Deborah De Rosa

Quantum mechanics presents one of the greatest challenges for scientific communication. Its mathematical formalism is remarkably successful in predicting phenomena, yet its conceptual framework resists intuitive understanding and clashes with the categories of classical thought. As a result, communication often falls into two extremes: either oversimplification, which risks distorting the content, or an excess of technical detail, which alienates the audience. This tension is not limited to science outreach: interpretive debates within the scientific community reveal that communication problems exist also among specialists. As Niels Bohr emphasized, “however far the phenomena transcend the scope of classical physical explanation, the account of all evidence must be expressed in classical terms”. This contribution aims to explore phenomenology as a communicative key for quantum mechanics. By drawing on Husserl’s principle of “returning to the things themselves,” the paper seeks to reframe quantum communication around the lived experience of observation and measurement, rather than treating the formalism as a detached and purely abstract structure. The goal is twofold: 1. To improve the clarity of scientific dialogue within the research community, offering a conceptual framework that reduces interpretive ambiguities. 2. To enhance science communication and outreach, making quantum theory more accessible without resorting to misleading analogies or metaphors.

The paper proposes a reflection on mathematical beauty, considering the possibility of aesthetic qualities for formal language. Through a concise overview of the way this question is understood by some famous scientists and mathematicians, we turn our attention to Gian-Carlo Rota’s theoretical proposal: his reflections as a mathematician and philosopher offer a perspective, of phenomenological matrix, fruitful for looking at the question. Rota’s contribution allows us to focus on the role of competence, acquired through effort, sedimentation and habit of repetition, in cultivating the potential to recognise the aesthetic quality of formal language. Finally, we draw on some contributions from Gestalt theory, closely connected to twentieth-century phenomenology for chronological and conceptual reasons, applying the idea of gestalt wholeness to the mathematical product and proposing some reflections that may help to clarify some of the dynamics underlying the attribution of qualities of beauty to formulas or the detection of its lack.

The aim of the paper is to investigate the text of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s conference The Film and the New Psychology, in order to deepen his choice of the seventh art as a paradigm for an idea of phenomenology based on the principle that every consciousness is, to a certain degree, perceptual consciousness. This paper aims to show how the reflection of the French philosopher gives cinema the status of a paradigm of the Gestalt phenomenon, highlighting its ability to restore visibility to expression and perception, through the – technical and artistic – reconstruction of the structure of behavior in its exteriority.