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Matter: The Magnificent Illusion
What are we made up of? What holds material bodies together? Is there a difference between terrestrial matter and celestial matter – the matter that makes up the Earth and the matter that makes up the Sun and other stars? When Democritus stated, between the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, that we are made up of atoms, few people believed him. Not until Galileo and Newton in the seventeenth century did people take the idea seriously, and it was another four hundred years before we could reconstruct the elementary components of matter.
Everything around us – the matter that forms rocks and planets, flowers and stars, even us – has very particular properties. These properties, which seem quite normal to us, are in fact very special, because the universe, whose evolution began almost fourteen billion years ago, is today a very cold environment. In this book, Guido Tonelli explains how elementary particles, which make up matter, combine into bizarre shapes to form correlated quantum states, primordial soups of quarks and gluons, or massive neutron stars. New questions that have emerged from the most recent research are in what sense is the vacuum a material state? Why can space-time also vibrate and oscillate? Can elementary grains of space and time exist? What forms does matter assume inside large black holes?
In clear and lively prose, Tonelli takes readers on an exhilarating journey into the latest discoveries of contemporary science, enabling them to see the universe, and themselves, in a new light.
Everything around us – the matter that forms rocks and planets, flowers and stars, even us – has very particular properties. These properties, which seem quite normal to us, are in fact very special, because the universe, whose evolution began almost fourteen billion years ago, is today a very cold environment. In this book, Guido Tonelli explains how elementary particles, which make up matter, combine into bizarre shapes to form correlated quantum states, primordial soups of quarks and gluons, or massive neutron stars. New questions that have emerged from the most recent research are in what sense is the vacuum a material state? Why can space-time also vibrate and oscillate? Can elementary grains of space and time exist? What forms does matter assume inside large black holes?
In clear and lively prose, Tonelli takes readers on an exhilarating journey into the latest discoveries of contemporary science, enabling them to see the universe, and themselves, in a new light.
- GenresSciencePhysicsNonfiction
224 pages, Hardcover
Published January 13, 2025
19 people are currently reading
161 people want to read
About the author
Guido Tonelli
21 books52 followersGuido Tonelli (born 1950) is an Italian particle physicist. He is one of the main protagonists of the discovery of the Higgs boson at the LHC.[1] He is a professor of General Physics at the University of Pisa (Italy) and a CERN visiting scientist.
Guido Tonelli, fisico al Cern di Ginevra e professore all’Università di Pisa, è uno dei padri della scoperta del bosone di Higgs. Ha ricevuto il premio internazionale Fundamental Physics Prize (2013), il premio Enrico Fermi della Società italiana di fisica (2013) e la Medaglia d’onore del presidente della Repubblica (2014) per essere “l’ultimo esempio di una tradizione di eccellenza che è cominciata con Galileo Galilei per passare attraverso scienziati come Enrico Fermi, Bruno Pontecorvo e Carlo Rubbia”. Ha pubblicato La nascita imperfetta delle cose. La grande corsa alla particella di Dio e la nuova fisica che cambierà il mondo (Rizzoli, 2016; vincitore del premio Galileo), Cercare mondi. Esplorazioni avventurose ai confini dell’universo (Rizzoli, 2017) e Genesi. Il grande racconto delle origini (Feltrinelli, 2019).
Guido Tonelli, fisico al Cern di Ginevra e professore all’Università di Pisa, è uno dei padri della scoperta del bosone di Higgs. Ha ricevuto il premio internazionale Fundamental Physics Prize (2013), il premio Enrico Fermi della Società italiana di fisica (2013) e la Medaglia d’onore del presidente della Repubblica (2014) per essere “l’ultimo esempio di una tradizione di eccellenza che è cominciata con Galileo Galilei per passare attraverso scienziati come Enrico Fermi, Bruno Pontecorvo e Carlo Rubbia”. Ha pubblicato La nascita imperfetta delle cose. La grande corsa alla particella di Dio e la nuova fisica che cambierà il mondo (Rizzoli, 2016; vincitore del premio Galileo), Cercare mondi. Esplorazioni avventurose ai confini dell’universo (Rizzoli, 2017) e Genesi. Il grande racconto delle origini (Feltrinelli, 2019).
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March 22, 2025
From the book description, I was hopeful that I might gain some fresh insight on cosmology. For the most part, though, this is just one more rendition of the same portrayal of the cosmos that has been out there for decades.
The possible exception to his standard account of cosmological history is the argument that matter goes into and out of existence. If I understand him correctly, Tonelli says that because of these in-an-out-of existence phenomena (virtual particles?) a vacuum is far from empty. I guess this is what he means when he says that matter, as a solid particle, is an illusion. At the heart of the cosmic “stuff,” he argues, lies nothing very much. If there’s a significance to this observation, I didn’t get it. I think it has something to do with a vacuum state and the origin of the big bang with its in-an-out character, where potential matter was given mass - the solid matter seen today as we typically understand matter - by its encounter with the Higgs boson. (1)
There are many loose ends here for me to tie together, but this is not where my focus was with this book. It was, rather, on the standard account of cosmic origins, inflation, and the structure of the cosmos, and especially the role of dark energy. Here, Tonelli relies primarily on the Vera Rubin findings of galactic movement. As a backdrop to her findings, Tonelli writes that “the laws of universal gravitation tell us that close to the galactic centre the velocity should increase with distance,” but Rubin’s “surprising result” was that “At a great distance the velocity remains constant….The peripheral stars of a spiral galaxy…rotate at the same velocity as those closest to the centre.” With this, Rubin concludes that ”galaxies should contain between five and ten times as much matter as we had thought” and, since such matter was not visible, Tonelli states that “her data confirmed the hypothesis about the presence of dark matter in the universe.” From that conclusion, cosmological researchers extended her findings to galactic clusters, and applied her findings to the overall structure of the cosmos (closed, or open [a flat state?]).
Aside from the elusiveness of dark matter despite a decades-long search for it (2), Newton’s first law of motion gets lost. In that law, straight-line motion (inertial motion) is the default position for cosmic movement and gravity is the “accelerating” force that creates deviation from such movement. Seen this way, at least half of the inward movement toward the galactic center is, for lack of a better term, “self-propelled” movement of matter and energy and it is this, and not solely gravity, that explains velocity. (3) Seen another way, while Tonelli writes that without dark matter galaxies would disintegrate, he omits that the inertial motion of gas and dust is toward the galactic center and, therefore, not dependent only on gravitational “attraction.” Is this the reason that dark matter has been illusive?
When it comes to cosmic origins, Tonelli uses gravitational mass (both observable matter and dark matter) to calculate the critical density necessary to keep the universe from contracting - folding back on itself: matter-energy density disperses as it moves away from the big bang (“The greater the universe’s content of mass-energy, the greater the impulse to oppose its expansion, to the point, eventually, of reversing its course.”) He concludes that there is not enough mass to hold back cosmic expansion and, therefore, the big crunch is “conclusively” (4) rejected, in favor of an ever-expanding cosmos that he calls Euclidean or flat: “All the data…agree…about the fact that our universe is flat, with practically zero intrinsic curvature. Space-time is only deformed locally as a result of the presence of massive celestial bodies. The geometry of the universe is Euclidean.”
A few questions flow from this perspective as outlined by Tonelli and others. While Einstein refers to space-time curvature, is that curvature local only, or is there an overall curvature to the universe? (5) The various graphics used to depict the big bang start from a central point and move, linearly, outward in one direction to illustrate the expansion of space-time from a center point. Yet, presumably, the big bang moved outward from a center point in all directions and, thus, by definition, would manifest itself as, largely (with some imperfections), curvature.
If the expansion were flat as Tonelli argues, what then happens to matter-energy density? If it retains more density closer to the big bang, which becomes less dense with outward expansion, would that mean there's an overall density that implies cosmic curvature? Or, alternatively, if matter-energy moves away from the originating point, does it become a big hole where the matter-energy once was, as matter-energy was carried outward and dispersed? Would that also mean that somewhere in the cosmos there’s a large void of nothingness?
When Tonelli talks about cosmic expansion, he ties it to a “scalar particle, the inflaton," which “could have sparked that terrifying exponential expansion which we have called the Big Bang.” So, as the story goes, out of a pre-big bang singularity, the universe exploded, resulting in inflationary expansion, creating an overall uniformity, thereby providing further evidence of a flat cosmos (dispersed, evened-out mass-energy). The flat cosmos theory was also supported by Hubble’s discovery a century ago of an expanding cosmos and, later, such expansion was found to be occurring at ever-faster velocities. The reasons for such is, Tonelli and others say, comes from the “discovery of dark energy” (6), which is problematic because as far as I know dark energy, like dark matter, has not been found. Regardless, in Tonelli’s view, the cosmos is off to never-neverland.
This account raises more questions. Why is there a need for an inflaton (that also has not been found)? In a singularity event, isn’t it likely that the fusion of incompatible quanta is such that they become unhappy, which is to say, more volatile? As the explosion comes from a singularity of sorts, the origin is by definition a point that expands in all directions unless it came out one-side like Mt. St. Helens. Tonelli (and others) do not reference Newton’s first law regarding inertial, straight-line movement from a curved starting point and the lessening effect of gravitational mass as matter-energy moves outward per the inverse square law. Might such progressive distancing from an originating center point explain why matter-energy, increasingly unimpeded by gravity, speeds up, and it is this that explains dark energy's putative effects? And, is it possible, with overall cosmic curvature, that matter-energy curves around itself and returns to the beginning point? (7)
(1) Tonelli writes that “Mass is not an intrinsic property of matter. Rather, mass emerges from an interaction with the Higgs field.” From this discussion of the vacuum, he does not shy away from deeper, metaphysical speculations, though I’m not sure what he is suggesting: Being and non-Being lie at the core of cosmic phenomena, or, with the vacuum, there lies only a void of non-Being?
(2) This makes Tonelli’s “confirmed hypothesis” seem premature. Also see footnote 4.
(3) In Einstein’s formulation, the inertial, straight-line motion of matter and energy is toward the gravitational center, which is a geometric concentration of space-time. In seeing it this way, Einstein removes gravitational “attraction” as a force. The gravitational center does nothing, and the impelling movement comes from matter-energy that follows the geometric properties of space-time. Though this is more than nuance - because it restores inertial motion to its primary position - gravity as an attractive force is nevertheless treated as such almost universally by those who write about cosmology for the general public. For example, while Bertrand Russell understood that gravity was not a force, he explained that the distinction was too complicated to get into and thus, by default, just continued to stick with gravity as an attractive force.
(4) Re “conclusively,” there’s that characterization again, along with “confirmed hypothesis.”
(5) All significant cosmological structures are spherical - moons, planets, stars, galaxies, local groups of galaxies, galactic clusters and superclusters - presumably based on the presence of mass and its effect on space-time. Given this, why would the cosmos as a whole constitute an exception?
(6) Re “discovery of dark energy,” see footnotes 2 and 4.
(7) This doesn’t work if, in the post big bang expansion, a big hole or void is left behind, with all matter-energy being carried outward leaving nothing behind. But if matter-energy is dispersed as it moves outward, this implies that density not only becomes less and less as it moves outward (an open cosmos), but also it increases more and more as it moves back around, assuming overall cosmic curvature, to the originating point (a closed cosmos).
The possible exception to his standard account of cosmological history is the argument that matter goes into and out of existence. If I understand him correctly, Tonelli says that because of these in-an-out-of existence phenomena (virtual particles?) a vacuum is far from empty. I guess this is what he means when he says that matter, as a solid particle, is an illusion. At the heart of the cosmic “stuff,” he argues, lies nothing very much. If there’s a significance to this observation, I didn’t get it. I think it has something to do with a vacuum state and the origin of the big bang with its in-an-out character, where potential matter was given mass - the solid matter seen today as we typically understand matter - by its encounter with the Higgs boson. (1)
There are many loose ends here for me to tie together, but this is not where my focus was with this book. It was, rather, on the standard account of cosmic origins, inflation, and the structure of the cosmos, and especially the role of dark energy. Here, Tonelli relies primarily on the Vera Rubin findings of galactic movement. As a backdrop to her findings, Tonelli writes that “the laws of universal gravitation tell us that close to the galactic centre the velocity should increase with distance,” but Rubin’s “surprising result” was that “At a great distance the velocity remains constant….The peripheral stars of a spiral galaxy…rotate at the same velocity as those closest to the centre.” With this, Rubin concludes that ”galaxies should contain between five and ten times as much matter as we had thought” and, since such matter was not visible, Tonelli states that “her data confirmed the hypothesis about the presence of dark matter in the universe.” From that conclusion, cosmological researchers extended her findings to galactic clusters, and applied her findings to the overall structure of the cosmos (closed, or open [a flat state?]).
Aside from the elusiveness of dark matter despite a decades-long search for it (2), Newton’s first law of motion gets lost. In that law, straight-line motion (inertial motion) is the default position for cosmic movement and gravity is the “accelerating” force that creates deviation from such movement. Seen this way, at least half of the inward movement toward the galactic center is, for lack of a better term, “self-propelled” movement of matter and energy and it is this, and not solely gravity, that explains velocity. (3) Seen another way, while Tonelli writes that without dark matter galaxies would disintegrate, he omits that the inertial motion of gas and dust is toward the galactic center and, therefore, not dependent only on gravitational “attraction.” Is this the reason that dark matter has been illusive?
When it comes to cosmic origins, Tonelli uses gravitational mass (both observable matter and dark matter) to calculate the critical density necessary to keep the universe from contracting - folding back on itself: matter-energy density disperses as it moves away from the big bang (“The greater the universe’s content of mass-energy, the greater the impulse to oppose its expansion, to the point, eventually, of reversing its course.”) He concludes that there is not enough mass to hold back cosmic expansion and, therefore, the big crunch is “conclusively” (4) rejected, in favor of an ever-expanding cosmos that he calls Euclidean or flat: “All the data…agree…about the fact that our universe is flat, with practically zero intrinsic curvature. Space-time is only deformed locally as a result of the presence of massive celestial bodies. The geometry of the universe is Euclidean.”
A few questions flow from this perspective as outlined by Tonelli and others. While Einstein refers to space-time curvature, is that curvature local only, or is there an overall curvature to the universe? (5) The various graphics used to depict the big bang start from a central point and move, linearly, outward in one direction to illustrate the expansion of space-time from a center point. Yet, presumably, the big bang moved outward from a center point in all directions and, thus, by definition, would manifest itself as, largely (with some imperfections), curvature.
If the expansion were flat as Tonelli argues, what then happens to matter-energy density? If it retains more density closer to the big bang, which becomes less dense with outward expansion, would that mean there's an overall density that implies cosmic curvature? Or, alternatively, if matter-energy moves away from the originating point, does it become a big hole where the matter-energy once was, as matter-energy was carried outward and dispersed? Would that also mean that somewhere in the cosmos there’s a large void of nothingness?
When Tonelli talks about cosmic expansion, he ties it to a “scalar particle, the inflaton," which “could have sparked that terrifying exponential expansion which we have called the Big Bang.” So, as the story goes, out of a pre-big bang singularity, the universe exploded, resulting in inflationary expansion, creating an overall uniformity, thereby providing further evidence of a flat cosmos (dispersed, evened-out mass-energy). The flat cosmos theory was also supported by Hubble’s discovery a century ago of an expanding cosmos and, later, such expansion was found to be occurring at ever-faster velocities. The reasons for such is, Tonelli and others say, comes from the “discovery of dark energy” (6), which is problematic because as far as I know dark energy, like dark matter, has not been found. Regardless, in Tonelli’s view, the cosmos is off to never-neverland.
This account raises more questions. Why is there a need for an inflaton (that also has not been found)? In a singularity event, isn’t it likely that the fusion of incompatible quanta is such that they become unhappy, which is to say, more volatile? As the explosion comes from a singularity of sorts, the origin is by definition a point that expands in all directions unless it came out one-side like Mt. St. Helens. Tonelli (and others) do not reference Newton’s first law regarding inertial, straight-line movement from a curved starting point and the lessening effect of gravitational mass as matter-energy moves outward per the inverse square law. Might such progressive distancing from an originating center point explain why matter-energy, increasingly unimpeded by gravity, speeds up, and it is this that explains dark energy's putative effects? And, is it possible, with overall cosmic curvature, that matter-energy curves around itself and returns to the beginning point? (7)
(1) Tonelli writes that “Mass is not an intrinsic property of matter. Rather, mass emerges from an interaction with the Higgs field.” From this discussion of the vacuum, he does not shy away from deeper, metaphysical speculations, though I’m not sure what he is suggesting: Being and non-Being lie at the core of cosmic phenomena, or, with the vacuum, there lies only a void of non-Being?
(2) This makes Tonelli’s “confirmed hypothesis” seem premature. Also see footnote 4.
(3) In Einstein’s formulation, the inertial, straight-line motion of matter and energy is toward the gravitational center, which is a geometric concentration of space-time. In seeing it this way, Einstein removes gravitational “attraction” as a force. The gravitational center does nothing, and the impelling movement comes from matter-energy that follows the geometric properties of space-time. Though this is more than nuance - because it restores inertial motion to its primary position - gravity as an attractive force is nevertheless treated as such almost universally by those who write about cosmology for the general public. For example, while Bertrand Russell understood that gravity was not a force, he explained that the distinction was too complicated to get into and thus, by default, just continued to stick with gravity as an attractive force.
(4) Re “conclusively,” there’s that characterization again, along with “confirmed hypothesis.”
(5) All significant cosmological structures are spherical - moons, planets, stars, galaxies, local groups of galaxies, galactic clusters and superclusters - presumably based on the presence of mass and its effect on space-time. Given this, why would the cosmos as a whole constitute an exception?
(6) Re “discovery of dark energy,” see footnotes 2 and 4.
(7) This doesn’t work if, in the post big bang expansion, a big hole or void is left behind, with all matter-energy being carried outward leaving nothing behind. But if matter-energy is dispersed as it moves outward, this implies that density not only becomes less and less as it moves outward (an open cosmos), but also it increases more and more as it moves back around, assuming overall cosmic curvature, to the originating point (a closed cosmos).
February 13, 2025
My husband keeps throwing physics books at me (figuratively not literally), hoping I will be as excited by them as he is. This one was very good, though I got more and more confused the farther I went along. That’s my problem rather than the author’s. The earlier chapters definitely helped me get a better grasp of some basic concepts, though I always find myself struggling as soon as one of these books dives into quarks and collapsing the wave function.
May 15, 2025
I do love reading about Quantum Physics and where we are in our knowledge of reality and the universe. Here, the author drifts in and out of history of family and physics in leading up to his discussions on topics. Put very briefly, the universe is flat, its energy pencils out to zero, and thus we exist in another form of vacuum. The void is not void, it is flux with energy. Basically what we think of as solid matter is in the end the result of the excitations of oscillating fields. Something that sounds like a concept, but is in fact the basis of reality itself. A fascinating topic, fields. I highly recommend reading "Waves in an Impossible Sea" By Matt Strassler for more understanding on the topic, and Sean Carroll'S "Quanta and Fields" will take you even deeper into the weeds. What I like about quantum physics is that it gives me hope and a philosophy of a world that contains the random and even the unknowable, a world that may have parameters but is not deterministic. We have -as insignificant as we are- agency, and a connection to all there is.
October 31, 2025
This book was not what I was expecting. I was expecting lots of detail on particle physics, because I want to learn more about it. Instead, this book is more like a grand tour of the universe, including a decent overview of particle physics. The author is also obviously in the evolution camp and I found it a bit unsettling that he referenced a few communists (Marx, etc) in what I thought was a positive light. Certainly there was a lot of good information in this book, but I was not that impressed. What was interesting is just how much physicists are unable to explain how the universe began and evolved over time (dark matter, as an example). For me, being a believer in God, these things are quite obvious. :)
June 14, 2025
Excellent.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews