the first European festival on creativity

2017 Programme

Event #11

Marco Malvaldi, Claudio Bartocci

The Web as a mathematical structure

The existence of the web raises important issues on the historic development of the very concept of connections. Any time we use a search engine, complex mathematical structures are what make our operations possible. At the same time, in order to understand the abstract concept of the web as a structure, it is possible to study the huge number of man-made and natural architectures which are not necessarily assigned to communications: from simple examples (the course of a river, the function of a soccer team), to currently untreatable cases (such as the neural connectome), their complexity emerges as a consequence of a few simple elements.

Marco Malvaldi, a chemist and author, made his literary debut in 2007 with the mystery novel La briscola in cinque, the first in the BarLume series (all published by Sellerio), which inspired the television adaptation I delitti del BarLume starting in 2013. With Cortina, he has published L’architetto dell’invisibile ovvero come pensa un chimico (2017), La direzione del pensiero (2020), and Se fossi stato al vostro posto (forthcoming in late August 2025).

Claudio Bartocci

teaches Physics, Geometry and History of Mathematics at the University of Genova. His most recent books include: Dimostrare l’impossibile. La scienza inventa il mondo (Cortina, 2014); Numeri (con L. Civalleri, Codice, 2014); Una piramide di problemi. Storie di geometria da Gauss a Hilbert (Cortina, 2012; English translation by Birkhäuser, in preparation). He edited the anthology Racconti matematici (Einaudi, 2006) and co-directed La matematica (Einaudi, 4 voll., 2007-2011) with P. Odifreddi.

All theevents2017

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The net of Eros. Seduction

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Clandestine networks. A network of spies: doctor Sorge in Tokyo

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Weaving relationships through silence and listening

From networks to formats: creativity on television

The Web as a mathematical structure

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Keeping cool: hibernation and the exotic network of its physiology

The beauty of occurring. Ovid and the network of metamorphoses

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Clandestine networks. A network of partisans: the GAP groups in Rome and the attack in Via Rasella

Faithfulness/Unfaithfulness.

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The light on the wall

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Neurodiversity and dyslexia

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The code of life

Adolescents caught in the Web

From silent social work to community networks

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The dark web of the universe

The conductor, the orchestra and the score

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Concert for piano and violin

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Clandestine networks. A network of terrorists: the Red Brigades and the kidnapping of Aldo Moro

Networking

Heroes of our times

Pencil-carrying naturalists

Paper circuits

Once upon a time there was a city

Coloring a hundred miles a minute

The art of reclamation. DIY construction of a network of animals

Pictures tell stories, so do we!

To be or not to be myself

How was music born into the world?

Shapes of sound. Stories of encounters between sound and color

Vagabonds on a voyage

Suoni di c/arte

Numerincoding

Strange stories

Find the culprit… with math!

Irreverently entwined

Can thoughts be drawn?

In your own words: from silent books to silk screen printing

Afraid of what?

Musica bambina!