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Turning 60

Strange how time goes by. And strange I would say that, since I know time does not flow, it is...

On The Illusion Of Time And The Strange Economy Of Existence

I recently listened again to Richard Feynman explaining why the flowing of time is probably an...

RIP - Hans Jensen

Today I was saddened to hear of the passing of Hans Jensen, a physicist and former colleague in...

2026 Plans

This year opened in slow motion for me, at least work-wise. I have been on parental leave since...

Tommaso Dorigo

Tommaso Dorigo is an experimental particle physicist, who works for the INFN at the University of Padova, and collaborates with the CMS and the SWGO experiments. He is the president of the Read More »

Neuromorphic Computing For Physics Applications

May 21 2023 | comment(s)

The recent developments in artificial intelligence, most notably the demonstration of the weird power of GPT4 and other large language models, have brought the scientific community to ponder on some very foundational questions - What is conscience? What is intelligence? Can machines really think? Can machines really become conscient?
(Below, the answer of ChatGPT to my silly question on self-awareness.)

Joint PhD Positions In Physics And Computer Science Available In Europe

May 11 2023 | comment(s)

The call for applications to Ph.D. positions at the University of Padova opened yesterday, and it will remain active for less than one month (deadline is June 7th at 1PM CEST).

Science Without Borders - A Message From The USERN President

May 09 2023 | comment(s)

The USERN organization (Universal Scientific Education and Research Network) will soon issue its next bulletin, to which I contribute with an opening message in the function of the president of the organization. I thought the contents of the message would be of some interest to some of my readers here, so I decided to attach below my original text. Before we go there, though, I would invite all of you to learn about USERN by visiting its web site, and consider becoming a member (it is free!) - or even better, if you share our views, support us!

A message from the USERN President

On Language And Intelligence

Apr 30 2023 | comment(s)

A revolution is taking place, but we seem to not yet realize it.
Paradigm shifting technologies often produce an abrupt transition when they get adopted. However, that transition is not easy to recognize early on: the effects of an exponential trend appear linear at the begninning, so the explosive force of the transition that occurs a little later takes many by surprise.

Systematic Uncertainties

Apr 23 2023 | comment(s)

Today I am traveling to Banff, a pleasant mountain resort in western Canada, to attend a workshop on systematic uncertainties. Yes, you heard that right - a bunch of physicists and statisticians will be gathering in a secluded location for a whole week, with the sole purpose of debating on that exotic topic. How weird is that? I bet most of you don't think much of systematic uncertainties. What are they, anyway?

Known unknowns

April Plans

Apr 09 2023 | comment(s)

A long time ago, this column used to report a lot of detail of my personal life and of daily news about my work-related travel and activities. The site does offer two modalities for posts: article-type and blog-type; this determines where they appear in the main science20 site (this text is classified as blog-type, so it will be listed in the column on the center-right in the main page of Science20). This built-in feature invited the kind of blogging style I already had before, so when I moved here in April 2009 (gosh, it's been a while!), it was a seamless manouver.