In 1906, in the Sicilian town of Catania, a boy was born, who was named Ettore. The kid was growing up, and suddenly it turned out that he has just phenomenal mathematical abilities. Already at the age of four, he could solve the most difficult problems, and he did it so quickly that adults could not catch up with him.
The boy was sent to a Jesuit school in Rome, then he studied at the Lyceum, and at the age of seventeen in the fall of 1923 he entered the technical school of the University of Rome, where he studied with his older brother Luciano and Emilio Segre. Emilio and persuaded him later to study physics, and in 1928 Majorana transferred to the Institute for Theoretical Physics, which at that time was headed by Enrico Fermi.
A year later, the young man received his doctorate with honors. Together with his teacher Fermi, Majorana was engaged in a completely new and promising direction at that time - nuclear physics.
The young scientist managed to write only a few scientific papers, but all experts unanimously claim that these are just brilliant works - he saw Majoran so deeply, his conclusions are so unexpected and original. Incidentally, it was he who first pointed out the possibility of the existence of a neutron.
But as is often the case, genius often turns into its wrong and unpleasant side. Ettore Majorana started having mental problems. In 1933, the physicist developed gastritis and was forced to follow a strict diet. The scientist became very nervous, irritable, in conversations he often broke into a cry.
Friends and co-workers expected that Ettore would soon come to his senses, but he was getting worse and worse. He stopped appearing at the University of Naples, where he taught at that time, almost never left the house, preferring complete solitude. Only in 1937 there was an improvement.
His articles showed a thorough knowledge of experimental data, the ability to clearly and simply formulate problems, a lively mind, and an unyielding desire for perfection. His criticism of the work of his colleagues earned him the nickname Grand Inquisitor. But he was no less demanding of himself, which, perhaps, explains the slowness and the relatively small number of scientific papers published in the years after defending his doctoral dissertation.
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On the urgent recommendation of Fermi, at the beginning of 1933, Majorana, having received a scholarship from the National Scientific Council, went abroad. In Leipzig, he met another Nobel laureate, Werner Heisenberg. The letters that Majorana later wrote to him show that they were bound not only by science, but also by a warm friendship. Heisenberg urged the young Italian to publish his works as quickly as possible, but he apparently did not want to rush.
Majorana seemed to come to his senses, appeared at the university, expressed a desire to teach again. Then he published his article, which turned out to be the last in his life. After the seemingly past crisis, Ettore suddenly surprised everyone. He transferred his money to an account in Naples, asked for his entire salary and bought a ticket for a steamer leaving on March 25, 1938 for Sicily, in Palermo. But when the ship arrived at its destination, the physicist was not on it.
In the room of a Neapolitan hotel, a letter was found for Majorana's family: “I have only one desire - that you do not dress in black because of me. If you want to observe the accepted customs, then wear any other sign of mourning, but no longer than three days. After that, you can keep the memory of me in your heart and, if you are capable of this, forgive me."
The second letter was received at the University of Naples: “I made a decision that was inevitable. There is not a drop of selfishness in him; yet I am well aware that my unexpected disappearance will cause inconvenience to you and the students. Therefore, I ask you to forgive me, first of all, for neglecting your trust, sincere friendship and kindness."
These terrible letters clearly indicated that the young man had decided to commit suicide. But soon a telegram arrived at the university. In the telegram, the scientist begged not to pay attention to his gloomy letter. Then we received another strange letter from Majorana: “The sea did not accept me. I'm going back tomorrow. However, I intend to leave teaching. If you are interested in the details, I am at your service. But the next day, Majorana did not appear, and none of his relatives and friends ever saw him again.
The police began to clarify the circumstances of the disappearance of the physicist. The main version is that he committed suicide by jumping from a steamer. But at the same time, there were witnesses who claimed to have seen Majorana in Naples after his mysterious disappearance. The family of the young scientist posted in the newspapers an ad about the disappearance of Ettore Majorana and his photograph. Soon this ad was responded to.
The abbot of one of the Neapolitan monasteries reported that once a man appeared to him, very similar to the disappeared Majorana, and asked for asylum. But he was refused, and the young man left in an unknown direction. After some time, the police found out that another monastery was approached by a person similar to Ettore, but also did not receive shelter with the monks and went nowhere.
Some researchers of the mystery of Majorana are still sure that he nevertheless found shelter in one of the monasteries and lived a long and calm life there. But in 1950, new unexpected facts appeared in the Majorana case. Chilean physicist Carlos Rivera came to Argentina, where he rented an apartment from an elderly woman.
One day, while cleaning up a tenant's desk, she noticed papers that mentioned the name of Ettore Majorana. The woman said that her son knew a man with the same surname. Rivera began to elicit details from the hostess, but she could not say anything more. Soon the physicist had to leave Argentina, and when he came there again, he no longer found this woman. But still I came across other traces of the disappeared Majorana.
In 1960, Rivera dined in an Argentinean restaurant and mechanically wrote mathematical formulas on a paper napkin. The waiter came up to him and said: “I know another person who, like you, draws formulas on napkins. He sometimes comes to us. His name is Ettore Majorana, and before the war he was a prominent physicist in his homeland in Italy."
Shocked, Rivera began to elicit the details from the waiter, but the thread was cut off - he did not know either Majorana's address or where, at least approximately, one could look for the disappeared scientist.
Meanwhile, researchers at the mystery of Ettore's disappearance have stumbled upon other traces of Majorana in Argentina. So, some eyewitnesses said that they saw him there already in the 1960-1970s. But at the same time, the people who were pointed out by witnesses as companions or friends of Majorana claimed that they did not know a person with that name. Some researchers put forward versions that Majorana trusted them, but took from them a strict oath to anyone and never disclose his place of residence, and they honestly fulfilled this oath.
In 1975 the book The Disappearance of Majorana was published by the Italian writer Leonardo Shashi. It states that the young scientist decided to flee Italy due to the latest developments in the field of physics.
Shasha claims that thanks to his exceptional mind, Majorana, before many of his colleagues, realized the enormous destructive power of atomic energy and did not want to participate in the development of atomic weapons for the fascist regime of Mussolini. This version seems plausible, but so far no one has been able to figure out how everything was in reality.
In the late 1970s. the news of Rivera's amazing discoveries in Argentina reached Italian scientists. Physics professor Erasmo Resami and sister Ettore Maria Majorana decided to follow the found trail. During these searches, they found another trail leading to Argentina.
The widow of the Guatemalan writer Miguel Angel Asturias, who arrived in Italy, learned of new attempts to uncover the mystery of Ettore Majorana's disappearance. She said that in the 1960s. met with an Italian physicist at the house of the sisters Eleanor and Lilo Manzoni. According to Senora Asturias, Majorana was a close friend of Eleanor, a mathematician by profession.
It seemed that the mystery would finally be solved. However, in response to a request for more details on what she knows, Senora Asturias retracted her words. In fact, she did not personally meet Majorana, but only heard from others about his friendship with Eleanor. But, she added, her sister and Lilo Manzoni could provide evidence; Eleanor, unfortunately, was no longer alive. However, two elderly ladies could not or did not want to answer the questions asked to them.
Had he and Señora Asturias agreed not to share Ettore Majorana's secret with anyone? Since two completely unrelated tracks led to Argentina, it is very likely that the Italian physicist really fled there in 1938, and did not go to a monastery and did not commit suicide. But the motives for his unexpected escape remain unclear and may never be known.
Maybe Enrico Fermi was right when he dryly commented on the failed attempts to investigate the disappearance of Majorana, saying that if Ettore Majorana had decided to disappear without a trace, he would have done it easily with his mind.
One way or another, none of the existing versions has been proven - neither the death of Majorana, nor his life in a monastery or Argentina. There are heated debates, each of the researchers is convinced that he is right, but neither side has reliable evidence.