Giuliano Preparata
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Giuliano Preparata, (Padova, Italy, 1942 - Frascati, Italy, 2000) was an Italian physicist.
He attended the High School Umberto I of Rome (the same as Enrico Fermi), and graduated in Theoretical Physics with honors in 1964. The following year he was in Florence with a CNR grant, later to become appointed as Professor. From 1967 to 1972 he taught at most prestigious American Universities: Princeton University, Harvard University, Rockefeller New York University. From 1974 to 1980 he was Staff Member in the Theory Division of CERN (Geneva).
Preparata has dedicated great part of his scientific activity to High Energy Physics giving fundamental contributions to the construction of Standard Model, the new synthesis of the subnuclear interactions. In particular he clarified the nature of the Dirac quantistic field of Quarks, a fundamental premise for the electroweak unification, and he proposed a solution to the crucial problem of Colour confinement in Quantum chromodynamics (QCD) based on a non-perturbative analysis of the ground state of QCD. His analysis reveals the existence of a non-trivial ground state of QCD and constitutes an important step forward in our understanding of interacting quantum fields. From 1987 his attention turned to problems in the field of condensed matter and to nuclear physics, that he tackled armed with the picture of Quantum Field Theory. Preparata discovered that condensed matter systems, at low enough temperature and high enough density will spontaneously develop new coherent solutions of Quantum electrodynamics (QED). This allowed him to face old problems, like liquid water theory, and new ones, like cold fusion, from a completely new point of view that still appears very promising. Moreover he developed with Cecilia Saccone (Molecular Biology Professor of University of Bary, Italy) a Markov model of molecular evolution. He published approximately 400 papers in the following fields: subnuclear physics, nuclear physics, physics of lasers, superconductivity, superfluidity, liquid and solid water, condensed matter (glasses, colloids, electrolytes, etc), physics of neutron stars, astrophysics of Gamma ray bursts, cold fusion. A fierce and stubborn character, Preparata often encountered open obstracism from his peers. He liked to reconnect his ideas in Theoretical Physics to those of Realism.
In his last years he taught at the Department of Physics, University of Milan, Italy, where he was most influential on a generation of young physicists. He died in Frascati in 2000.
[edit] See also
[edit] Books
- "Probing Hadrons with Leptons", Plenum Press, 1980
- "QED Coherence in Matter", World Scientific, 1995
- "An Introduction to a Realistic Quantum Physics" , World Scientific, 2002
- "L'architettura Dell'universo : Lezioni Popolari Di Fine Secolo Su Ciò Che La Scienza è Riuscita a Capire Sulla Struttura Dell'Universo", Bibliopolis, 2001
- "Dai Quark Ai Cristalli : Breve Storia Di Un Lungo Viaggio Dentro La Materia", Bollati Boringhieri, 2002
