https://www.scmp.com/rss/16574/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Early this month, the judiciary in Italy officially closed the file on Ettore Majorana, whose sudden disappearance in 1938 marked one of the great mysteries in 20th century physics. On February 4, Rome prosecutor Pierfilippo Laviani ruled that Majorana was still alive between 1955 and 1959 and was living in Valencia, Venezuela, under the assumed surname of Bini. Laviani declared the case closed, having found no criminal evidence in his disappearance. Ettore Majorana was one of the greatest but... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1713456/science-focus-italy-closes-case-physicians-mysterious?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1713456/science-focus-italy-closes-case-physicians-mysterious?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 15 Feb 2015 00:09:42 +0000 Yeung Kui-wan, a native of Dongguan but raised in Hong Kong, was a close collaborator of Sun Yat-sen, a great intellectual and a great patriot. He was shot at his Hong Kong home on January 10, 1901 by hitmen sent by the Qing government headed by Empress Dowager Cixi. He died in hospital the next day. Yeung's name and the image of his grave in Happy Valley came to mind while reading Jung Chang's new book, Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine who Launched Modern China, which has received glowing... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1343771/empress-dowager-cixi-gets-makeover-regardless-facts?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1343771/empress-dowager-cixi-gets-makeover-regardless-facts?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 30 Oct 2013 10:00:00 +0000 The discovery of the mortal remains of England's King Richard III under a car park in Leicester will be remembered as one of the greatest historical scoops in modern times, a wonderful combination of science and historiography. The heroine of this story is a woman, Philippa Langley, a screenwriter and a Ricardian to the core, that is to say a person convinced that a great injustice was done by the Tudor usurper to Richard III, the last of the Plantagenet kings. Historians and playwrights seeking... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1276916/finding-king-richard-iiis-body-triumph-science-and-scholarship?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1276916/finding-king-richard-iiis-body-triumph-science-and-scholarship?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 06 Jul 2013 16:00:00 +0000 This month, newspapers around the world including the South China Morning Post reported that a wax-covered cardboard disc with the voice of Alexander Graham Bell engraved on it had been recovered in the Smithsonian collections of early recordings. Reuters reported that the recording was made 128 years ago, "nine years after he placed the first telephone call". On the recording, Bell is heard to say "Hear my voice - Alexander Graham Bell". On reading this, many Italians like myself had just one... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1240794/tragic-tale-telephones-real-inventor-antonio-meucci?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1240794/tragic-tale-telephones-real-inventor-antonio-meucci?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 18 May 2013 16:00:00 +0000 Few figures have been more vilified and loathed throughout history than the Roman Emperor Nero, whose 14-year reign, almost 2000 years ago, has been portrayed as the epitome of tyranny and immorality. It is from the historians of the period - Tacitus, Pliny and Suetonius - that we get most of what we know about him. They presented him as a bloody and sleazy pervert, a fool, a sodomite, a dreamer, a vain and hopeless artist. Down the centuries, he had been accused - and condemned without appeal -... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1136104/what-neros-life-tells-us-about-origins-cys-integrity-crisis?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1136104/what-neros-life-tells-us-about-origins-cys-integrity-crisis?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 25 Jan 2013 16:00:00 +0000 As they say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. This famous maxim for caution was apparently overlooked by Italian physicist Dr Antonio Ereditato, while working on an experiment that last September made news headlines. His team claimed to find that neutrinos may travel faster than light. The neutrinos were beamed under the Earth's crust from the CERN particle collider near Geneva, 730 kilometres away. By just believing it possible, he would have dismantled the keystone of... https://www.scmp.com/article/998902/science-cant-get-around-einsteins-speed-limit?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/998902/science-cant-get-around-einsteins-speed-limit?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 21 Apr 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Arthur C. Clarke's popular 1972 novel Rendezvous with Rama, in which an asteroid collides with the earth on September 11, 2077, was a hit in more ways than one. In the book, the impact wipes out the Italian cities of Padua and Verona and plunges Venice into the sea. The coincidence of date with the terrorist attacks on the twin towers in New York helped revive interest in it. To avoid similar disasters and detect earth-impact events ahead of time, the inhabitants of Clarke's fictional world... https://www.scmp.com/article/995133/comet-heading-straight-earth-dont-panic?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/995133/comet-heading-straight-earth-dont-panic?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 10 Mar 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Like many people, I don't believe the Shroud of Turin was Jesus Christ's burial cloth when he was entombed prior to his resurrection. But I would like conclusive proof that we are right. The age-old controversy about the shroud's authenticity was rekindled last month when five Italian scientists investigating the mystery for several years released their report. Working at Enea - Italy's government-owned National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development -... https://www.scmp.com/article/991166/praying-proof-shroud-turin?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/991166/praying-proof-shroud-turin?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 28 Jan 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Exactly 50 years ago, Mario Tchou, a brilliant Chinese electronic engineer and the head of Olivetti's research centre in Italy, died in a tragic car crash. In the English-speaking world, he is virtually unknown. Books on the history of the computer rarely mention him. Yet he was one of the great computer pioneers of the 20th century. In Italy, his name is remembered and revered to this day. At a time when China is experiencing a cultural and scientific renaissance, it is all the more important ... https://www.scmp.com/article/976147/unsung-chinese-engineer-behind-first-desktop?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/976147/unsung-chinese-engineer-behind-first-desktop?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 13 Aug 2011 16:00:00 +0000