In a Flight of Starlings: The Wonders of Complex Systems

by Giorgio Parisi Narrated by Stephen Graybill

Overview

From the 2021 Nobel Prize winner in Physics, an enlightening and personal journey into the practice of groundbreaking science

“[Giorgio Parisi is] an extraordinary scientist.” -Carlo Rovelli

With In a Flight of Starlings, celebrated physicist Giorgio Parisi guides us through his unorthodox yet exhilarating work, starting with investigating the principles of physics by observing the flight of flocks of birds. Studying the movements of these communities, he has realized, proves an illuminating way into understanding complex systems of all kinds-collections of everything from atoms and planets to other animals, such as ourselves.

Along the way, he reflects on the lessons he has taken from a life in pursuit of scientific truth: the importance of serendipity to the discovery of new ideas, the surprising kinship between physics and other disciplines, and the value of science to a thriving society. In so doing, he removes the practice of science from the confines of the laboratory and brings it into the real world.

Part elegant scientific treatise, part thrilling journey of discovery, In a Flight of Starlings is an invitation to find wonder in the world around us.

Editorial Reviews

SEPTEMBER 2023 - AudioFile

Dry text collides with a flat, bland narration to sink any chance of audibly enjoying this presentation of the author's Nobel Prize-winning research into complex systems ranging from the atomic to the planetary scale. Stephen Graybill narrates in a steady, monotonous tone. Although properly executed, his pronunciation of the audiobook's many Italian names and phrases is slow and awkward, a notable weakness since this audiobook is written by an Italian author. Physics experts will find most chapters too basic; sadly, the author fails to enliven his research in a way that might resonate with lay listeners. J.T. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

05/01/2023

Theoretical physicist Parisi, who won the 2021 Nobel Prize in physics for his scholarship on how constituent parts organize themselves within larger wholes, delivers a stimulating debut for general readers that reflects on his work and the scientific method. “It is essential that the public have a fundamental understanding of the practice of science,” Parisi contends, citing climate change and Covid-19 as threats to which understanding science plays a crucial role in preparing the public to mobilize and respond. To illustrate how scientists operate, he recounts episodes from his career, including his studies on spin glasses (metal alloys with spinning particles that cause the metals to behave like molten glass) and the behavior of molecules during phase transitions. Discussing his investigation into how starlings fly in flocks without colliding, the author describes taking 3D images of the birds in flight and discovering that turns are usually initiated by small groups on the side of a flock, with each bird following its immediate neighbors. Parisi also waxes philosophical about how scientific innovation happens and suggests that unconscious thinking contributes to breakthroughs. He largely succeeds in making accessible such complicated subjects as particle physics, and the personal anecdotes are revealing. This ode to the scientific process fascinates. (July)

From the Publisher

It doesn’t take interest or a background in physics to appreciate Parisi’s work. Writing in clear terms for the layperson that avoid making the reader feel like they’ve wandered into a lecture hall, the physicist offers a glimpse into his work and a look at how scientific research has evolved over the years . . . The deceptively slim volume serves as a forceful argument for the value of scientific literacy at a time when it’s increasingly being challenged by misinformation . . . Parisi’s book is a step toward making physics feel more accessible.” —Associated Press
 
“An interesting collection of essays reflecting on [Parisi’s] long career in science . . . The scientific explanations are admirably lucid.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Stimulating . . . This ode to the scientific process fascinates.” —Publishers Weekly

“Parisi’s voice is amiable and conversational, which endows [In a Flight of Starlings] with the feel of a conversation with a wise and generous elder.” —Kirkus

“[Giorgio Parisi is] an extraordinary scientist.” —Carlo Rovelli

“Giorgio Parisi is renowned for his scientific creativity, originality, and power. In this exhilarating little book, he shows his human side, too. By its end, readers will feel they’ve made a charming, witty new friend.” —Frank Wilczek, winner of the Nobel Prize and author of Fundamentals

“In this delightful and deeply thoughtful book, Giorgio Parisi weaves a tapestry of experiences and ideas that connects disciplines and prepares us to appreciate the beauty, importance, and cultural value of science.” —Frances Arnold, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Library Journal

06/01/2023

The entire premise of Parisi's tome is this: that both citizens and politicians need to trust scientists and allow the scientific community to assist in making objectively sensible decisions, for everything from climate change to the COVID pandemic. Nobel Prize in Physics winner Parisi (theoretical physics, Sapienza Univ. of Rome) enthusiastically guides readers on a journey traversing the fields of statistical and experimental physics. The author is happy to travel down memory lane—from his roots as a physics student in Italy 50 years ago to the time when he narrowly missed an opportunity to further explore order and disorder as found in nature and experienced in a wide variety of circumstances. While each chapter might feel like its own in-depth lesson or anecdote, the summations are wise and bring readers back to the author's original premise: people must trust science (and scientists) to make recommendations on how to improve the earth's circumstances going forward. VERDICT While the scientific lingo can feel a little overwhelming at times, readers who persist through to the end will likely find themselves enlightened and eager to listen and learn.—Jennifer Moore

Kirkus Reviews

2023-04-04
An Italian Nobel laureate uses his background as a theoretical physicist to illustrate the importance of science.

In the opening paragraphs of this essay collection, Parisi states that crises like climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic have demonstrated that now, more than ever, science is essential to humanity’s survival. Unfortunately, in today’s hypercharged partisan landscape, nonscientists often view science through a lens of distrust, a stance that, most recently, led to the unnecessary deaths of the unvaccinated during the pandemic. “If citizens and politicians do not trust science,” writes the author, “we will move inexorably in the wrong direction, and the struggle against any number of global ills—global warming, infectious disease, hunger and poverty, the depletion of the planet’s natural resources—will fail.” Parisi believes that scientists can rebuild this trust by being more open about their processes and says that the purpose of this book is to help people understand how science really works. “It is important to understand how scientific consensus is achieved,” he writes. What follows is a collection of essays that range widely. The author offers a personal account about participating in an occupation of the Physics Institute in Rome in 1968; a philosophical treatise on the importance of metaphor in scientific breakthroughs; and a diagram-laden chapter on “the theory of spin glasses, considered my most significant contribution to physics.” Throughout, Parisi’s voice is amiable and conversational, which endows the book with the feel of a conversation with a wise and generous elder. However, each of the chapters is wildly different in tone and content. While some passages read like literary memoir, others read like dry excerpts from textbooks. Though the author returns to his thesis about science and trust at the end of the book, the thesis feels only loosely applicable in the middle.

An intermittently charming but incohesive essay collection about physics, matter, and memory.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940175848824
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	07/11/2023
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

PREFACE

At this moment in time, perhaps more than any before it, it is essential that the public have a fundamental understanding of the practice of science—that is to say, not only the results at which scientists arrive but how they do so. Examples of this urgency surround us. To name what is probably the most urgent, we must make some essential decisions in order to fight climate change. For decades, science has been warning us that human behavior is setting the stage for a dramatic rise in the temperature of our planet. But science alone is not enough. Forewarned is forearmed, as the saying goes—but only if we heed the warning and act on it.

Unfortunately, the actions taken by governments to date have not been up to this challenge, and the results so far have been extremely modest. Now that climate change is starting to affect people’s lives, there is perhaps a stronger reaction, but we need much more forceful measures to be taken. Political decisions are needed, especially by the wealthiest countries. We need to transcend our myopic national interests in order to solve global problems. To name a second example, COVID has taught us that we are all connected: what happens in game markets or in the Amazon rain forest deeply affects us all. The recent pandemic has also shown that it is not easy to respond effectively in time. We have seen how measures to contain the pandemic were often taken too late, only when they could no longer be postponed. I remember the head of one European government saying that “we cannot go into lockdown until the hospitals are full; otherwise people will not understand the decision to do so.”

Our generation is on a road fraught with dangers. It is as if we were driving at night: the sciences are our headlights, but it is the responsibility of the driver to not leave the road and to take into account that the headlights have a limited range. In order to use those lights in the first place, however, we need to have trust in science.

We have seen during the pandemic the tragedy of the many people who have died refusing to be vaccinated, despite the millions of COVID-related deaths. This has happened thanks to a re- jection of science that becomes even more serious when it occurs in relation to climate change.

If citizens and politicians do not trust science, we will move inexorably in the wrong direction, and the struggle against any number of global ills—global warming, infectious disease, hunger and poverty, the depletion of the planet’s natural resources— will fail.

How can we promote this trust? Clearly it is not enough for scientists themselves to simply say “trust us.” It is also not enough to write scholarly articles about how science works. We must, as the saying goes, show our work: demonstrate in an engaging way how scientists toil, doubt, succeed, and fail. It is important to understand how scientific consensus is achieved, how individual discoveries become validated by the scientific community.

To this end, in this book I have told something of my own story through select reports on significant episodes in my scientific life. I begin with my research into the flight of starlings, those remarkably beautiful murmurations (their flocking behavior) that the physics of this century is only now in a position to explain. I wanted to start there to emphasize how difficult it is to understand the many phenomena that we observe almost daily and to convey that complexity is not about what happens in laboratories. It is about what happens all around us. Our job as scientists is to illuminate for everyone the truths that we discover.

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