Born in 1922, he'll be 90 in three months, but judging by his diary you wouldn't think so. Between conferences, work, meetings, astrophysicist Margherita Hack is as lively as a cricket. And the recipe is not an elixir of youth, but something much simpler and more instinctive: curiosity and the desire to always discover something new. So she declared her atrophy note in an interview with Lifely.it. “I worked, studied, deepened, searched continuously: always with the aim of discovering something new“, declared the astronomer, “Because there is always something new to discover”.
Therefore, skeptics and victimizers are banned. “It's not true that one loses the beat with age“, Hack assured, “My memory has not sagged an ounce, it has always been that of an elephant. And over the years I have not felt any other type of brain failure: indeed, it's really starting in my 40s and 50s that there have been the most important events and awards".
And the facts confirm it. In 1962, when he was 40, he won the chair of astrophysics at the Institute of Theoretical Physics of the University of Trieste, where he is now professor emeritus. Ten years later she was made a member of the Accademia dei Lincei. Also in those years she obtained the direction of the Astronomical Observatory, which she directed until 1987 and which she was able to raise to international prestige. At the age of 56 you founded the magazine "L'Astronomia" which you still direct today. And above all she wanted to share her experiences of her: has published over 250 studies and several popular books, so much so that in 1995 he received the Cortina Ulisse International Prize for scientific dissemination.
Notoriously atheist, Hack has always fought for the recognition of civil rights in our country. AND' in favor of scientific research on nuclear power, but he believes that Italy does not yet have the requisites to maintain nuclear power plants. A vegetarian from a young age, it is her faith for her reason that is the best oil for her neurons. But she was also helped by him sport that has never been missed in his life. "If anything", he says with the ironic verve typical of every good Florentine, "after the age of 80 I began to feel some difficulty walking, but not thinking".
He has been “technically” retired since 1997, but the term does not suit her in the least: “I continue to work, I write books, I give conferences, everything as before". In short, he doesn't want to take a break. His goal is to "disseminate the knowledge of astronomy and a scientific and rational mentality", which is why he continues to direct the Regional Interuniversity Center for Astrophysics and Cosmology (CIRAC) in Trieste.
It is therefore not true that memory and intellectual efficiency are lost with age. It all lies in the willpower to be able to keep alive that desire to discover and know, that state of mind of perennial curiosity.
