Piergiorgio Odifreddi facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Piergiorgio Odifreddi
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| Born | 13 July 1950 |
| Nationality | Italian |
| Occupation | Mathematician |
Piergiorgio Odifreddi (born on July 13, 1950, in Cuneo, Italy) is an Italian mathematician and logician. He is also a writer who makes science easy to understand for everyone. He writes about many topics, including the history of science and his ideas on atheism, which means not believing in God. He is a member of the Italian Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics (UAAR). His ideas are similar to those of famous thinkers like Bertrand Russell and Noam Chomsky.
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Early Life and Learning
Piergiorgio Odifreddi was born in Cuneo, a city in the Piedmont region of Italy. He studied mathematics at the University of Turin and graduated with top honors in 1973.
After that, he continued his studies in other countries. He went to the United States, studying at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and UCLA between 1978 and 1980. He also studied in the Soviet Union at Novosibirsk State University in 1982 and 1983.
Teaching and Research
From 1983 to 2007, Odifreddi taught logic at the University of Turin in Italy. Logic is a part of mathematics and philosophy that deals with reasoning and arguments.
He also spent time as a visiting professor at Cornell University in the United States from 1985 to 2003. There, he worked with other important mathematicians like Anil Nerode and Richard Shore. He also taught at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University from 2001 to 2003.
Odifreddi was a visiting professor in many other places around the world:
- Monash University in Melbourne, Australia (1988)
- The Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, China (1992 and 1995)
- Nanjing University in China (1998)
- Buenos Aires University in Argentina (2001)
- The Italian Academy at Columbia University in the United States (2006)
His main area of research is called computability theory. This is a part of mathematical logic that explores which problems can be solved automatically by computers or step-by-step processes. He wrote about 30 articles on this topic and a very important two-volume book called Classical Recursion Theory. This book is now a key text for students and researchers in the field.
Writing and Media
Piergiorgio Odifreddi is a well-known writer. He has written articles and book reviews for La rivista dei libri, which is the Italian version of the New York Review of Books. He also regularly writes for Le Scienze, the Italian version of Scientific American.
He has contributed to several Italian newspapers, including La Repubblica and La Stampa, and the weekly magazine L'Espresso. He has also appeared on Italian radio and TV stations like Radio Tre, RAI Due, and RAI Tre, where he discussed many scientific topics.
Odifreddi has written many popular books that explain logic, mathematics, geometry, and other scientific subjects in an easy-to-understand way. His books often cover a wide range of topics, including philosophy and literature. He has also written books about politics and his views on Christianity.
Political Views
Piergiorgio Odifreddi's political ideas are strongly shaped by the thoughts of Bertrand Russell and Noam Chomsky. He has often spoken out against certain policies, especially those of the United States and Israel. He wrote about these views in books like Non siamo tutti americani (We are not all Americans), La dannata Terra Santa (The Damned Holy Land), and Intervista a Hitler (Interview with Hitler) in his book Il matematico impertinente (The Impertinent Mathematician).
In 2012, his views on Israel caused some discussion. An article he wrote on his blog for la Repubblica about the Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip was removed. Because of this, he closed his blog for a few years, but later reopened it.
Radio and Television Appearances
Piergiorgio Odifreddi has appeared on Italian TV more than 400 times. Some of his notable radio shows include:
- 2002 – Chi ha ucciso Fermat? (Who Killed Fermat?), 20 episodes on Radio2.
- 2004 – Vite da logico (Lives of a Logician), 20 episodes on Radio2.
- 2008 – In Cammino verso Santiago de Compostela (Walking Towards Santiago de Compostela), 33 episodes on Radio3.
- 2009 – A tutto Darwin (All About Darwin), 5 episodes on Radio3, including interviews with Dario Fo.
- 2009 – Buon compleanno, Darwin! (Happy Birthday, Darwin!), 20 episodes on Radio2.
- 2009 – A tutto Galileo (All About Galileo), 5 episodes on Radio3, with interviews with Roberto Benigni and Riccardo Giacconi.
Awards and Honors
Piergiorgio Odifreddi has received several awards for his work:
- 1998 – Galileo Prize from the Italian Mathematical Union.
- 2002 – Peano Prize from Mathesis.
- 2005 – Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, a high honor in Italy.
Selected Books
Piergiorgio Odifreddi has written many books, both for academic study and for a general audience.
Popular Books
- Il Vangelo secondo la Scienza (The Gospel According to Science), 1999
- La matematica del Novecento (The Mathematics of the 20th Century), 2000
- This book was translated into English as The Mathematical Century: The 30 greatest problems of the last 100 years, 2004
- Il computer di Dio (God's Computer), 2000
- C'era una volta un paradosso (Once upon a time there was a paradox), 2001
- La repubblica dei numeri (The Republic of Numbers), 2002
- Il diavolo in cattedra. La logica matematica da Aristotele a Kurt Gödel (The Devil in the Professor's Chair: Mathematical Logic from Aristotle to Kurt Goedel), 2003
- Divertimento geometrico – Da Euclide ad David Hilbert (Geometric Diversions – From Euclid to Hilbert), 2003
- Le menzogne di Ulisse. L'avventura della logica da Parmenide ad Amartya Sen (Ulysses' Lies. The Adventure of Logic from Parmenides to Amartya Sen), 2004
- Il matematico impertinente (The Impertinent Mathematician), 2005
- Idee per diventare matematico (Ideas for becoming a mathematician), 2005
- Incontri con menti straordinarie (Meetings with Extraordinary Minds), 2006
- Che cos'è la logica? (What is Logic?), 2006
- La scienza espresso: Note brevi, semibrevi e minime per una biblioteca scientifica universale (Science Express), 2006
- Perché non-possiamo essere cristiani (e meno che mai cattolici) (Why we cannot be Christians (much less Catholics)), 2007
- In principio era Darwin. La vita, il pensiero, il dibattito sull'evoluzionismo (In Principle it was Darwin. Life, Thought and the Debate about Evolutionism), 2009
- Hai vinto, Galileo! La vita, il pensiero, il dibattito su scienza e fede (You Won, Galileo! Life, Thought and the Debate on Science and Faith), 2009
- C'è spazio per tutti. Il grande racconto della geometria (There's Space for Everyone. The Grand Tale of Geometry), 2010
See also
In Spanish: Piergiorgio Odifreddi para niños
