Modeling Reality with Mathematics

Alfio Quarteroni is Professor of Numerical Analysis and Director of MOX at the Politecnico of Milan (Italy). Formerly he was Director of the Chair of Modelling and Scientific Computing at the EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology), Lausanne (Switzerland), from 1998 until the end of 2017. He is the founder (and first director) of MOX at Politecnico of Milan (2002) and MATHICSE at EPFL, Lausanne (2010). He is co-founder (and President) of MOXOFF, a spin-off company at Politecnico of Milan (2010). He is the author of 25 books, editor of 9 books, author of more than 300 papers published in international Scientific Journals and Conference Proceedings, member of the editorial board of 25 International Journals and Editor in Chief of two book series published by Springer. He has been an invited or plenary speaker in more than 300 International Conferences and Academic Departments, in particular he has been invited speaker at ICM 2002 in Beijing andplenary speaker at ICM 2006 in Madrid. Among his awards and honors are the NASA Group Achievement Award for the pioneering work in Computational Fluid Dynamics in 1992, the Fanfullino della Riconoscenza 2006, Città di Lodi, the Premio Capo D'Orlando 2006, the Ghislieri prize, 2013, the International Galileo Galilei prize for Sciences 2015, The Euler lecture in 2017. He is the Recipient of two ERC Advanced Grants: “MATHCARD”, 2008, and “i-HEART”, 2017, and of two ERC PoC (Proof of Concept) grants in 2012 and 2015, Recipient of the Galileian Chair from the Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy ,2001, doctor Honoris Causa in Naval Engineering from Universi ty of Trieste, Italy, 2003, SIAM Fellow (first row) since 2009, IACM (International Association of Computational Mechanics) Fellow since 2004. He is a member of the Italian Academy of Science, the European Academy of Science, and the Academia Europaea, the IMU Circle, and the Lisbon Academy of Science.His research interests concern Mathematical Modelling, Numerical Analysis, Scientific Computing, and Application to fluid mechanics, geophysics, medicine and the improvement of sports performance. His research Group at EPFL has contributed to the preliminary design of Solar Impulse, the Swiss long-range experimental solar-powered aircraft project; his research group at EPFL has carried out the mathematical simulation for the optimisation of performances of the Alinghi yacht, the winner of two editions (2003 and 2007) of the America’s Cup.

“By providing tools and current examples on modeling issues ... the book makes a contribution answering the becoming more and more prevalent presence of Mathematics in our daily lives. The examples come essentially from the physical and natural sciences, but the book can be relied on in other areas, including the humanities, aside seminal works on mathematical modeling ... . The journey consists in eight rigorous and enjoying chapters.” (Lisa Morhaim, zbMATH 1519.00001, 2023)

• 1 The model, aka the magic box.- 2 Weather Forecast Models.- 3 Epidemics: the Mathematics of Contagion.- 4 Mathematical Hearth.- 5 Mathematics in the Wind.- 6 Flying on Sun Power.- 7 The taste for Mathematics.- 8 Conclusions.