Giovanni Amelino-Camelia (born 14 December 1965,
Naples
Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...
) is an Italian
physicist
A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe.
Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...
of the
University of Naples Federico II
The University of Naples Federico II ( it, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II) is a public university in Naples, Italy. Founded in 1224, it is the oldest public non-sectarian university in the world, and is now organized into 26 depar ...
who works on
quantum gravity.
He is the first proposer of
doubly special relativity that is the idea of introducing the
Planck length in physics as an observer-independent quantity, obtaining a relativistic theory (like Galileian relativity and Einstein's special relativity). The principles of doubly special relativity probably imply the loss of the notion of classical (Riemannian) spacetime; this led Amelino-Camelia to the study of
non-commutative geometry as a feasible theory of
quantum spacetime
In mathematical physics, the concept of quantum spacetime is a generalization of the usual concept of spacetime in which some variables that ordinarily commute are assumed not to commute and form a different Lie algebra. The choice of that algebr ...
.
Amelino-Camelia is the initiator of "
quantum-gravity phenomenology", for being the first
[Amelino-Camelia et al.: ] to show that with some experiments under reach of current technology sensitivity to Planck-scale effects is feasible (see
Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope
The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope (FGST, also FGRST), formerly called the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), is a space observatory being used to perform gamma-ray astronomy observations from low Earth orbit. Its main instrument is ...
).
References
External links
Homepage at the INFN of Rome, ITALYWorks published at arXiv.org
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20070506031214/http://www.esi-topics.com/fmf/2003/september03-GiovanniAmelino-Camelia.html Small interview at "Essential Science Indicators" (2003, with photo)br>"Quantum Gravity Phenomenology" Living Reviews in Relativity (2008)
1965 births
Living people
20th-century Italian astronomers
Quantum gravity physicists
21st-century Italian astronomers
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