Head of the Departmental Group of Mathematical Physics

Coordinator of the Local research group on Mathematical Methods for Physics BELL at TIFPA-INFN

"La filosofia è scritta in questo grandissimo libro che continuamente ci sta aperto innanzi a gli occhi (io dico l'universo), ma non si puo' intendere se prima non s'impara a intender la lingua, e conoscer i  caratteri, ne' quali è scritto. Egli è scritto in lingua matematica, e i suoi caratteri sono triangoli, cerchi, ed altre figure geometriche, senza i quali mezzi è impossibile a intenderne umanamente parola; senza questi è un aggirarsi vanamente per un oscuro labirinto."

(English translation: ''Philosophy is written in that great book which continually lies open before us (I mean  the Universe). But one cannot understand this book until one has learned to understand the language and to know the letters in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and the letters are triangles, circles and other geometric figures. Without these means it is impossible for mankind to understand a single word; without these means there is only vain stumbling in a dark labyrinth.'' )

Galileo Galilei  (Il Saggiatore, 1623)

"The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. We should be grateful for it and hope that it will remain valid in future research and that it will extend, for better or for worse, to our pleasure, even though perhaps also to our bafflement, to wide branches of learning."

Eugene Wigner (Comm.Pure.Appl.Math. Vol. 13, No 1, February 1960 )