Reality is invisible

ry was a French nobleman by birth and an ntoine de Saint-Exupe aeroplane pilot by choice: but by destiny he was always a writer. Plane crashes were common and quite survivable in the early days of ry survived many, but none as memorable as the aviation. Saint-Exupe one that, on the night of 30 December 1935, shattered his dreams of establishing a new record of speed from Paris to Saigon. Without the global positioning system . . . actually without even a radio to call for help . . . he and his mechanic wandered in the Sahara desert for Wve days and nights, desperate, parched, on the verge of delirium, before being rescued by a caravan of merciful Bedouins. It was during this ordeal that the two men resolved never to turn down a drink for the rest of their lives. rys best-known worka short Not surprisingly then, Saint-Exupe tale entitled The Little Princebegins with a pilot crash-landing in the desert. This pilot, at the age of six, had abandoned a promising career as an artist, discouraged by the grown-ups lack of understanding. His very

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Wrst drawing was seen, by the adults, as a hateven though it clearly represented a boa digesting an elephant. This is just the Wrst hint of what quickly emerges as the main theme of the talethe idea that anything essential is invisible to the eye and that one sees clearly only with the heart. In the big and lonely desert the pilot meets his own self, thinly disguised as a little boy from another planet. The boy asks many questions and answers none. Following him, we get to know a moon-coloured snake who solves all riddles, a wise fox whose only wish is to be tamed, a thorny ower who coughs and shivers in the wind, a tiny planet on which the sun sets every few minutes, and, most importantly, a hidden well, the well that every desert hides in its centre, the well that makes every desert beautiful. And thus we learn that whether its a house, or the stars, or the desert, what makes them beautiful is invisible.1 To a religious person this message will hardly come as a surprise. The mystical authorities of all times and cultures insist on the absence of sensible images as the necessary condition for the contemplation of the higher truths. Likewise there is a consensus that true wisdom, in spiritual and in artistic matters, comes with the ability to see things that are normally hidden from sightto see them with the heart. This is not surprising. Poetry, philosophy, religion are among the oldest expressions of human thought, and oldest in this case means youngest, for the three of them sprang out vigorously and simultaneously in the hearts of young people who knew almost nothing about the world, but were naturally predisposed to believe in the reality of the invisible. On the other hand, few people would spontaneously associate the idea of an invisible reality to science. With science, it is said, human thought comes of age. We abandon the sentimental/emotional approach of childhood and enter a realm of rationality and objectivity. This tough goddess probes Nature with clocks and scales and absolutely straight
ry achieved a measure of invisibility which is rarely Quite ttingly Saint-Exupe granted to celebrities: his body disappeared in the waves of the Mediterranean sea on 31 July 1944.
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reality is invisible
rulers, not to mention the scourge of mathematical equations and formulas. In its presence, only what can be clearly deWned and measured has a right to exist. She looks at us with cold, self-assured eyes. No wonder most people are unable to love her. And yet, even cold-hearted science is not just what meets the eye. The study of nature may begin with direct observation and measurement, but in order to understand what we see (and also, somehow, to tame it) we Wnd ourselves compelled to go beyond the visible, to reach for hidden forms, for fundamental principles working behind the scenes. Francis Bacon, one of the founders of modern empirical science, wrote that Nature cannot be commanded except by being obeyed. I would add that nature cannot be understood except by being transcended. Nowhere is this more evident than in that special kind of science which is called theoretical physics. I emphasize the word theoretical because, as we will soon see, this is a kind of science distinct and somewhat diVerent from physics. When physicists work on a theory, they are not dealing directly with nature, but with an abstract model in which they have already decided which aspects of reality must be absolutely retained, and which ones can be dismissed. Often, in creating this model, they make bold and quite implausible assumptions, which can only be validated by the consistency of the results. But, to take such bold steps one cannot rely on calculation alone: it takes passion, imagination, a sense of beautyall things that we grasp with our whole personality, and deWnitely with our heart. This book is an invitation to approach theoretical physics from this particular angle: as the science of the invisible, as a modern form of theology. No particularly new or revolutionary ideas will be presented; nevertheless, it will be quite a journey. We will proceed through a land populated by strange characterspoint particles, light rays, minimum principles, conservation laws, invisible Welds that reach out to the remotest regions of the universeall of which strongly remind us of something real, yet are nowhere to be seen; they emerge from a process of abstraction which stretches to the limit something we have long been

the beautiful invisible

familiar with. We will acquaint ourselves with universal laws that rule the behaviour of these charactersonly to realize that even the universal laws have limits and can be transcended. We will see how every single element of this surreal landscape can be one and multiple diverse and Wxed. And, Wnally, at the centre of it all, well Wnd the enthusiasm and the sadness of the Little Prince, smiling and waiting for us with a list of questions that can never be fully answered.