The last time an italian was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics was in 2002:
Roberto Giacconi for his pioneering research in the field of X-ray radiation from the universe. Another italian research that probably could win the Prize was
Adalberto Giazotto, who designed the VIRGO interferometer, that with LIGOs shared the first observation of gravitational waves. The Swedish Academy decided to assign the Prize to three of the LIGO's founders,
Rainer Weiss,
Barry Barish and
Kip Thorne. But this is not a great problem: after all, the Nobel Prize serves to emphasize personal contributions, but also to establish key points in the knowledge, and in this sense, the role of Italy had already been indicated as fundamental.
Today, however, a long-awaited award arrives:
Giorgio Parisi, theoretical physicist, whose works have provided important contributions to field theory and statistical physics,
won the Nobel Prize in physics
for the discovery of the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems from atomic to planetary scales
