Quest for truth



In these days, in Italian theaters and after a two year struggle for distribution, it is possible to see Agora. This is the story of Hypatia,

Hypatia by Raphael

the first female being a scientist and a philosopher. She taught in Alexandria toward the end of the fourth century and the beginning of the fifth. Her struggle against the forces pushing toward Middle Age ended with a failure and she was brutally killed, all her works were burnt and today we know some of her ideas because some of her disciples wrote about that. There is a deep lesson to be learned here. Doing science is a quest for truth but this quest happens inside our world, with forces pushing to avert us from the right track, to stop us again and again or to use us or our ideas for their not so clear aims. So, our community must protect and help gifted people and have their ideas, when we are sure these are correct, spread as soon as possible for the common good and mankind at large. We must avoid to ask ourselves, after sixteen centuries: How many times must Hypatia die again?