In a Flight of Starlings: The Wonder of Complex Systems

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Part elegant scientific treatise, part thrilling intellectual journey, In a Flight of Starlings is an invitation to find wonder in the world around us. Giorgio Parisi is renowned for his scientific creativity, originality, and power. In this exhilarating little book, he shows his human side, too. By its end, readers will feel they've made a charming, witty new friend' - Frank Wilczek I didn’t really understand the preface which attempts to justify the book's existence. It says that events such as Covid and climate change mean ordinary people have to trust science and understand how scientists work, so I’m going to tell you about my work. There’s a logical disconnect here: his work may well be genuinely interesting, but it is not going to convince a single sceptic to accept vaccines or the need to take action on climate change. Yes, it was. For me, it’s very important to use metaphorical language. Sometimes, in popular science books, people write formulae. That would save a lot of time, but I would lose a lot of people because a formula that seems easy for me to read is harder for other people. So trying to describe some complex and sophisticated physics problem without formulae takes real effort.

Giorgio Parisi is renowned for his scientific creativity, originality, and power. In this exhilarating little book, he shows his human side, too. By its end, readers will feel they've made a charming, witty new friend' Frank Wilczek In this delightful and deeply thoughtful book, Giorgio Parisi weaves a tapestry of experiences and ideas that connects disciplines and prepares us to appreciate the beauty, importance, and cultural value of science Frances Arnold, winner of the Nobel Prize I sistemi complessi sono tutti quei sistemi lontani da uno stato di equilibrio, fatti di movimentati stati alternativi che producono comportamenti difficili da prevedere e stimare statisticamente As unlikely as it sounds, we’ve entered the age of the physics beach read—a breezy stroll through some branch of the science, with alternating touches of profundity and whimsy. Recent exemplars include Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli and Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson. The latest aspirant is In a Flight of Starlings, a slender, uneven collection of essays by Giorgio Parisi about his life in physics, from his student days in Rome to the work that won him a share of the 2021 Nobel Prize in physics.

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Entusiasmanti tutti i riferimenti alla storia della Fisica e a come la teoria sia frutto di continue osservazioni e congetture:

One direct descendant is artificial intelligence, in the sense that work on spin glasses has been very important for a lot of developments in studying neural networks in the 1980s and 90s, and neural networks are the basis of modern artificial intelligence. Parisi conclude il libro con la storia del possibile mancato premio Nobel negli anni settanta, quando era vicina l’intuizione di alcuni fenomeni del mondo delle particelle. Scrive anche dell’importanza dell’intuizione nella ricerca, ripercorrendo il programma di Hadamard e Poincaré. A detta dei due studiosi, la matematica è fatta di quattro fasi: studio del problema, incubazione, illuminazione e, poi, il periodo in cui si affronta direttamente il problema. L’intuizione della soluzione è per Parisi un aspetto fondamentale che riguarda il ragionamento inconscio, sulla scia di Einstein.From the 2021 Nobel Prize winner in Physics, an enlightening and personal journey into the practice of groundbreaking science A questo è dedicato il primo capitolo de In un volo di storni, che raccoglie anche e soprattutto i passi fatti nella sua formazione, gli inizi a Roma a La Sapienza , l’ingresso nel mondo della ricerca, la tesi sulle particelle elementari, il calcolo combinatorio, le fluttuazioni, e il "Je ne regrette rien " sul premio Nobel mancato a venticinque anni (ma vinto quest’anno) From the 2021 Nobel Prize winner in Physics, an enlightening and personal journey into the practice of groundbreaking science. Giorgio Parisi is renowned for his scientific creativity, originality, and power. In this exhilarating little book, he shows his human side, too. By its end, readers will feel they’ve made a charming, witty new friend.” —Frank Wilczek, winner of the Nobel Prize and author of Fundamentals