Ignazio Ciufolini (born 1951) is an Italian physicist active in the field of
gravitational physics and
general relativity
General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity, and as Einstein's theory of gravity, is the differential geometry, geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of grav ...
.
Biography
Ignazio Ciufolini graduated magna cum laude in 1980 at Sapienza University of Rome, and received a
PhD
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...
in physics in 1984 at the
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public university, public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 stud ...
under the supervision of
Richard Matzner.
From 1982 to 1988, he worked at University of Texas at Austin as a teaching assistant, lecturer and research associate. As of 2014, he is an associate professor of general physics at
University of Salento (Italy), tenured since 1999, and a member of Centro Fermi, Rome. He collaborated with John Archibald Wheeler in 1995 to write ''Gravitation and Inertia'', for which they won the
PROSE Award for the best professional and scholar book in physics and astronomy. He works mainly in the field of General Relativity and Gravitational Physics, proposing a method to measure the effects of
gravitomagnetism using the data from the
laser ranged satellites
LAGEOS and LAGEOS-2.
[
] He was featured on the cover of the 6 September 2007, issue of ''
Nature
Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...
'', dedicated to his review paper on Dragging of Inertial Frames and General Relativity.
[ He is the Principal Investigator for the Italian Space Agency (ASI) on the Laser Relativity Satellite (]LARES
Lares ( , ; archaic , singular ) were Tutelary deity#Ancient Rome, guardian deities in ancient Roman religion. Their origin is uncertain; they may have been hero-ancestors, guardians of the hearth, fields, boundaries, or fruitfulness, or an ama ...
) mission, a space mission aimed to improve the accuracy of the measurement of frame-dragging
Frame-dragging is an effect on spacetime, predicted by Albert Einstein's General relativity, general theory of relativity, that is due to non-static stationary distributions of mass–energy. A stationary Field (physics), field is one that is ...
.
In 2010, he won the Giuseppe Occhialini Medal and Prize, jointly awarded by the Italian Physical Society The Italian Physical Society () is a non-profit organization whose aim is to promote, encourage, protect the study and the progress of physics in Italy and in the world. It was founded in 1897.
It is associated with the journal series ''Nuovo Cime ...
and the Institute of Physics
The Institute of Physics (IOP) is a UK-based not-for-profit learned society and professional body that works to advance physics education, physics research, research and applied physics, application.
It was founded in 1874 and has a worldwide ...
.
In 2014, Ciufolini was accused of publishing papers on the scientific pre-print archive arXiv.org under pseudonyms, such as G. Felici and G. Forst,
References
External links
CV at LARES-mission.com
20th-century Italian physicists
Living people
1951 births
Sapienza University of Rome alumni
Academic staff of the University of Salento
University of Texas at Austin College of Natural Sciences alumni
{{Italy-physicist-stub