A brief history of gravity, from Galileo to the present day

Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler were giants whose studies paved the way for Newton's law of universal gravitation. Cavendish measured the constant G, and thus the masses of the Earth, Sun, planets and, later, distant stars. Eotvos refined the instrument to such an extent that it could be used to detect the first oil deposits. Gauss, at the dawn of non-Euclidean geometry, verified whether the space in which we live was curved. The geometry of his student Riemann and others was the language with which Einstein expressed gravity as the geometry of space-time. General Relativity (1915) and Hubble's observations (1929) revolutionised our view of the world. We are passengers in an expanding universe.

The story of a mystery revealed: interview with Luca Molinari

Luca Guido Molinari is associate professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Milan. His interests range from random matrices in statistical mechanics to quantum theory of many-body systems and General Relativity. He is president of the Schiaparelli Astronomical Society.

Biblioteca cantonale di Lugano
Sala Tami, Venerdì 23 gennaio 2026, ore 18.00

The conference will be held in Italian.