In a Flight of Starlings: The Wonder of Complex Systems

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In a Flight of Starlings: The Wonder of Complex Systems

In a Flight of Starlings: The Wonder of Complex Systems

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An interesting collection of essays reflecting on Parisi's long career in science . . . The scientific explanations are admirably lucid The Wall Street Journal This was completely unexpected. It’s a bit like what happens on crowded buses, where frequently the crush is greatest near the doors, where passengers who have just got on accumulate, together with those who are about to get off and others still who want to continue their journey.

La scienza deve essere difesa non solo per i suoi aspetti pratici, ma anche per il suo valore culturale. […] bisogna rendere la popolazione consapevole di cos’è la scienza, di come la scienza e la cultura si intreccino l’una con l’altra, sia nel loro sviluppo storico sia nella pratica dei nostri giorni. Bisogna spiegare in maniera non magica cosa fanno gli scienziati viventi, quali sono le sfide attuali. Non è facile, specialmente per le scienze dure dove la matematica ha un ruolo essenziale; tuttavia con un certo sforzo si possono ottenere ottimi risultati." La scienza è come il sesso, ha anche delle conseguenze pratiche, ma non è questo il motivo per cui la facciamo» diceva Richard Feynman, uno dei più grandi fisici del Novecento e forse il più simpatico.”

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 It’s refreshing to see a scientist discuss the fuzzy side of scientific thinking, and not just during the early, groping stages but in the technical phases of a project, too. How can we promote this trust? Clearly it is not enough for scientists themselves to simply say “trust us.” It is also not enough to write scholarly articles about how science works. We must, as the saying goes, show our work: demonstrate in an engaging way how scientists toil, doubt, succeed, and fail. It is important to understand how scientific consensus is achieved, how individual discoveries become validated by the scientific community. La natura dei sistemi complessi si spiega attraverso la continua osservazione non solo delle componenti, ma anche del modo in cui le stesse interagiscono tra di loro. 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.

The world is shaped by complexity. In this enlightening book, Nobel Prize winner Giorgio Parisi guides us through his unorthodox yet exhilarating work to show us how. It all starts with investigating the principles of physics by observing the sophisticated flight patterns of starlings. Studying the movements of these birds, he has realized, proves an illuminating way into understanding complex systems of all kinds – collections of everything from atoms to planets to other animals like ourselves. 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 in Chemistry From the PublisherGiorgio Parisi is remarkably flexible and ingenious... In a Flight of Starlings is a compelling introduction to how modern researchers think about complex systems, enlivened by autobiographical anecdote and reflection on the processes of science Sean Carroll, The Times Literary Supplement Much of this intuition is unconscious and, while still grounded in physical brain processes, remains murky and hard to reconstruct. And for whatever reason, that vagueness makes scientists uncomfortable. “In almost all texts written by scientists,” Parisi notes, “these themes are taboo.” So it’s refreshing to see a scientist, especially one of Parisi’s stature, honestly discuss the fuzzy side of scientific thinking, and not just during the early, groping stages but in the technical phases of a project, too. “The physicist sometimes uses mathematics ungrammatically,” he admits, “a license that we grant to poets” as well. It was neither birds nor water molecules that won Mr. Parisi the 2021 Nobel Prize, but discoveries stemming from a different kind of complex system. Atoms in a solid can be viewed as miniature magnets, called spins, whose north poles usually point in random directions. Yet like birds influencing one another’s flight, the spins of iron atoms have a tendency to copy their nearest neighbors; and if a hot lump of iron is cooled below a certain critical temperature, all the spins come into precise alignment, making the whole lump magnetic. The metal is then said to have undergone a phase transition, similar to water crystallizing as ice." Along the way, he reflects on the lessons he has taken from a life in pursuit of scientific truth: the importance of serendipity to the discovery of new ideas, the surprising kinship between physics and other disciplines, and the value of science to a thriving society. In so doing, he removes the practice of science from the confines of the laboratory and brings it into the real world. Per questa ragione ero andato ad ascoltarlo direttamente in un una sua peraltro affollatissima conferenza.

In between, there are chapters on Italian physicists he knows, his own history, which began in university in the keystone year of 1968, which he explains in detail, and anecdotes about other physicists and school in Italy. An interesting collection of essays reflecting on [Parisi’s] long career in science . . . The scientific explanations are admirably lucid.” — The Wall Street JournalParisi tells of his adventures in thinking in this alarmingly brilliant, witty and brief book Robert Fox, Evening Standard You caused quite a stir in Italy recently when you claimed to have found a more energy efficient way to make pasta, by turning the heat off and putting the lid on two minutes after adding the pasta to boiling water.



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