Fractal images on Internet

Another milestone of this move of digital property : I have rewritten some of the most important web content with Wordpress. I like it very much because you can create high quality content similar to a printed book. I am already at my third blog and each new one is becoming more and more complex as I acquire expertise in using this CMS (Content Management System). So here they are:

• Net diary or how Internet changed my life
• Teatro della Memoria :the mistery of human memory
• Leonardo : interactive science museum

Computer grid, Web services and Xml

[Added July 2003] The bad thing about programmer's life, is that everything keeps changing. The good thing is that you never get bored. And that now you have all the world ready to help you. This is nice when you have to start again doing old things but with new technologies. For example monitoring the CMS apparatus on the computer Grid with a Web service using Xml. I have mastered Xml enough to write

Here is a first draft of a paper presented to Chep04 , IEEE NSS and TNS on Tracker monitoring with Grid services based on a visualisation tool.
See also Tracker monitoring in the control room with Iguana and in a Internet cafe' with a Java client and updates : 1,2, 3,Monitoring HEP experiments with grid/web services ,
The next iteration is this Test Of Distributed Data Quality Monitoring Of CMS Tracker presented as a poster to IEEE NSS 2005, Monitoring CMS Tracker with a SVG map( presented to RT2005) ,Web access to CMS data with XML and SVG (in italian).

CMS software

[Modified April 2009] The Lep accelerator in Cern, where my previous experiment Aleph run, has definitively closed at the end of year 2000. The detector itself has been dismantled. But the accelerator tunnel will host now a new more powerful accelerator LHC, where my next experiment CMS will be held. CMS is a detector big like a 3 storeys building that will be assembled in a cave 100 meters under the Jura mountains. LHC is in a 27 KM circular tunnel and will provide the two beams of protons whose collision will be "photographed" by the "camera" CMS.I am only one of the around 1800 people collaborating to the experiment. I am starting appropriately with this

In 2008 the first data has been taken with the complete CMS detector mounted in P5 cavern of LHC tunnel. These documents are a result of my analysis of this data: validating CMS event display tools with real data,visual summary of craft data

From Java to C++

[Added January 2000] The commercial success of Internet has produced a big interest on learning programming skills.To our students it is clear that new jobs in future will arrive mostly from Internet. For this reason I am starting a new and more complete

Didactic modules in Java for Physics teaching

[Modified March 2005] I am working on didactic use of Java applets and dynamic html. The work is carried out with the help of dr. C. Evangelista. It has produced by now two theses. The first one on

Web and database

[Added September 1998] My personal contribution to a course on database publishing on the Web for INFN staff is a document about

The database technology can help also traditional Web publishing by allowing the creation and maintenance of hundreds of HTML documents. I am starting to explore these possibilities and the first results are this Project Fractal Database and the Internet Fractal Database a list of fractal galleries and images on Internet.

Web course

[Updated October 1998] My personal contribution to

Dynamic HTML, the next step in the evolution of the Web

[Added March 1998] I am giving the (by now) almost usual yearly seminar about changes in the Web. The theme this year is

100 views on symmetry

[Added July 1997] When you write about something on the Net you can just set up a list of links more or less commented, or you can write something completely original. Both approachs seem to me unsatisfactory:in addition with links we have the problem of link rot setting in slowly. I am trying to write about symmetry using a new approach inspired by the Greenaway

Java,the next step in the evolution of computer programming!

[Added January 1997] I must confess that, altough I have a degree in Physics and I love Physics, I consider myself more a computer programmer than a physicist.I have done computer programming since 30 years, learning many languages , working on many,many computers. I have followed my profession during these paradigm shifts like structured programming, oop,etc... Since three months I am working with Java in a project to upgrade the "Hcal monitoring display" (a graphics program) by converting it to a Java applet and allowing its use from the Web (up to now you had to telnet through a X terminal). A

My impression about Java? Internet will change many jobs, but in my opinion, it has alredy changed forever the computer programming profession with Java. The powerful concept that you don't have to worry anymore about which platform you have to develop your program: you develop it in Java and it will work on any platform, is another important step in our profession.Perhaps it won't be exactly the Java Virtual Machine that will implement it,but like HTML java is here to stay.

Fractals,Chaos,Symmetry,Physical Laws and Computer Programs

[Added January 1997]I am a physicist and a computer programmer.There is a fascinating connection between computer programs and mathematical laws describing natural phenomena. Both have invariants. I must explain that an invariant is a a quantity that doesn't change during some physical process (for example energy).
Where are invariants in computer programs? To keep programs short, these contain loops where a set of instructions is done repeatedly until you get some result. For example to compute the sum of 1000 numbers , instead of writing 1000 times the two instructions:

1. read number
2. add number to subtotal

, you define a loop.
Well,to each loop in a computer program is connected an invariant. This raises the intriguing possibility that invariants in physical laws are connected to the fact that also Nature like a computer, executes loops, whatever this means.

To explore this fascinating matter I have set up a long list of questions with some attempts at answers.

Using the Web for online monitoring of high energy physics detectors

[Updated October 1996]I work in the

My previous work for this experiment was about hadron calorimeter visualisation for monitoring. This work started with this paper model of one of the endcap modules.See also The Aleph experience

Il Teatro della Memoria

[Updated September 1996]I am fascinated by human memory. Do you know that

Computer Graphics and Fractal Pictures

[Updated September 1996] This picture of mine was scanned from a photo in 1985 using a B/W videocamera connected to the Amiga computer. This is one of my many experiments in computer graphics.I have started with my doctoral thesis (in 1972!) whose topic was the display of histograms representing experimental data on graphics display IBM 2250. In those times this terminal was a monster that costed more than 100 Pentium PC today! Of course it could do a lot less than a PC today. I have continued to experiment with graphics since then using other computers like the Commodore Amiga. I have in this page the result of some of my explorations.For some time I have also played with a camera making prints of fractals.After a lot of trials I was able to find the right way to get a photographic print of the screen. This is described in a post to the mailing list fractint by Kerry Mitchell.
I use a program of mine called ufattr to generate random formulas that produce this Gallery of fractal images.

The method I use to generate these images is described in the paper: Drawing by accident. Using this method I have created a data base of around 50,000 dynamical systems formulas described in the document: Scanning huge numbers of events and in this other one: Is WWW the ideal support for scientific visualization. In this second document check especially the section on the dynamical systems data base.

I maintain a directory of fractal galleries and resources on Internet.

The Internet course

[Updated September 1996]This is the second year (hey the web is getting old!) that I give my Internet course to students,professors and other personal of the Department. This material (mostly in Italian) has been constantly updated to be used during the lessons. It is a five lessons minicourse and in the last lesson the students in groups do a (small) hypertext project.
I have written a report on this experience with the title:
Hypertext literacy:an experiment with University Students in Mathematics. This has been presented to SIF96,the annual congress of italian physicists.I am mostly interested in the use of WWW to teach Physics: this was the topic of a seminar I gave at the beginning of 1966.

The document Ipermedia sulla rete Internet (in italian) has by now only a "historical" value, since it was written in 1994.
Net Diary or how Internet changed our life is an ever growing collection of small essays on Internet.

My Curriculum Vitae, photo, etc:my old home page

[Updated September 2004] My old home page in italian and english contains a short CV, my photo plus some links to research papers. It is also possible to search for my pubblications on spires ,cern ,Google Scholar , scirus and scopus.
Places where I lived for some time: Empoli, Follonica, Bari, Lizzano, Roma, Fragagnano, Taranto, Geneve, Basel, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Munchen, New York, Amsterdam, London, Paris, Muro Lucano, Interlaken, Stockholm, Rapone, San Francisco, Tsukuba, Namesti Repubbliki Praga, Gland, Ferney Voltaire, Villard Tacon, Collonges,Rue du Fort 105, Purley, Thoiry, Cessy, Versoix, Berlin, Lugano, Trento, Gex
Terreni agricoli posseduti dalla mia famiglia:Montetilurizzu, Bosco, Canali, Asca, Agghianu, Ciritogna, Porvica
Web pages from members of my family: Lavori di scienze eseguiti dagli alunni del Corso G, Farmacia Chiara Zito a Empoli : facciata,interno.

Randomness

[Updated June 1995]As a physicist I am fascinated by randomness. Isn't the task of science to find patterns in the apparent randomness of the nature? This is done by finding equations that would allow us to foretell the future. These equations make possible the launch of ,for example, the Galileo to Jupiter.
It came as a big surprise when it was discovered that the same equations can produce random numbers.

By clicking here you get any time a different image. This is taken randomly from the Algorithmic Image Gallery.
Always on the same theme I have a random background generator for you to enjoy.

I have also created a Big Table of Everything Random containing links to Internet resources that generate random material.

Short essays

[Updated January 2000]There is no better way to understand difficult concepts than trying to teach them. In these short essays written in various occasions, I try to explain some difficult concept concerning my work in terms which can be understood by a lay person.

• Introduzione agli automi cellulari lineari(In Italian)
• I Frattali e il caos(In Italian)
• Gli eventi della fisica delle alte energie(In Italian)
• Cos'e' la visualizzazione scientifica:un dialogo.(In Italian)
• La Fabbrica di Newton(In Italian)
• Dynamical Systems:tutorial
• Efficacia didattica di un ipertesto(in Italian)
• Proposta per un uso creativo dell'elaboratore nell'insegnamento della Fisica
• I giochi e l'insegnamento delle scienze
• Il tessuto dell'Universo
• Vedere i quark
• L'effetto placebo e l'elettrosmog
• Visual thinking
• Alcune considerazioni sulla Fisica
• La programmazione al tempo dei dinosauri