The Wall Street Journal - 21.03.2020 - 22.03.2020

C4| Saturday/Sunday, March 21 - 22, 2020 **** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

The

physicist

Freeman

Dyson

believed

that

science

would

find

awayto

save the

planet.

FREEMAN DYSON,who died

Feb. 28 at the age of 96, was

one of the smartest people I’ve

ever known, and one of the

sweetest. For several years I

occupied the office directly un-

der his at the Institute for Ad-

vanced Study in Princeton, N.J.

The sound insulation was good

but not perfect: Ordinary con-

versations were inaudible, but

when Freeman talked on the

telephone he spoke louder, and

I could hear him then, though I

rarely made out specific words.

(Actually, I tried not to.) What

did penetrate, reliably, was his

laughter. It was a frequent,

welcome source of joy.

Freeman made many funda-

mental contributions in phys-

ics and mathematics, but in

the last years of his life he ex-

pressed some doubts about

the significance of carbon di-

oxide emissions and climate

change, which put him at odds

with most of the scientific

community, including myself.

Unfortunately, this is now the

main thing that many people

WILCZEK’S

UNIVERSE

FRANK

WILCZEK

know him for. Here I will try

to frame the scientific issues

at stake, in a way I think he

might approve.

An average human adult

consumes about 2,000 calories

a day in food. That is roughly

enough energy to run a 100-

watt lightbulb continuously.

Today, human beings use about

25 times that much energy per

capita, including as fuel and

electricity. In the U.S., the av-

erage is more like 95 times.

This is a rough but objective

indicator of how far our econ-

omy has advanced over bare

human subsistence.

Using the energy needed for

subsistence as our unit, the

Sun’s energy output corre-

sponds to some 500 trillion

units per capita for the current

The World

According

To Freeman

energy that reaches Earth,

then we find “only” about

10,000 times our current en-

ergy consumption. Still, that

should do for quite a while.

This is the basic reason why

sustainable solar energy is ex-

tremely promising as a long-

term solution to human energy

needs. We can put some ab-

sorbing panels on Earth and

others in space, and gradually

work toward a full Dyson

sphere if the need arises.

Thus, Freeman believed,

with the growth of technology

our energy problems will solve

themselves. He also had a het-

erodox view of carbon dioxide,

which most scientists see as

the chief culprit

behind global

warming. Free-

man loved the

idea of growing

more trees and

lusher vegeta-

tion—for food,

shelter and spiri-

tual nourish-

ment—so he had

a soft spot for

carbon dioxide,

whose abundance

promotes photo-

synthesis. Free-

man’s congenital

optimism and vi-

sionary tenden-

cies emboldened

his brilliance. But they led him,

I think, to underestimate the

importance and danger of

abrupt changes in Earth’s cli-

mate due to fossil fuel burning

in the meantime.

If you would like to get a

sense of what it was like to

know Freeman, and to hear

some wonderful stories and

ideas, I strongly recommend

that you sample his interviews

at the Web of Stories website.

When you talked to Freeman,

he listened, and he often re-

sponded with a twinkle in his

eye, especially when he had a

chance to surprise or contra-

dict you. It’s an unusual style.

I’ll miss him. GETTY IMAGES (2)

world population. Of course,

the Sun’s output gets radiated

into space in all directions. To

capture a big fraction of it,

we’d need to put gigantic col-

lection devices in space sur-

rounding much of the Sun.

Freeman thought about engi-

neering projects of that sort,

known as Dyson spheres. Hy-

pothetically, they could sup-

port a much bigger economy

and a much larger population

than we have today.

If, more modestly, we re-

strict ourselves to the solar

Above left, Freeman Dyson in

2016; above right, an artist’s

rendering of a Dyson sphere.

REVIEW

ignated for the purpose—which

stood on a site now occupied in part

by Alessandro Volta Scientific High

School.

“Manzoni teaches us the impor-

tance of holding together human re-

lations and the social fabric,” says

Lucio Marazza, 18, a senior at the

school, who adds that the reading

assignment has informed his conver-

sations with classmates about the

current crisis: “Manzoni teaches us

to observe and to use our reason.”

Fortunately, he says, Italian society

has shown much more solidarity and

respect for science in its response to

the threat of coronavirus than it did

to the bubonic plague, a sign of

progress that he thinks is cause for

hope, though not complacency.

Another masterpiece offering

hope to Italian readers is “The

Decameron,” set during the Black

Death of 1348 in and near the city of

Florence. Boccaccio’s account of the

bubonic plague is at least as bleak as

Manzoni’s, with an emphasis on the

breakdown of morality

and society. Parents aban-

don children, spouses

abandon each other, and

bodies are left in the

streets without a decent

burial.

“But I don’t want this

to scare you from reading

on, as if you will be read-

ing through continuous

sighs and tears,” Boccac-

cio writes in his introduc-

tion. “After this brief un-

pleasantness—I say brief

because it’s summed up in

just a few words—quickly

follow the sweetness and

pleasure that I promised

you before.”

The plague prompts 10

well-born young Floren-

tines to seek refuge in the

country, where they spend

10 of the next 14 days tell-

ing each other stories—10

tales each day for a total

of a hundred. The pre-

cisely organized cycle of

storytelling represents a

reconstruction of civiliza-

tion amid chaos and a re-

assertion of life against a

landscape of death.

“The Decameron” is

best known for its bawdy

episodes—the critic Joan

Acocella has called it

“probably the dirtiest

great book in the Western

canon”—but the novellas

encompass a range of tone

and genre, including trag-

edy and ironic social com-

mentary.

“I think of ‘The Decam-

eron’ like Scheherazade’s

‘One Thousand and One

Nights.’ It’s a representa-

tion of the whole of life,

because to live is to tell

stories and to tell stories is

to be alive,” said Andrea Di

Mario, the principal of Gio-

suè Carducci Classical High School,

also in Milan, which has responded to

the coronavirus epidemic with a pad-

let, or virtual bulletin board, inspired

by Boccaccio’s book. Contributions

from students, teachers and even par-

ents have ranged from serious to

whimsical, including articles from

Scientific American and a trailer for

the 2011 film “Contagion.”

Mr. Mormando of Boston College

says that both “The Decameron” and

“The Betrothed” are “tales of re-

demption. The plague ends, civiliza-

tion survives and moves forward.”

That message of survival, and the ca-

thartic experience of imaginative

recreations of earlier epidemics, can

offer readers of all nations consola-

tion during the current ordeal. But

Mr. Mormando says these books

have special resonance for Italians,

who are able to say “these were are

our ancestors, we are made of the

same flesh and blood. We’ve been

through this before, and we’ve got-

ten through it.” FROM TOP: CORBIS/VCG/GETTY IMAGES; GIULIO MARAZZA

Tiepolo’s “Saint Thecla

Praying for the Plague-

Stricken.”

section of the book to his

students as a cautionary

tale of what he termed the

“poisoning of social life, of

human relationships, the

barbarization of civil life ...

the atavistic instinct when

threatened by an invisible

enemy ... to see him every-

where.”

Manzoni’s account of

the plague is an excursus

from the main plot and

reads like history rather

than fiction, with foot-

notes and commentary on

the comparative reliabil-

ity of different sources.

Yet it is a dramatic story

in itself, replete with

irony and horror. The

dominant theme of the

account is the stubborn

resistance of both the au-

thorities and the general

public to the mounting

evidence of an epidemic.

The first deaths are at-

tributed to everyday ill-

nesses that almost no one

finds alarming. Then peo-

ple adopt euphemisms

such as “malign fever” for

the spreading plague. Phy-

sicians and others who in-

sist on the reality of the

threat are denounced as

panic-mongers. Large pub-

lic gatherings go on in spite of the risk

of contagion. When the truth finally

becomes undeniable, most blame the

epidemic on poisoners motivated by

Epidemic

isakey

element in

two great

works of

Italian

literature.

art and literature, the disease be-
came an almost inevitable topic for
painters, with devotees commission-
ing works for churches even long af-
ter the event. One spectacular exam-
ple is Giovanni Battista Tiepolo’s
“Saint Thecla Praying for the Plague-
Stricken” (1758-59), a vision of celes-
tial transcendence over misery and
pestilence made for a cathedral in
northeastern Italy and now in New
York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The bubonic plague is a key ele-
ment in two of the greatest works of
Italian literature, Giovanni Boccac-
cio’s 14th-century prose work “The
Decameron,” and Alessandro Man-
zoni’s 19th-century novel “The Be-
trothed.” Most Italians are familiar
with both works, which are standard
parts of their high school curriculum.
As part of the anti-contagion lock-
down, Italian schools have been
closed since early March all over the
country and since late February in
the northern regions worst hit by the
pandemic. A leading textbook pub-
lisher, Zanichelli, has published a
mini home-study curriculum which
deals with the scientific, literary,
mathematical and economic aspects
of epidemics, and many teachers
have given their housebound stu-
dents assignments related to the ex-
traordinary circumstances.
Domenico Squillace, principal of
Alessandro Volta Scientific High
School in Milan, wrote to his students
last month to urge them to spend
their time at home wisely, particu-
larly by reading “The Betrothed.”
Manzoni’s novel, considered the stan-
dard-setting classic of the modern
Italian language, is set in the early
17th century and tells the story of
two young people, Renzo and Lucia,
and their struggle to wed despite a
host of obstacles. Their quest is an al-
legory of the long journey to the uni-
fication of Italy as a modern nation-
state, achieved only in 1861, a dozen
years before the author’s death.
One of the calamities that the cou-
ple encounters in their odyssey is the
bubonic plague that struck Milan in

1630. Mr. Squillace recommended that

Continued from Page One

Studying a Curriculum

Of Plague Culture

the hope of gain or sheer malice. Mobs

attack some suspects, especially for-

eigners, and courts condemn others to

death. Those skeptical of the conspir-

acy theories are too in-

timidated to speak out.

“The angry seek to

punish,” Manzoni writes.

“They would rather at-

tribute adversity to hu-

man wickedness, against

which they might seek

revenge, than attribute it

to some cause to which

they can only resign

themselves.”

The book also offers

portraits of heroism, no-

tably of the Capuchin fri-

ars who gave their lives

caring for plague victims

in the city’s hospital des-

High-school senior

Lucio Marazza studies

at home in Milan

on Thursday.