Nonlinear Algebra People - 2020

Giorgio Ottaviani

June 25, 2020

Giorgio Ottaviani is a professor in Geometry at the University of Florence. His background is in classical algebraic geometry, including derived categories, getting the diploma thesis with Francesco Gherardelli, the doctoral thesis with Vincenzo Ancona, and profiting by several periods as a junior visitor in Bayreuth with Michael Schneider, when vector bundles of small rank was the "hot theme". He misses L'Aquila mountains, where he got his first professor position and started teaching Computational Algebraic Geometry. The picture comes from there (Gran Sasso). In recent years he was attracted by Applied Algebraic Geometry and Bernd's circle of ideas.

Giorgio visited MPI in Leipzig twice and in particular, he loved the workshop "Tensors: Algebra meets Numerics" in December 2016. The title of the workshop is still stimulating for crossroads and marriages of different concepts and attitudes. Giorgio's favourite example to suggest to undergraduate students is the dynamics of the roots of the degree 2n polynomial $f_t(x)=\prod_{i=1}^n(x-i)^2+tx$. Try with Macaulay2 and n=3 or 4. His current research is about tensor spaces, with a growing interest in quantum information. The complexity of matrix multiplication algorithm is still a puzzling problem. Giorgio is interested in teaching of mathematics, which he prefers to call mathematics for teaching.

Giorgio enjoys bicycle rides, tasting good wine (note the marriage between the two is quite difficult) and popular astronomy (he recommends a look at M81 and M82 as a zen relaxation).