Nobel Laureate Finds Key Insights About Complex Systems in Bird Flight | Giorgio Parisi (#359)

How does a Nobel Prize winner create ideas and bring them to life? What can starlings teach us about physics? And what is a spin glass?

Here today, to take us on a fascinating journey from bird flocks to condensed matter physics is none other than Nobel Prize laureate Giorgio Parisi. Giorgio is an Italian theoretical physicist and author of many wonderful works, such as In a Flight of Starlings: The Wonders of Complex Systems, which we will discuss in detail in this episode.

Giorgio is an incredibly inspiring mind who has contributed so much to our understanding of nature and complex systems, and it was an honor to interview him!

Tune in. 

Key Takeaways: 

• Intro (00:00)
• Judging a book by its cover: In a Flight of Starlings (00:38)
• Nicola Cabibbo as an advisor (07:10)
• Why do starlings form murmurations? (12:12)
• Giorgio’s work on spin glasses (22:04)
• How Giorgio lost the Nobel Prize (29:38)
• Can scientists work in isolation? (35:10)
• How ideas are born (38:28)
• Room-temperature superconductivity (43:08)
• Increasing scientific funding in the European governments (45:18)
• Science communication (48:59)
• Outro (54:15)

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Additional resources: 

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📚 In a Flight of Starlings by Giorgio Parisi: https://a.co/d/705ROGE  

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