Piergiorgio Odifreddi
Sorella scimmia fratello verme

THE REVIEW

How did I read Odifreddi? With the curiosity of a monkey and the voracity of a hamster.

The journey from Fibonacci to Einstein, from the infinitely large to the microcosm, both seen through the eyes of a scientist, leads to a conclusion.

The conclusion proposed by my reading is, if you'll pardon the comparison, Cartesian.

The doubt that leads to discovery becomes the denial of the immanent god, in every demonstration cited in the historical journey there is a but or an if.

Curious, for example, is the chapter dedicated to wasps; the title itself would suggest focusing on insects, but the beautiful quote from Aristophanes creates that "intellectual misdirection" that opens up many facets.

An important thing is conveyed to the reader, chapter after chapter, and that is the idea of the interconnectedness of nature, monkey sister and worm brother are parts of that unity, to be observed to understand their interactions.

This unity generates chaos, and thus we arrive at the butterflies, but chaos is nevertheless order, and from science, we move to philosophy.

A dance with desert sounds, voices of Arabic instruments, violins, dervishes spinning, rewinding the words and concepts into a spiral to dive into searching for a bottom that doesn't exist.

Man, no matter how much he explores, will always reach up to, but the beyond will be another discovery that will once again precede another one.

Intelligence and culture compensate for deficiencies, does the fragmented explanation make the subject crumbly? Certainly not, it already is, but its spongy nature absorbs and releases new matter, and that is growth.

This is my reading of Odifreddi, passionately biased.