The Disappearance Of Ettore Majorana - Alternative View

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The Disappearance Of Ettore Majorana - Alternative View
The Disappearance Of Ettore Majorana - Alternative View

Video: The Disappearance Of Ettore Majorana - Alternative View

Video: The Disappearance Of Ettore Majorana - Alternative View
Video: Unexplained true stories |The Unexplained Disappearance of Ettore Majorana 2024, March
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Some of Ettore Majorana's teachers said that in the history of human society, only Isaac Newton and Galileo Galilei can compare in abilities with his student. Ettore was predicted that his discoveries would soon turn the whole world upside down, and he took it and disappeared without a trace …

Young genius

Ettore Majorana was born on August 5, 1906 in Catania, Sicilian, into a well-known family in the city. His father, Fabio Massimo Majorana, was an engineer and for many years headed the local telephone exchange, and after 1928 he worked as the chief state inspector of communications. Ettore was a very kind, adorable child. And extraordinarily capable. When it comes to mathematics, his ability was phenomenal. At the age of 4, he easily solved the most difficult problems, and so quickly that adults could not equal him. That is why the boy was sent to study at a Jesuit school in Rome.

At the age of seventeen, Ettore entered the technical school of the University of Rome, where he studied with his older brother Luciano and in the future the famous physicist Emilio Segre. It was Segre who convinced Ettore to take up physics. In 1928, Majorana transferred to the Institute for Theoretical Physics, which at the time was headed by Enrico Fermi. Literally a year later, Ettore received his doctorate with honors. He was engaged in a completely new direction at that time - nuclear physics.

The missing piece of the universe

During his life, Majorana published only nine scientific papers, but all experts unanimously assert that these were just brilliant works - he delved so deeply into the problems of various issues, so unexpected and original were his conclusions. His first scientific article was devoted to the problems of atomic spectroscopy. In 1931, Majorana published an article on the phenomenon of autoionization in the spectra of the atom.

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The year 1932 was extremely productive for him. It was then that he published his work on atomic spectroscopy, concerning the behavior of oriented atoms in alternating magnetic fields. This work led to the emergence of an important area of atomic physics - radio frequency spectroscopy. At the same time, Majorana wrote a work on relativistic quantum mechanics for particles with an arbitrary internal momentum, where he gave a theoretical basis for the mass spectra of elementary particles. In the same year, experiments by Irene and Frédéric Joliot-Curie revealed a previously unknown particle, which they themselves identified with gamma radiation. Majorana was the first to correctly interpret the experiment as the discovery of a new particle with a neutral charge and mass about the same as that of a proton. This particle turned out to be a neutron.

Majorana derived an equation, the solution of which leads to the necessity of the existence of particles that are simultaneously their own antiparticles. They are now called Majorana fermions. It was not until April 2012 that some of the particles he predicted were discovered experimentally in an ultrathin conductor connecting a semiconductor and a superconductor. Experiments like this will help to better understand quantum mechanics and create a quantum computer. Also in the scientific world, it has been suggested that at least some of the "missing mass" in the Universe, which cannot be detected except through the gravitational effects exerted by it, may consist of "Majorana particles".

A crisis

Majorana was not only demanding of himself, but also harshly criticized, if there was such a need, his fellow physicists. Therefore, the nickname "Grand Inquisitor" was assigned to him. At the same time, the students loved Majorana, because he even knew how to tell about things that were very difficult to understand in understandable language. In the early 1930s, the scientist had to go through a very unpleasant story. His uncle, whom Ettore sincerely loved since childhood, was accused of persuading the wet nurse to burn his child, Majorana's nephew, alive in the cradle. Ettore saw it as his duty to save the family's honor: he organized a defense, and in the end his uncle was acquitted. However, after that, the physicist began to have mental problems: he became a victim of a neurasthenic crisis, from which his friends could not get him out for a long time. Majorana became very irritable,in conversations, he often broke into a cry. He developed gastritis, and the scientist was forced to follow a strict diet. Colleagues expected that it would soon become easier for him, but Ettore, on the contrary, became worse and worse. He almost ceased to appear at the University of Naples, where he taught at the time, and hardly left his home. Some improvement came only in 1937.

However, Majorana continued to work. In 1933 he received a scholarship from the National Scientific Council and went to Germany. In Leipzig, he met Werner Heisenberg, who, like Enrico Fermi, was a Nobel Prize winner. Majorana was able to understand the nature of the atomic nucleus before Heisenberg, but, frightened by something, refused to read the report at the next international scientific conference. Now a friendship has struck up between scientists. Heisenberg repeatedly urged the young Italian to publish scientific works faster, but he did not change his style and prepared his works with the utmost care.

Mysterious letters

Marjorana got better, he appeared at the university and again expressed his desire to teach. Then he published the article, which was destined to be the last. When the crisis seemed to be over, Ettore surprised everyone again. He unexpectedly transferred all his money to an account in Naples, asked for his entire salary and bought a ticket for a steamer that sailed to Palermo on March 25, 1938. But when the steamer reached its destination, the physicist was not there. In the room of a Neapolitan hotel, his letter to relatives was found: “I have only one wish - 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 by 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 having neglected your trust, sincere friendship and kindness."

Everything seemed to indicate that the young man had committed suicide. However, a telegram soon arrived at the university, in which the scientist asked not to pay attention to his gloomy letter. Then we received a very strange message 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 neither the next day, nor later, Majorana did not appear within the walls of the university.

Seeking refuge

The family posted announcements in the newspapers that he had disappeared. Soon, one of the ads was answered. The abbot of a Neapolitan monastery reported that a man very much like Marjorana came to them and asked for asylum. They refused him, and the stranger left. After a while, the police found out that a young man similar to Ettore had applied to another monastery, but also did not receive shelter. However, some researchers of Majorana's life are still convinced that he eventually found shelter in some Italian monastery and lived there a long life.

However, the reality seems to be even more intriguing. In 1950, traces of Majorana were found … in Argentina. There, Chilean physicist Carlos Rivera rented a room from an elderly woman for some time. Once on the lodger's desk, she noticed papers that mentioned the name of Ettore Majorana. The woman said that her son knew the man. It was not possible to find out the details of Rivera, but 10 years later he again came to Argentina. Once, while dining in a restaurant, he mechanically wrote some formulas on a paper napkin. Imagine his surprise when 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, Italy. However, this time the thread was cut off - the waiter did not know any coordinates of Majorana.

Something awful

In the late 1970s, the widow of the Guatemalan writer Miguel Angel Asturias visited Italy and said that in the early 1960s she met with an Italian physicist at the house of the sisters Eleanor and Lilo Manzoni. However, when they began to ask her for details, she retracted her words, saying that she herself had not seen Majorana, but only heard from Eleanor about her relationship with him. But there is no way to dismiss this fact: on February 4, 2015, the prosecutor's office of Rome announced that there was evidence that Ettore Majorana lived in Venezuela, in the city of Valencia from 1955 to 1959. Unfortunately, his further fate is not known at the moment.

As for the motivation for his strange disappearance - there is an assumption of the Italian writer Leonardo Shashi. Back in 1975, he suggested that, thanks to his exceptional mind, Majorana was the first to realize the destructive power of nuclear energy and did not want to participate in the possible development of atomic weapons for the fascist Mussolini regime. Although now one can suspect that Majorana, with his clearly ahead of time ideas about elementary particles, could guess about something even more terrible.

Valdis PEYPINSH