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In a Flight of Starlings

The Wonder of Complex Systems

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In a Flight of Starlings

By: Giorgio Parisi, Simon Carnell
Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

From the 2021 Nobel Prize winner in Physics, a remarkable journey into the practice of groundbreaking science.

The world is shaped by complexity. In this enlightening book, Nobel Prize winner Giorgio Parisi guides us through his unorthodox yet exhilarating work to show us how. It all starts with investigating the principles of physics by observing the sophisticated flight patterns of starlings. Studying the movements of these birds, he has realized, proves an illuminating way into understanding complex systems of all kinds - collections of everything from atoms to planets to other animals like ourselves.

Along the way, Parisi reflects on the lessons he's 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 fields of study 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 into the real world. Complexity is all around us - from climate to finance to biology, it offers a unique way of finding order in chaos.

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

©2023 Giorgio Parisi (P)2023 Penguin Audio
Philosophy Science & Technology String Theory
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Critic reviews

"An extraordinary scientist." (Carlo Rovelli)

What listeners say about In a Flight of Starlings

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Nice account of how a Nobel Prize win is done

This was a well written insight into the life and mind of what it takes for a scientist to become a nobel prize winner. Really great explanations for spin glasses , as well as an interesting perspective on history of physics. I just wish it had been longer. very well narrated too.

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The best pop-science can be

As a physics student, this book was wonderful for learning how the Nobel-Prize winning physicist Parisi thinks about things. He emphasizes the sheer beauty and curiosity, the power of having a bit of range and diversity in one's work, and talks about intuition and cooperation which I really liked. The actual pop-science he is writing was interesting, and did not shy away from being a bit technical (which some of these pop-sci books can be blamed for). It is the best I have found of pop science, far better than Barabasi and Rovelli's overly sensationalized books.

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