Giorgio Parisi

Giorgio Parisi

Giorgio Parisi
Born (1948-08-04) August 4, 1948
Rome, Italy
Residence Rome, Italy
Nationality Italian
Fields physicist
Institutions Sapienza Università di Roma
Alma mater Sapienza Università di Roma
Notable students Enzo Marinari, Roberto Benzi, Guido Martinelli, Francesco Fucito, Zhang Yi-Cheng, Massimo Bernaschi, Raffaella Burioni, Giulia Iori, Romeo Brunetti, Federico Ricci-Tersenghi, Andrea Cavagna, Irene Giardina, Francesco Zamponi
Known for statistical mechanics, quantum field theory, spin glass, complex systems
Notable awards Boltzmann Medal
Dirac Medal
Enrico Fermi Award
Dannie Heineman Prize
Nonino Prize
Microsoft Award
Lagrange Prize
Max Planck Medal
EPS HEPP Prize
Lars Onsager Prize

Giorgio Parisi (born August 4, 1948) is an Italian theoretical physicist, whose research has focused on quantum field theory, statistical mechanics and complex systems. His best known contributions are the QCD evolution equations for parton densities known as the Altarelli-Parisi or DGLAP equations, the exact solution of the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model of spin glasses, the Kardar–Parisi–Zhang equation describing dynamic scaling of growing interfaces, and the study of whirling flocks of birds.[1]

Career highlights

Giorgio Parisi received his degree from the University of Rome La Sapienza in 1970 under the supervision of Nicola Cabibbo. He was a researcher at the Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati (1971–1981) and a visiting scientist at the Columbia University (1973–1974), Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (1976–1977), and École Normale Supérieure (1977–1978). From 1981 until 1992 he was a full professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Rome Tor Vergata and he is now professor of Quantum Theories at the Sapienza University of Rome. He is a member of the Simons Collaboration "Cracking the Glass Problem".[2]

Honors and awards

Giorgio Parisi is a member of the Accademia dei Lincei and a foreign member of the French Academy of Sciences[3] and the United States National Academy of Sciences.[4]

"Giorgio Parisi, Professor at the University of Rome, is a theoretical physicist of exceptional depth and scope. He has contributed at the highest level to particle physics, computer science, fluid mechanics, theoretical immunology, etc. etc. Today we honor him for his outstanding contributions to statistical physics, and particularly to the theories of phase transitions and of disordered systems. Among these many contributions, I would specifically mention Parisi's early work in which he showed how conformal invariance can be used in a quantitative way to calculate critical exponents. He was also the first to really understand that one can derive critical exponents through expansions of the beta function at fixed dimensions, avoiding the convergence problems of the epsilon-expansion. The opened the way to the current best theoretical estimates of exponents. Another important achievement concerns the mapping of the branched polymer problem in d dimensions onto that of the Lee–Yang edge singularity on d − 2 dimensions. Most recently, Parisi's work on interfaces in disordered media and on the dynamics of growing interfaces has had a large impact on these fields. However, Parisi's deepest contribution concerns the solution of the Sherrington–Kirkpatrick mean field model for spin glasses. After the crisis caused by the unacceptable properties of the simple solutions, which used the "replication trick", Parisi proposed his replica symmetry breaking solution, which seems to be exact, although much more complex than anticipated. Later, Parisi and co-workers Mezard and Virasoro clarified greatly the physical meaning of the mysterious mathematics involved in this scheme, in terms of the probability distribution of overlaps and the ultrametric structure of the configuration space. This achievement forms one of the most important breakthroughs in the history of disordered systems. This discovery opened the doors to vast areas of application. e.g., in optimization problems and in neural network theories.The Boltzmann Medal for 1992 is hereby awarded to Giorgio Parisi for his fundamental contributions to statistical physics, and particularly for his solution of the mean field theory of spin glasses."[5]
"Giorgio Parisi is distinguished for his original and deep contributions to many areas of physics ranging from the study of scaling violations in deep inelastic processes (Altarelli–Parisi equations), the proposal of the superconductor's flux confinement model as a mechanism for quark confinement, the use of supersymmetry in statistical classical systems, the introduction of multifractals in turbulence, the stochastic differential equation for growth models for random aggregation (the Kardar–Parisi–Zhang equation) and his groundbreaking analysis of the replica method that has permitted an important breakthrough in our understanding of glassy systems and has proved to be instrumental in the whole subject of Disordered Systems."[6]
"For his contributions to field theory and statistical mechanics, and in particular for his fundamental results concerning the statistical properties of disordered systems."[7]
"For fundamental theoretical discoveries in broad areas of elementary particle physics, quantum field theory, and statistical mechanics; especially for work on spin glasses and disordered systems."[8]
"World-famous theoretic physicist, Giorgio Parisi is an investigator of the unpredictable, this means of all that happens in the real world and of its probable laws. A pioneer of complexity, his research of rules and balances inside chaotic systems hypothesizing mathematical instruments, may take to great discoveries in all the fields of human knowledge, from immunology to cosmology. His is a research of the next “Ariadne’s thread” of the labyrinth of our existence."[9]
"He has made outstanding contributions to elementary particle physics, quantum field theory and statistical mechanics, in particular to the theory of phase transitions and replica symmetry breaking for spin glasses. His approach of using computers to corroborate the conclusions of analytical proofs and to actively motivate further research has been of fundamental importance in his field."
“For his significant contributions in theoretical elementary particle physics and quantum field theory and statistical physics, especially of systems with frozen disorder, especially spin glasses."[11]
“For developing a probabilistic field theory framework for the dynamics of quarks and gluons, enabling a quantitative understanding of high-energy collisions involving hadrons”.[13]
“For groundbreaking work applying spin glass ideas to ensembles of computational problems, yielding both new classes of efficient algorithms and new perspectives on phase transitions in their structure and complexity”.[14]

Activism

Since 2016, Giorgio Parisi has been leading the movement "Salviamo la Ricerca Italiana" to put pressure on the Italian and European governments to start funding basic research above the subsistence level.[15]

Selected publications

References

External links

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