{"id":206493,"date":"2025-02-14T19:22:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-15T01:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/02\/whats-best-according-to-the-italian-mathematician-alessio-figalli"},"modified":"2025-02-14T19:22:00","modified_gmt":"2025-02-15T01:22:00","slug":"whats-best-according-to-the-italian-mathematician-alessio-figalli","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/02\/whats-best-according-to-the-italian-mathematician-alessio-figalli","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s Best, According to the Italian Mathematician Alessio Figalli"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/whats-best-according-to-the-italian-mathematician-alessio-figalli.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The words \u201coptimal\u201d and \u201coptimize\u201d derive from the Latin \u201coptimus,\u201d or \u201cbest,\u201d as in \u201cmake the best of things.\u201d Alessio Figalli, a mathematician at the university ETH Zurich, studies optimal transport: the most efficient allocation of starting points to end points. The scope of investigation is wide, including clouds, crystals, bubbles and chatbots.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Figalli, who was awarded the Fields Medal in math that is motivated by concrete problems found in nature. He also likes the discipline\u2019s \u201csense of eternity,\u201d he said in a recent interview. \u201cIt is something that will be here forever.\u201d (Nothing is forever, he conceded, but math will be around for \u201clong enough.\u201d) \u201cI like the fact that if you prove a theorem, you prove it,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s no ambiguity, it\u2019s true or false. In a hundred years, you can rely on it, no matter what.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The study of optimal transport was introduced almost 250 years ago by Gaspard Monge, a French mathematician and politician who was motivated by problems in military engineering. His ideas found broader application solving logistical problems during the Napoleonic Era \u2014 for instance, identifying the most efficient way to build fortifications, in order to minimize the costs of transporting materials across Europe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The words \u201coptimal\u201d and \u201coptimize\u201d derive from the Latin \u201coptimus,\u201d or \u201cbest,\u201d as in \u201cmake the best of things.\u201d Alessio Figalli, a mathematician at the university ETH Zurich, studies optimal transport: the most efficient allocation of starting points to end points. The scope of investigation is wide, including clouds, crystals, bubbles and chatbots. Dr. Figalli, [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":367,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2229,9,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-206493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mathematics","category-military","category-robotics-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/367"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206493\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}