Amedeo Balbi, associate professor of Astrophysics at the Physics Department of the University of Roma "Tor Vergata", wins the sixth edition of the Asimov Prize with the book "L’ultimo orizzonte. Cosa sappiamo dell’universo" published in 2019 by the Utet publishing house.
The announcement was made during the final ceremony of the Asimov award which was held on 29 May in live streaming.
Below are the words of prof. Amedeo Balbi,
“I am very happy and honored to receive the Asimov Prize. Even more so because this Award directly involves school students, making them protagonists and helping to bring them closer to science. I believe that arousing curiosity and interest, especially among the youngest, towards research, scientific culture, and the universe in which we find ourselves living, is the main objective of those who disseminate. For me, when I was a boy, Isaac Asimov's books, both his science fiction books and his popular essays, had just that effect. If I could have even minimally obtained a similar result with the girls and the boys who have read my book, I would be delighted ”.
The “Asimov Prize” is an award reserved for particularly deserving works of popularization and scientific non-fiction. It sees as protagonists both the authors of the competing works and thousands of Italian students, who decree the winner with their votes and their reviews, in turn evaluated and awarded.
Award currently qualified at national level which intends to bring the younger generations closer to scientific culture, through the evaluation and critical reading of the works in competition. An idea conceived and proposed by physicist Francesco Vissani (GSSI), inspired by the Aventis award from the Royal Society as well as by the excellent narrative of Isaac Asimov.
The Asimov Prize is constantly supported by the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) during all the competition phases.
To watch the ceremony go to the YouTube channel of the Asimov Prize: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWEMrgmLtfo
To find out about the other finalist books and learn more about the Asimov award go to the link: https://www.premio-asimov.it/
