Professor Giorgio Margaritondo: "Two things... and three people"

How can one summarize forty-eight years dedicated to the most powerful sources of light in the world? And to the transformation of bookish notions of quantum physics into tangible realities? And to the participation in the wonderful adventure of building the best young university in the world?
I tried by using five arcane words, the title of my lecture.
What are the “two things”, and who are the “three people”? The mystery will be progressively unveiled, while at the same time navigating through the birth and establishment of the largest international scientific instrumentation network of all times, and through a number of results in a variety of disciplines, from superconductivity to neurobiology and from relativity to ancient manuscripts.
After fully disclosing the mystery of the “two things” and “three people”, the lecture will be concluded by a few personal remarks… and by a final surprise.

Program:
17:15 Presentation, M. Patrick Aebischer, M. Martin Vetterli
17:30 Giorgio Margaritondo, "Two things... three people"
Apéritif

Registration

Biographie
Born in Rome, citizen of Switzerland and the United States, Margaritondo devoted five decades of his academic life to the development of synchrotron radiation, from the first steps in Frascati and Wisconsin to the projects that led to Elettra in Trieste and to the Swiss Light Source. After joining the EPFL in 1990, he participated to the fantastic adventure of building an innovative, international and top-ranked university. He was head of the Institute of Applied Physics and of the Physics Department, dean and founder of the School of Basic Sciences, dean for Continuing Education and vice-president for Academic Affairs. He contributed to fundamental reforms and projects like the tenure track and the unifications processes of mathematics, physics and chemistry in Lausanne. He also headed the Swiss committee for High-performance Computing and Networking, chaired a series of European initiatives for the transnational access to synchrotron facilities, and was Editor-in-chief of the Journal of Physics D. After his retirement from the EPFL in 2016, he became vice-president of the Foundation of the Università della Svizzera Italiana (USI); he also chairs strategic committees of the Italian Institute of Technology, of the Politecnico di Torino, and of the Scuola Sant’Anna of Pisa. Since 1968, he authored more than 700 refereed articles, 10 books and 27 chapters in different domains, including solid-state physics, biophysics, relativity, optics and the cultural heritage.