Ghirardi, G.C. 1935- (Gian Carlo Ghirardi)

PERSONAL:

Born October 28, 1935. Education: University of Milan, degree (summa cum laude), 1959.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, MB Rm. 210, Strada Costiera 11, 34014 Trieste, Italy. E-mail—ghirardi@ictp.it.

CAREER:

Theoretical physicist. University of Parma, Parma, Italy, assistant professor, 1962-76; University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy, assistant professor, 1962-76, professor of quantum mechanics, 1976—, member of personnel committee, 1979-87, director, Institute of Theoretical Physics, 1981-85, director, Department of Theoretical Physics, 1985-91, 1993-99. Director of "Foundations of Quantum Mechanics" section, Interdisciplinary Laboratory of the International School for Advanced Studies, Trieste, 1991-97. Member of directory board, Consorzio per l'incremento degli Studi e Ricerche in Fisica, 1990—, president, 1993—.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Académie International de Philosophie des Sciences, Bruxelles, Belgium, elected as one of twenty-seven Membres ordinaries, 2007.

WRITINGS:

(With A.O. Barut and P. Codero) Crossing Symmetry in the 0(4,2) Formulation of the Dirac Theory, International Atomic Energy Agency, International Centre for Theoretical Physics (Trieste, Italy), 1968.

(With L. Fonda) Symmetry Principles in Quantum Physics, M. Dekker (New York, NY), 1970.

(With others) The Stochastic Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics: A Critical Review, Editrice Compositori (Bologna, Italy), 1978.

(Editor, with G. Denardo and T. Weber) Group Theoretical Methods in Physics: Proceedings of the XIIth International Colloquium, Held at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy, September 5-11, 1983, Springer-Verlag (New York, NY), 1984.

(Editor, with Giovanna Corsi and Maria Luisa dalla Chiara) Bridging the Gap: Philosophy, Mathematics, and Physics; Lectures on the Foundations of Science, Kluwer Academic (Boston, MA), 1993.

Un'occhiata alle carte di Dio: Gli interrogativi che la scienza moderna pone all'uomo, Il saggiatore (Milano, Italy), 1997, translation by Gerald Malsbary published as Sneaking a Look at God's Cards: Unraveling the Mysteries of Quantum Mechanics, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 2004, revised edition, 2005.

Also author or coauthor of more than 170 papers, almost all in international journals or in the proceedings of international conferences.

SIDELIGHTS:

Theoretical physicist G.C. Ghirardi's Sneaking a Look at God's Cards: Unraveling the Mysteries of Quantum Mechanics is a general look at both the history of and current research into quantum mechanics. "Recent years have seen great progress in constructing macroscopic systems that behave in characteristically quantum-mechanical fashion, together with possible revolutionary applications of such systems in quantum cryptography and quantum computation," declared Peter Woit in the American Scientist. "The long-standing interpretational problems of quantum mechanics may be significantly clarified as they become directly relevant to this important new technology." "Ghirardi provides both a retrospective account that gives readers a sense from whence quantum mechanics has come," declared a Science News contributor, "and a prospective analysis that suggests what's on the horizon."

Quantum theory had its origins in the nineteenth century, through attempts to explain the ways in which light appeared to move. Since a revised quantum theory emerged in the 1920s, however, scientists have used the explanation of the relationship between matter and energy to understand physical principles on both the subatomic and the interstellar levels. Unlike relativity theory, the development of which has been credited largely to one man—Albert Einstein—quantum theory was the work of a number of important physicists, including Niels Bohr, Louis de Broglie, Max Born, Paul Dirac, Werner Heisenberg, Wolfgang Pauli, Erwin Schrödinger, Julian Schwinger, Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, Richard Feynman, and Murray Gell-Mann. Each of these thinkers contributed something important to the ideas underlying quantum theory, but each also protested that the theory was not complete, and that it could not explain the complexities of atomic motion. Bohr and his school replaced the idea that science can exactly describe the position of subatomic particles with concepts of probability. Others, including Einstein himself, came to believe that the mysteries posed by quantum mechanics show that our understanding of the universe's basic operation is flawed at best. The debate about quantum theory and the ways in which it describes the workings of the universe continues to this day.

The impact of the foundations laid by these theorists on modern life is both unprecedented and not well understood by the scientific layman; modern products, including nuclear power and semiconductors (the basis for modern digital technology), all rely on our understanding of quantum behavior for their operation. Sneaking a Look at God's Cards also suggests that in- novations in computer technology, such as superconductive materials and perhaps even a computer chip that works on an atomic level, could result from the implications of quantum theory. "Ghirardi's book," concluded Woit, "provides a careful, evenhanded and well-thought-out introduction to this timely topic."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Scientist, September 1, 2005, "Grappling with Quantum Weirdness," p. 474.

Science Books & Films, September 1, 2004, Barry R. Masters, review of Sneaking a Look at God's Cards: Unraveling the Mysteries of Quantum Mechanics, p. 202.

Science News, March 12, 2005, review of Sneaking a Look at God's Cards, p. 175.

ONLINE

Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics Web site,http://www.ictp.trieste.it/ (February 26, 2008), "Giancarlo Ghirardi."