A pure soul. Ennio De Giorgi, a mathematical genius (Q2806047)

This volume, dedicated to the biography of the great Italian mathematician Ennio De Giorgi (1928--1996), is divided into 25 chapters, to which a synthetic chronological table of De Giorgi's life and a list of references are added at the end of the monograph. An acknowledgement closes the volume which altogether consists of 275 pages.NEWLINENEWLINEAlthough this monograph is a biography, it cannot de defined either a mere scientific biography or a personal biography of Ennio De Giorgi. The author has been able to present both the scientific-professional and the human aspects of De Giorgi's personality in a precise and, at the same time, touching manner. Since the author is a physicist and achieved his degree in 1995 at the Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, he personally knew De Giorgi. He enters the details of De Giorgi's mathematical results in a way, which is profound enough to satisfy the specialists, but, at the same time, which is not so technical to appear incomprehensible for the not-specialists. Furthermore, he describes De Giorgi as a human being very well: his high moral character, his profound religiosity, his little tics, the long dinners and conversations -- till late night -- with the colleagues and students (who were also his best friends), the love for his family and for his land -- the Puglia --, the engagement for the defence of the human rights, an activity as important as mathematics in the last 20--25 years of De Giorgi's life.NEWLINENEWLINEHowever, the merits of this book are not restricted to the mentioned picture. The author describes the important mathematicians and scientists met by De Giorgi during his life with a clear, synthetic and fascinating style. For example, in the second chapter, he describes the astonishment of Ugo Amaldi, an important Italian mathematician, who taught mathematical analysis in Roma and who was a professor of De Giorgi, when the 20-years old De Giorgi re-invented Lebesgue's theory of integration without having any idea of such a theory. As to De Giorgi's Roman period, a quite important mathematician was Mauro Picone, the professor with whom De Giorgi achieved, cum laude, his degree the 9 July 1950 (p. 32). After his degree, De Giorgi worked at the Istituto di Alta Matematica, where he met the famous mathematician Francesco Severi and other scientists and mathematicians as Luigi Fantappié and Giulio Krall. The pages dedicated to the relations between De Giorgi and Caccioppoli (pp. 40--48) are quite pleasant and instructive to catch the personalities and the interests of the two mathematicians. The author illustrates that De Giorgi was developing a series of profound researches on the calculus of variations, though he did not publish many papers. But in 1957, he published a work, where the famous 19th Hilbert problem was solved (Chapter 5, pp. 58--70). The author shows us the order of thoughts which brought De Giorgi to solve the problem as well as the admiration of mathematicians as Guido Stampacchia, Enrico Magenes and Claudio Pucci for the solution. John Nash found, more or less in the same period as De Giorgi, the solution of the 19th Hilbert problem, too. However, his solution is independent and completely different from De Giorgi's one. In the interesting Chapter 8, the beginning (1959) of De Giorgi's career at the Scuola Normale Superiore is described. The strong personality of Alessandro Faedo is traced. He reorganized the mathematics in Pisa and, in particular at the Scuola Normale, making the Scuola one of the most important mathematical centres in the world. De Giorgi was the diamond point, but there were mathematicians as Guido Stampacchia, Aldo Andreotti, Iacopo Barsotti, Givanni Prodi, Edoardo Vesentini. Among the students of De Giorgi were Enrico Giusti and Marco Forti. De Giorgi remained at the Scuola Normale for the rest of his life. In the long period spent in Pisa, he developed an impressive series of mathematical ideas and results, summarized in Chapter 9 (``Idee Incredibili'', pp. 100--112). Maybe, the most important of such ideas concerned the minimal surfaces, but their plurality is so abundant that a choice is difficult. An interesting section of the book concerns the relations between De Giorgi and Enrico Bombieri (pp. 120--129), 12 years younger than De Giorgi: their brief and fruitful collaboration, their so different manner to conceive and develop mathematics, their personalities, not less different than their ways to conceive mathematics. The author deals with this subject also relying upon Giusti's and Forti's words.NEWLINENEWLINEIn those years, the dinners with De Giorgi became famous in the environment of the Scuola Normale. Often, he invited himself with his typical candor and kindness. These dinners continued till late night. Perhaps, the two best friends of De Giorgi were Giovanni Prodi and Giorgio Letta. The author informs the reader that, exactly with Giovanni Prodi, De Giorgi, at the beginning of the 1970s, visited Asmara several times to teach mathematics at that university. Perhaps, also in connection with the tragic political situation in Eritrea, De Giorgi developed, starting from the 1970s an intense interest in defending the human rights. He was extremely active in this field. An emblematic example is given in Chapter 16, where De Giorgi's and Antonio Marino's successful efforts to save the mathematician Plyushch from a Russian mental hospital are described in detail. But the author does not restrict to this example, rather he stresses this activity by De Giorgi in a precise and touching manner. Starting from the second half of the 1970s, De Giorgi began to be profoundly interested in mathematics foundations. The author refers to his broad and at the same time precise ideas (Chapter 21, pp. 212--222). De Giorgi was not satisfied with the foundation offered by set theory, thence he conceived a series of foundational theories, which could replace set theory and in which, for example, the concept of quality was expressible, too. Although, in this field, his work was less successful then in the others, his ideas are profound and, perhaps, deserve to be developed further.NEWLINENEWLINEThere are many other interesting aspects of this book: the love for his family; the relations with foreign mathematicians as well as with the great foreign mathematical institutes in Europe and in the USA; the relations with the students; the profound religiosity of De Giorgi and his progressively increasing interest in philosophy; the charity, actively done by De Giorgi. For these aspects, I refer directly to the book. The idea behind this review has been to stimulate the reading of a volume, which deserves to be read and appreciated.