# Tullio Regge

Last updated
Tullio Regge
Born11 July 1931
Died 23 October 2014 (aged 83)
Alma mater University of Turin
Known for Regge theory
Regge calculus
Awards Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics (1964)
Albert Einstein Award (1979)
Pomeranchuk Prize (2001)
Scientific career
Fields Theoretical physics
Institutions Max Planck Institute for Physics
University of Turin
Institute for Advanced Study
Polytechnic University of Turin
Doctoral advisor Robert Marshak

Tullio Eugenio Regge (Italian: ; July 11, 1931 – October 23, 2014) was an Italian theoretical physicist. [1]

Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern and Western Europe. Located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia and the enclaved microstates San Marino and Vatican City. Italy covers an area of 301,340 km2 (116,350 sq mi) and has a largely temperate seasonal and Mediterranean climate. With around 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth-most populous EU member state and the most populous country in Southern Europe.

Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experimental tools to probe these phenomena.

## Biography

Regge obtained the laurea in physics from the University of Turin in 1952 under the direction of Mario Verde and Gleb Wataghin, and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Rochester in 1957 under the direction of Robert Marshak. From 1958 to 1959 Regge held a post at the Max Planck Institute for Physics where he worked with Werner Heisenberg. In 1961 he was appointed to the chair of Relativity at the University of Turin. He also held an appointment at the Institute for Advanced Study from 1965 to 1979. He was emeritus professor at the Polytechnic University of Turin while contributing work at CERN as a visiting scientist. Regge died on October 23, 2014. [2] He was married to Rosanna Cester, physicist, by whom he had three children: Daniele, Marta and Anna.

In Italy, the Iaurea is the main post-secondary academic degree. The name originally referred literally to the laurel wreath, since ancient times a sign of honor and now often worn by Italian students right after their official graduation ceremony and sometimes during the graduation party. A graduate is known as a laureato, literally "crowned with laurel."

Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its motion, and behavior through space and time, and that studies the related entities of energy and force. Physics is one of the most fundamental scientific disciplines, and its main goal is to understand how the universe behaves.

The University of Turin is a university in the city of Turin in the Piedmont region of north-western Italy. It is one of the oldest universities in Europe, and continues to play an important role in research and training. It is steadily ranked among the top 5 Italian universities and it is ranked third for research activities in Italy, according to the latest data by ANVUR.

In 1959, Regge discovered a mathematical property of potential scattering in the Schrödinger equation—that the scattering amplitude can be thought of as an analytic function of the angular momentum, and that the position of the poles determines power-law growth rates of the amplitude in the purely mathematical region of large values of the cosine of the scattering angle (i.e. ${\displaystyle \cos(\theta )\rightarrow \infty }$, requiring complex angles). [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] This formulation is known as Regge theory.

The Schrödinger equation is a linear partial differential equation that describes the wave function or state function of a quantum-mechanical system. It is a key result in quantum mechanics, and its discovery was a significant landmark in the development of the subject. The equation is named after Erwin Schrödinger, who derived the equation in 1925, and published it in 1926, forming the basis for the work that resulted in his Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933.

In quantum physics, Regge theory is the study of the analytic properties of scattering as a function of angular momentum, where the angular momentum is not restricted to be an integer multiple of ħ but is allowed to take any complex value. The nonrelativistic theory was developed by Tullio Regge in 1959.

In the early 1960s, Regge introduced Regge calculus, a simplicial formulation of general relativity. Regge calculus was the first discrete gauge theory suitable for numerical simulation, and an early relative of lattice gauge theory. In 1968 he and G. Ponzano developed a quantum version of Regge calculus in three space-time dimensions now known as the Ponzano-Regge model. [9] This was the first of a whole series of state sum models for quantum gravity known as spin foam models. In mathematics, the model also developed into the Turaev-Viro model, an example of a quantum invariant.

In general relativity, Regge calculus is a formalism for producing simplicial approximations of spacetimes that are solutions to the Einstein field equation. The calculus was introduced by the Italian theoretician Tullio Regge in 1961.

In geometry, a simplex is a generalization of the notion of a triangle or tetrahedron to arbitrary dimensions. Specifically, a k-simplex is a k-dimensional polytope which is the convex hull of its k + 1 vertices. More formally, suppose the k + 1 points are affinely independent, which means are linearly independent. Then, the simplex determined by them is the set of points

General relativity is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and the current description of gravitation in modern physics. General relativity generalizes special relativity and Newton's law of universal gravitation, providing a unified description of gravity as a geometric property of space and time, or spacetime. In particular, the curvature of spacetime is directly related to the energy and momentum of whatever matter and radiation are present. The relation is specified by the Einstein field equations, a system of partial differential equations.

## Awards and honors

He received the Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics in 1964, the Città di Como prize in 1968, the Albert Einstein Award in 1979, [10] and the Cecil Powell Medal in 1987.

Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics is an award given each year since 1959 jointly by the American Physical Society and American Institute of Physics. It is established by the Heineman Foundation in honour of Dannie Heineman. As of 2010, the prize consists of US$10,000 and a certificate citing the contributions made by the recipient plus travel expenses to attend the meeting at which the prize is bestowed. Como is a city and comune in Lombardy, Italy. It is the administrative capital of the Province of Como. The Albert Einstein Award was an award in theoretical physics that was established to recognize high achievement in the natural sciences. It was endowed by the Lewis and Rosa Strauss Memorial Fund in honor of Albert Einstein's 70th birthday. It was first awarded in 1951 and, in addition to a gold medal of Einstein by sculptor Gilroy Roberts, it also included a prize money of$15,000, which was later reduced to \$5,000. The winner was selected by a committee of the Institute for Advanced Study, which administered the award. Lewis L. Strauss used to be one of the trustees of the institute.

In 1989, Regge was elected to the European Parliament as a candidate of the Italian Communist Party and served until 1994. Regge served as president of the Turin section of the Association for Research in Handicap Prevention (AIRH).

The European Parliament (EP) is the only parliamentary institution of the European Union (EU) that is directly elected by EU citizens aged 18 or older. Together with the Council of the European Union, which should not be confused with the European Council and the Council of Europe, it exercises the legislative function of the EU. The Parliament is composed of 751 members (MEPs), that will become 705 starting from the 2019–2024 legislature, who represent the second-largest democratic electorate in the world and the largest trans-national democratic electorate in the world.

The Italian Communist Party was a communist political party in Italy.

He was awarded the Dirac Medal in 1996, [11] the Marcel Grossmann Award in 1997, [12] and the Pomeranchuk Prize in 2001. [13] The asteroid 3778 Regge has been named after him.

Regge theory, a theory of strong interaction phenomenology at high energies, and Regge calculus are named after him.

## Selected works

• Lettera ai giovani sulla scienza, Rizzoli, 2004
• Spazio, tempo e universo. Passato, presente e futuro della teoria della relatività, wirh Giulio Peruzzi, UTET Libreria, 2003
• L'universo senza fine. Breve storia del Tutto: passato e futuro del cosmo, Milan, Mondadori, 1999
• Non abbiate paura. Racconti di fantascienza, La Stampa, 1999
• Infinito, Mondadori, 1996
• Gli eredi di Prometeo. L'energia nel futuro, La Stampa, 1993
• Le meraviglie del reale, La Stampa, 1987
• Dialogo, with Primo Levi, Einaudi, 1987
• Cronache Dell'Universo, Boringhieri, 1981

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## References

1. Piero Bianucci. "Addio a Tullio Regge, genio della fisica". lastampa.it. p. 18. Retrieved 2014-10-25.
2. D'Auria, Riccardo (January 2015). "Faces and places: Tullio Regge 1931-2014" (PDF). CERN Courier. 55 (1): 39–40.
3. Tullio Regge, "Introduction to complex angular momentum," Il Nuovo Cimento Series 10, Vol. 14, 1959, p. 951.
4. Iliopoulos, John (1996), Krige, John, ed., History of CERN, Volume 3, Elsevier, p. 301, ISBN   978-0-444-89655-1
5. Cao, Tian Yu (1998), Conceptual developments of 20th century field theories, Cambridge University Press, p. 224, ISBN   978-0-521-63420-5
6. Collins, P. D. B. (1977). An Introduction to Regge Theory and High-Energy Physics. Cambridge University Press. ISBN   0-521-21245-6.
7. Eden, R. J. (1971). "Regge poles and elementary particles". Rep. Prog. Phys. 34 (3): 9951053. Bibcode:1971RPPh...34..995E. doi:10.1088/0034-4885/34/3/304.
8. Irving, A. C.; Worden, R. P. (1977). "Regge phenomenology". Phys. Rep. 34 (3): 117231. Bibcode:1977PhR....34..117I. doi:10.1016/0370-1573(77)90010-2.
9. G. Ponzano; T. Regge (1968). "Semiclassical limit of Racah coefficients". In Bloch, F. Spectroscopic and group theoretical methods in physics. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publ. Co. pp. 1–58.
10. "Tullio Regge receives Albert Einstein Award", Physics Today, 32: 82, May 1979, Bibcode:1979PhT....32e..82., doi:10.1063/1.2995565
11. Pomeranchuk Prize Winners 2001 Archived 2011-07-22 at the Wayback Machine .