Rome, September 30, 2026 — With an entirely free program designed for audiences of all ages, the Researchers’ Night confirmed its role as a unique opportunity to engage with researchers and understand the impact of scientific work on our daily lives. Once again this year, CREF participated with its own stand at the NET Village, set up in the spaces of the Città dell’Altra Economia in Rome on September 25 and 26, 2026, offering special activities linked to its research lines and the Museum.
Among the workshops dedicated to younger children, we brought back “Particle Memory” and “Si fa presto a dire blu!” (“Easier Said Than Blue!”), a play-workshop on science and archaeology hosted by the Cultural Heritage Physics Laboratory. Older visitors, meanwhile, were fascinated by how the Brunsviga works—a mechanical calculator from the early 20th century—and a video game about cosmic rays.
In the Speed Date space, researchers shared their work one-on-one with the public, encouraging direct interaction. For the Neuroscience and Neuroimaging line, Maria Guidi and Matteo Mancini illustrated how functional magnetic resonance imaging allows us to discover brain behavior at rest (when it seems like we are doing nothing) and map it by tracking the water that composes it. Marco Garbini and Fabrizio Coccetti instead took visitors into space, sharing discoveries about cosmic rays and the history of lunar exploration.
On the NET Village stage, Stefano Cecchini and Bianca Buccilli, research fellows and guides at the CREF Museum, performed the play “Edoardo and Ginestra Amaldi and the Mysteries of Light,” which they entirely wrote, directed, and acted in. Having previously been performed at the Città della Scienza in Naples last May on International Day of Light, the play was presented again during Researchers’ Night in an expanded version. The show transported the audience into the atmosphere of the unforgettable Via Panisperna years and the dramatic post-war era, telling the story of the Amaldi couple’s difficult choice to remain in Italy to rebuild the national scientific community.
The heart of the show was the “duet” between the two protagonists: through amusing bickering and verbal sparring, Stefano and Bianca recreated the couple’s real communicative dynamic on stage. On one hand, Edoardo’s rigor and elevated scientific language; on the other, Ginestra’s sensitivity, capable of revealing the complexity of formulas through metaphors and simple, accessible, and poetic language. The activity was inspired by the pioneering science communication work carried out by Ginestra Giovene Amaldi and the physics textbooks co-authored with her husband. The narrative then concluded back at the stand with small experiments and games on light.