to direct an astronomical observatory in Italy. Emma Bonino, quoted in Margherita Hack morta a 91 anni: l’astrofisica tra ricerca e diritti civili, Il Fatto Quotidiano, 29 June 2013. A high-level scientist, a left-wing activist who was never hypocritical but always passionate, an extraordinary woman. Italy loses one of its most prestigious figures. Nichi Vendola, quoted in Margherita Hack morta a 91 anni: l’astrofisica tra ricerca e diritti civili, Il Fatto Quotidiano, 29 June 2013. External links Category:1922 births Category:2013 deaths Category:Atheists Category:Astronomers from Italy Category:Communists from Italy Category:People from Florence Category:Vegetarians Category:Women scientists from Italy