Time is not an abstract concept. It occupies the universe, mutates, vibrates, oscillates. But what is it exactly? Can we live without it? Can we kill time/Saturn? There is the time of great, cosmic dimensions. There is empirical time, influenced by memory and desire. There is time that is measured by the beat of our heart.

Time is a mystery to people, from ancient times to today, even for scientists like Newton, Einstein, and Planck, who tried to explain it. Does it flow? Does it stand still? Can it be measured? How does gravity slow it down? How do black holes stop it?

We have always lived within time, which, however, is not eternal. The famous physicist Guido Tonelli takes us on a journey through history, science, art, and philosophy, where we will attempt to grasp a little better the concept of time and our relationship with it. A journey in which we will also learn to listen to the rhythm of our inner time, to feel the speed, the anticipation, and the acceleration that change the dimensions of time in our memory and expectations.

“The ancient Greeks depicted Saturn as a Titan, son of Uranus and Gaia, who devoured his children because it was prophesied that one of them would dethrone him. A terrifying metaphor for our deepest anxieties: time wears us down and obliterates not only ourselves but also our entire generation along with the works we imagine will withstand time.

Only Jupiter managed to escape his fate because Saturn, deceived by his wife-sister Rhea, swallowed a stone instead of the newborn. Thus, by poisoning his father, Jupiter fulfilled the prophecy and took his place as the ruler of creation. Since then, the dream of someone killing Saturn returns to the human community in the form of the desire to stop time or the illusion that we can displace it from the central place it occupies in nature. But will we ever be able to truly rid ourselves of Saturn?”