Giorgio Parisi was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2021 for his studies on complex systems, he is often invited to give his views on a wide range of topics, and has a great ability to talk to people.
And that is why one of his speeches was the subject of one of the essays of this year's final high school exam: in that speech, held at the Italian Parliament in October 2021, he underlined the importance of teaching science from an early age, of investing in research and skills and of taking action to tackle climate change.
The lecture he gave today at the University of Trento, at Polo Ferrari 2, entitled "Multiple Equilibria in Natural Sciences", was well attended by the university community both in-person and online. He touched on different scientific topics but focused on the physics of complex systems. The event involved in particular the departments of Physics; Mathematics; Cellular, Computational and Integrative Biology; Civil, Environmental and Mechanical Engineering; Industrial Engineering; Information Engineering and Computer Science.
In the afternoon, room 7 at PovoZero was dedicated to Paolo Verrocchio, a researcher of the Physics Department of the University of Trento who passed away in January 2013 at°42.
This is the phrase that the scholars of the departments of Physics and Mathematics have engraved on the plaque: "This room is dedicated to Paolo Verrocchio, a researcher of the Department of Physics from 2005 to 2013, in memory of all the colleagues who have left us too soon". Verrocchio was also honoured in 2013 when a degree award for master's thesis in physics was named after him.
Paolo Verrocchio was born in Parma in June 1970 and grew up in Pescara, he graduated in Physics from the University of Bologna and earned his PhD at Sapienza University in Rome supervised by Giorgio Parisi. He joined the University of Trento in 2000 as a postdoc researcher, and became a permanent researcher in 2005. He was a very active member of the Interdisciplinary Laboratory of Computational Sciences, and for some time he had also led the Laboratory of Optical Spectroscopy. He participated in many international projects on the physics of matter, and collaborated to local studies on innovative materials and organic systems that can have applications in the medical, pharmaceuticals and biology sector.