The University of Bologna awards the Sigillum Magnum to Giorgio Parisi

On Monday 28 November, at 5 PM, in the Aula Magna of Santa Lucia (Via Castiglione, 36 -Bologna), Giorgio Parisi, Nobel Laureate in Physics 2021, will be awarded the University of Bologna's Sigillum Magnum. After the greetings of Rector Giovanni Molari, Prof. Pierluigi Contucci (Professor in Mathematical Physics) will give an introduction on the great scholar and physicist, who will follow with a Lecture entitled "Science and Peace”. Finally, Rector Molari will present him with the University's Sigillum Magnum.

How can science help the peace process? What will be the situation in the world in ten to twenty years?

In his lecture to the University of Bologna and city community, Giorgio Parisi will pose these and other questions to reflect on science and its direct role in peace building.

Science as a global enterprise capable of establishing links and bridges between people from different countries.

History has shown that science has not always been used for peace and, today, in the face of the crisis that is shaking the world, it should be used to spread awareness and opportunities for dialogue.

Giorgio Parisi, among the world's best physicists, is best known for his discovery of the relationship between disorder and fluctuations in physical systems from the scale of atoms to that of planets.

Born in Rome, after graduating in physics from Sapienza University of Rome in 1970, he worked as a researcher at INFN's (National Institute for Nuclear Physics) Frascati National Laboratories and spent several study periods abroad (at Columbia University in New York, the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques in Bures-sur-Yvettes, France and the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris).

He taught physics at the University of Rome Tor Vergata and at Sapienza University of Rome; he was a corresponding member and then a national member of the Accademia dei Lincei where, in 2018, he was appointed president until 2021.

He has received many prizes and awards, including the Feltrinelli Prize for Physics, Chemistry and Applications (1986) and the Dirac Medal for his original contributions in many areas of theoretical physics (1999). In 1992, he received the Boltzmann Medal for his contributions to the theory of disordered systems, and in 2021, he was awarded the prestigious Wolf Prize for Physics, joining the Clarivate Citation Laureates, who include researchers whose scientific publications are among the most cited in the world. In the same year, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics “or the discovery of the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems from atomic to planetary scales.” Also in 2021, he was awarded the title of Cavaliere di Gran Croce of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.