Majorana Legacy in Contemporary Physics

Ettore Majorana (1906-1938) passed through theoretical physics like a meteor. In fact, his official fundamental papers are just nine. They were all written in the short period from 1928 to 1933. They are audacious and strongly beautiful works which impose themselves over and over again on any generation of theoretical physicists as the paradigm of a style able to fuse - by a singular critical thinking - both the attention for the experimental data and the freedom of theoretical reasoning in a mathematical formulation reaching the essential core of the problem. During the last years, a new kind of interest for Majorana legacy has grown. The widening of theoretical physics’ spheres has favoured an increasing awareness of the deep connection between symmetries and interactions, and a renewed conception of theoretical physics and mathematics relation. How Roger Penrose effectively wrote, the deeper our understanding of physical laws becomes, the more we penetrate into the abstract world of mathematical concepts. Which thing allowed the new generation of theorists to get out new topics from Majorana work and to approach theoretical physics according to what we can define as the Majorana style. This anthology has been thought not only as an owed celebrative act, but especially as a meeting of researchers on some presently debated aspects in physics in Majorana spirit.