Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
I think the future's going to be easy.
Information is essential...
It's the vital lymph we need, if we want to
take the next step forward
in human evolution.
Being able to decide on goals -- and, of course, having dreams
More knowledge, more culture, but above all, even more technology.
That's the best asset for the future.
I work with the web,
that's where progress is
The future always means progress
and the great thing is we can always make progress
move forward more quickly
and let everyone benefit by it sooner.
I think our future's going to
get faster and faster.
When people first talked about bicycles,
they thought they had tamed...
the myth of speed ...
.. but they were just talking about bikes!
New technologies move far faster...
than ordinary time, so I think we're privileged ...
... because we can watch
new technological eras emerging during the course of just one lifetime.
Padova has always been a university open to everyone and everything.
We scientists are like dwarves on the shoulders of giants ...
... especially because, when we do research, we can base...
our approach on solid foundations.
To be able to understand the future,
we must know the past very well.
We represent institutions which are much larger and older than we are.
The great thing about university is that
it's like an enormous pair of binoculars ...
... letting you see beyond ordinary things,
beyond the classic idea of the future.... There's nothing like this, outside university!
It guarantees an eclectic environment
where you can get to grips with a problem from different points of view.
Innovation implies interaction
with everything around us. As human beings,
we're made up of passions, of life.
How can you get new ideas
if you're not full of passions and life?
If two people exchange a coin, they still only have one coin each ...
... but if they exchange their ideas, they have two ideas.
The best ideas, the most original ones, come at night.
That's when you can solve difficult problems simply.
It's only by watching
how the best people do it, that you can improve.
That's what I used to do when
I played volleyball for Italy ...
... We used to watch the other team's videos,
their players, or how they trained.
Doing research is like a game.
It's like living several lives in one, it's like time travel.
It's a marvellous feeling!
A talented player can ask himself questions
to which he can probably find answers.
I'm an amateur musician, but I think that
in both research and music,
you need to know your instruments well
in order to create innovation.
I remember a weekend when
all of us at the lab were planning to go to a U2 concert.
But we had to get our research results out over the weekend ....
... so I didn't go to the concert! but I have to say the only experiment which went well,
after months and months of frustration, was that one! We got results!
Some of our colleagues looked askance at our research at the human technology lab.
But some of the students said things like: "I'd like to be able to work like you!"
or "I didn't know you could have fun doing research!"
When we hypothesise something, we are in fact gambling.
It's like: the more implausible the idea, the better the result of the bet will be, just like in gambling.
The higher the risk, the higher the stakes.
There's no limit to the creativity of a scientist.
And we can also make mistakes ...
that's a luxury you can rarely afford in ordinary life!
My lab colleagues often criticise me because I always say:
if we do good research, we don't get results.
Even a comment like "No, that doesn't work"is a very important answer in research.
When you gamble on a hypothesis which is wrong, you simply test it, or rather you falsify it,and then let it go.
But even so, it's important to tell the scientific community what you've done,because what you're saying is:
"That road leads nowhere, I've already gone down it
and there's nothing there, don't bother with it".
It's like the history of scientific thought:
it teaches us that research is method-oriented, not goal-oriented.
When you look for one thing,
sometimes you find another.
When you do research, you sometimes feel as if you were on a ship in the middle of the ocean:
you know where you want to get to, but how to get there is not always clear.
Christopher Columbus discovered America while he was looking for a route to India!
I like to think that, one day in the future, perhaps in ten years' time, here or somewhere else in the world,
someone will think these ideas are good and will exploit them
to create something
practical based
on what I found.
We want to understand things, know them, figure out the world around us.
There's so much to be done
that there is only one limitation to our potential
our imagination.