Piergiorgio Odifreddi

Piergiorgio Odifreddi
Born (1950-07-13) 13 July 1950
Cuneo
Nationality Italian
Occupation Mathematician

Piergiorgio Odifreddi (born 13 July 1950 in Cuneo) is an Italian mathematician, logician and aficionado of the history of science, who is also extremely active as a popular science writer and essayist, especially in a perspective of philosophical atheism as a member of the Italian Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics. He is philosophically and politically near to Bertrand Russell and Noam Chomsky.

Early life and education

Born in Cuneo in the Piedmont, he received his Laurea cum laude in mathematics in Turin in 1973. He then specialized in the United States at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and UCLA from 1978 and 1980, and in the Soviet Union at Novosibirsk State University in 1982 and 1983.

Teaching career

From 1983 to 2007, he taught logic at the University of Turin, and from 1985 to 2003 he was visiting professor at Cornell University, where he collaborated with Anil Nerode, Richard Platek, and Richard Shore. From 2001 to 2003 he taught at Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, which was founded by Luigi Maria Verzé.[1]

He has been visiting professor at Monash University in Melbourne in 1988, the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing in 1992 and in 1995, the Università di Nanchino in 1998, Buenos Aires Universitt in 2001 and the Italian Academy at Columbia University in 2006.[2]

Writing

He has written editorials and books reviews for La rivista dei libri (the Italian edition of the New York Review of Books), is a regular contributor to Le Scienze (the Italian edition of Scientific American), and has also written for several newspapers such as La Repubblica, La Stampa and the weekly L'Espresso. The television stations Radio Tre, RAI Due and RAI Tre have hosted many of his discussions on various scientific topics.

Political Views

Odifreddi was heavily influenced by Bertrand Russell and Noam Chomsky.[3] He repeatedly manifested his opposition to US policies, in particular against that of George W. Bush and Israel, as indicated in his writings Non siamo tutti americani,[4] La dannata Terra Santa[5] and the controversial Intervista a Hitler,[6] in his book Il matematico impertinente.

His views on Israel "immodestly inspired" by José Saramago and Noam Chomsky caused protests, which led to the deletion of an editorial he wrote in his blog at la Repubblica on November 2012,[7] where he talked about the Israeli incursion in the Gaza Strip. In protest of the censorship, he decided to close his blog with a bitter post,[8][9] eventually re-opening it years later.

Radio and Television

Odifreddi had over 400 TV appearances in Italy, the most notable being:

Other activities

Piergiorgio Odifreddi participated in the Stock Exchange of Visions project in 2007.

Honors

Works

Academic writings

References

  1. ↑ Interview with Piergiorgio Odifreddi on Wikinews
  2. ↑ Il Non-Senso della vita – Blog di Piergiorgio Odifreddi
  3. ↑ Odifreddi interviews Noam Chomsky
  4. ↑ No al terrorismo. Ma quale?
  5. ↑ La dannata Terra Santa
  6. ↑ Interview with Adolf Hitler
  7. ↑ «Dieci volte peggio dei nazisti» — The censored articled on Repubblica
  8. ↑ 809 giorni di libertà – Il non-senso della vita 2.0 – Blog – Repubblica.it
  9. ↑ Repubblica cancella il post di Odifreddi su Israele. Lui lascia: “Meglio fermarsi”. Il Fatto Quotidiano, Novembre 20, 2012.
  10. ↑ Radio Due
  11. ↑ Radio Due
  12. ↑ Radio 3 – Il cammino
  13. ↑ Radio 3
  14. ↑ Radio 2
  15. ↑ Radio 3
  16. ↑ Radio 3
  17. ↑ Shoenfield, J. R. (1993). "Review: Classical recursion theory by P. Odifreddi" (PDF). Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. (N.S.). 28 (1): 182–183. doi:10.1090/s0273-0979-1993-00346-x.
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