ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS

Telmo Pievani, professor of Philosophy of Biological Sciences University of Padua, author of Tutti i mondi possibili. Un'avventura nella grande biblioteca dell'evoluzione ("All Possible Worlds. An adventure in the great library of evolution", Raffaello Cortina Editore)

Oscar D'Agostino, journalist Nord Est Multimedia Il Messaggero Veneto

In 1976, a young engineering student from Princeton is on vacation in Madrid. She reads "The Library of Babel" by Jorge Luis Borges and experiences an epiphany. She envisions those endless shelves and empathizes with the fate of the librarian who wanders desperately in search of the book of books, the one that contains the answers to the fundamental mysteries of life. Before her, John Maynard Smith had speculated about the existence of a similar library, not filled with books but with proteins. More recently, some biologists have reconstructed the ideal combinatorial space—the morphospace—of all possible animals and plants. What is the purpose, for science, of imagining worlds that do not exist in order to explain reality? Why is the morphospace of animals full of empty regions? After more than 40 years of tenacious research and setbacks, that young reader, Frances Arnold, would unravel the enigma and discover forms and combinations that evolution had not yet explored. It is a fascinating journey, from Madrid to Stockholm. Weaving together science, philosophy, and literature, between Borges and Italo Calvino, Telmo Pievani guides us through Babel to show us how vast and unknown the world of possibilities that has not yet come to pass truly is.