Lecture by Ersilia Vaudo on the occasion of the release of The Speed of Darkness.
Light is one of the grand questions where poetry, philosophy, art, and science have met. From Homer to Goethe, from Newton to Einstein, investigating it has been a way to explore the very nature of the world.
But even before reaching our eyes, light was already there. Its history begins with the Big Bang, when the universe started to expand and cool. From the apparent darkness of the primordial plasma, the first photons emerged, light separated from matter, the first stars ignited, and billions of galaxies took shape. And in one of these, extraordinary circumstances occurred on a planet Earth: the transparency of water and air; the evolution of our perceptual systems; the possibility of seeing that light.
Amid paradoxes and surprises, Ersilia Vaudo retraces the fascinating adventure of light: how it originated, and how we learned to know it. And she invites us to push our gaze beyond the limits imposed by our senses to question cosmic darkness and its multiple forms, where what we do not yet know remains hidden.
Via Accademia Albertina 15, Torino