In a Flight of Starlings: The Wonders of Complex Systems

From the 2021 Nobel Prize winner in Physics, an enlightening and personal journey into the practice of groundbreaking science

“[Giorgio Parisi is] an extraordinary scientist.” —Carlo Rovelli

With In a Flight of Starlings, celebrated physicist Giorgio Parisi guides us through his unorthodox yet exhilarating work, starting with investigating the principles of physics by observing the flight of flocks of birds. Studying the movements of these communities, he has realized, proves an illuminating way into understanding complex systems of all kinds—collections of everything from atoms and planets to other animals, such as ourselves.

Along the way, he reflects on the lessons he has taken from a life in pursuit of scientific truth: the importance of serendipity to the discovery of new ideas, the surprising kinship between physics and other disciplines, and the value of science to a thriving society. In so doing, he removes the practice of science from the confines of the laboratory and brings it into the real world.

Part elegant scientific treatise, part thrilling journey of discovery, In a Flight of Starlings is an invitation to find wonder in the world around us.

Giorgio Parisi is an Italian theoretical physicist and professor of theoretical physics at the Sapienza University of Rome. Together with Klaus Hasselmann and Syukuro Manabe, he received the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics.