The increasing sensibility to the environment protection and emission reduction in the atmosphere is also influencing the maritime shipping. The more restrictive regulations on pollutants suggest the adoption of alternative onboard propulsion and energy generation systems. To this end, electrification is a promising solution for pollution reduction, giving some flexibility on the strategy to use for the onboard system. Moreover, a hybrid-electric system can be combined with the exploitation of green fuel, increasing the potential reduction of total emissions. However, the final efficiency, both in term of emission reduction and expected operative expenditure, is strongly influenced by the operative profile of the vessel. This is of utmost importance both in case of a newly designed vessel and in the retrofitting of an existing one. In the present work, the impact of electrification on a double-ended ferry is presented, taking into consideration the operative profile of the vessel derived from real navigation data.

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In 1972, at a symposium celebrating the 70th birthday of Paul Dirac, John Wheeler proclaimed that "the framework falls down for everything that one has ever called a law of physics". Responsible for this "breakage [. . . ] among the laws of physics" was the general theory of relativity, more specifically its prediction of massive stars gravitationally collapsing to "black holes", a term Wheeler himself had made popular some years earlier. In our paper, we investigate how Wheeler reached the conclusion that gravitational collapse calls into question the lawfulness of physics and how, subsequently, he tried to develop a new worldview, rethinking in his own way the lessons of quantum mechanics as well as drawing inspiration from other disciplines, not least biology.