Paolo Giordano In Conversation with Matthew Stadlen

The physicist whose rallying cry stirred Italy into action against the pandemic explores how we got here and how we can work together to move forward.

Paolo Giordano holds a PhD in Physics and is one of Italy’s pre-eminent novelists. His article ‘The maths behind the contagion’ – published in Corriere della Sera newspaper on 26th February, explaining why people needed to change their behaviour to slow down the spread of the infection – was shared more than 3.5 million times and was a key factor in shifting public opinion in the early weeks of the emergency.

Now Paolo joins How To Academy from his home in Rome to explain how disease spreads in our interconnected world: why it matters, how it impacts us, and how we must react. He will explore other forms of contagion linked to this epidemic – fake news, the environmental crisis, nationalism and xenophobia, and the lack of solidarity in an increasingly complex world.

In this free livestream, Paolo will think beyond the current emergency, helping us understand why the Covid-19 should be a wake-up call for us all, an opportunity to reframe and reshape our relationship with each other and the natural world, so that we might be more prepared when the next epidemic strikes.

Paolo says: “We can tell each other that Covid-19 is an isolated incident, a calamity or a scourge, cry that it’s all ‘their’ fault. We’re free to do so. Or we could try making sense of the contagion. Make better use of this time, use it to think about what our busy normality prevents us from considering: how did we get here, how do we want to start again? Number the days. Gain a heart of wisdom. Don’t allow all of this suffering to be in vain.”

Paolo Giordano is a physicist and a bestselling writer. His first novel, The Solitude of Prime Numbers, was translated into more than 40 languages worldwide and won the Premio Strega (the Italian Booker). Paolo is the author of the forthcoming novel Heaven and Earth and of the pamphlet How Contagion Works, a rallying cry inspired by the recent CoV-19 epidemic. He is also the creator of the new HBO series We Are Who We Are, co-written and directed by Luca Guadagnino. He holds a master’s degree and a PhD in theoretical physics.