With immense joy, the Physics Department of the University of Rome Tor Vergata announces that Prof. Roberto Benzi, full professor at our department has been awarded the "Ig Nobel Prize 2021", the recognition for the science that "first makes you laugh and then it gives you to think about ". Prof. Roberto Benzi was awarded the prize for the “Physics” category together with his colleagues: Alessandro Corbetta, Jasper A. Meeusen, Chung-min Lee and Federico Toschi.
The spirit of the IgNobel, in fact, is to give recognition to those surprising scientific researches, which concern aspects that are apparently not very relevant, but which, in reality, require a thorough mastery of physics to be carried out.
The award-winning work concerns two-body interactions between pedestrians.
The starting point for this type of research, conducted by two Italian research teams, will have been the questions: how do pedestrians avoid colliding when they walk? And vice versa, why do they sometimes collide?
These questions are among the most common lately, it being essential in recent times, to always keep in mind what the correct safety distance is, for example, not to increase the spread of the covid-19 virus. In addition, these questions, find space in the problems to which we are all (more or less) suffering, that is the queues or the queues.
The work is available here.
The award ceremony took place on 9 September 2021. We attach the link to the video of the award ceremony (min 54 for the award ceremony in the "Physics" category).
Enjoy it and still many compliments!
