The Poetry of Primes
From Pitagora to algorithms
'We are a divine race and possess creative power', wrote the great mathematician Richard Dedekind in a letter in 1888. The atmosphere of excitement and euphoria combined with spiritual and intellectual audacity that only ingenious mathematical thought can create is the same process that will fire the imagination in Matera and Metaponto from June to November 2019. The title underlines what the event sets out to do: explore mathematics from the inside, through the beauty of numbers and their specific content, and from the outside through the numbers of beauty and their mathematical relations with the rest of culture. In fact, the applications of mathematics are myriad and the discipline transcends all national and cultural borders. We celebrate the subject with five great exhibitions built around two strands (explanatory and artistic) with an interactive workshop for a public aged from 4 to 90 years old.
The exhibition will feature well-known figures including Piero Angela, the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature John Coetzee, Academy Award winner Nicola Piovani, maths games inventor Ian Stewart, physicist Guido Tonelli, high-profile mathematicians Claudio Bartocci, Luigi Civalleri, Alberto Conte, Paolo Zellini, as well as Roberto Cingolani, Moni Ovadia, Valeria Solarino, David Riondino, artists Ugo Nespolo and Tobia Ravà, works by Aldo Spizzichino and Federico Giudiceandrea, supported by the crème de la crème of scientific journalism Rossella Panarese and Marco Cattaneo. These players will transform the shifting and frightening sands of mathematics into a colourful public park, like careful gardeners who, by designing pathways, will lead us into the wonderful world of mathematics, which is our world.
Co-produced by
Polo Museale della Basilicata
Sponsor tecnico: Coldiretti Basilicata
Scientific Director:
Piergiorgio Odifreddi
