Pieri was born in Lucca, Italy, the son of Pellegrino Pieri and Ermina Luporini. Pellegrino was a lawyer. Pieri began his higher education at University of Bologna where he drew the attention of Salvatore Pincherle. Obtaining a scholarship, Pieri transferred to Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. There he took his degree in 1884 and worked first at a technical secondary school in Pisa.
When the opportunity to teach projective geometry at the military academy in Turin arose, Pieri moved there. By 1888 he was assisting in instructing that subject also at the University of Turin. In 1891 he became libero docente at the university, giving elective courses. Pieri continued teaching in Turin until 1900 when he won a competition for the position of extraordinary professor at University of Catania on the island of Sicily. In 1908 he moved to University of Parma, and in 1911 fell ill. Pieri died in Andrea di Compito (Capannori), not far from Lucca.
Von Staudt's Geometrie der Lage(1847) was a much admired text on projective geometry. In 1889 Pieri translated it as Geometria di Posizione, a publication that included a study of the life and work of von Staudt written by Corrado Segre, the initiator of the project.
Pieri also came under the influence of Giuseppe Peano at Turin. He contributed to the Formulario mathematico, and Peano placed nine of Pieri's papers for publication with the Academy of Sciences of Turin between 1895 and 1912. They shared a passion for reducing geometric ideas to their logical form and expressing these ideas symbolically.
In 1898 Pieri wrote I principii della geometria di posizione composti in un sistema logico-deduttivo. According to J.T. Smith (2010) it is :based on nineteen sequentially independent axioms - each independent of the preceding ones - which are introduced one by one as they are needed in the development, thus allowing the reader to determine on which axioms a given theorem depends.
Pieri was invited to address the International Congress of Philosophy in 1900 in Paris. Since this was also the year he moved from Turin to Sicily, he declined to attend but sent a paper "Sur la Géométrie envisagée comme un système purement logique" which was delivered by Louis Couturat. The ideas were also advanced by Alessandro Padoa at both that Congress and the International Congress of Mathematicians also held in Paris that year.
In 1900 Pieri wrote Monographia del punto e del moto, which Smith calls the Point and Motion memoire. It is noteworthy as using only two primitive notions, point and motion to develop axioms for geometry. Alessandro Padoa shared in this expression of Peano's logico-geometrical program that reduced the number of primitive notions from the four used by Moritz Pasch.
The research into the foundations of geometry lead to another formulation in 1908 in a Point and Sphere memoire. Smith (2010) describes it as :a full axiomatization of Euclidean geometry based solely on the primitive concepts point and equidistance of two points N and P from a third point O, written ON = OP. This memoire was translated into Polish in 1915 by S. Kwietniewski. A young Alfred Tarski encountered the text and carried forward Pieri's program, as recounted by Smith.
In 2002 Avellone, Brigaglia & Zappulla gave a modern evaluation of Pieri's contribution to geometry: :Pieri's work was very influential. B. Russell and L. Couturat rightly regarded him as the founder of mathematics as a hypothetical-deductive science. His precision, his rigour, and his analytical clarity are unrivaled by other Italian geometers, perhaps with the exception of Peano.
Giuseppe Peano wrote this tribute to Pieri upon his death: :Pieri was totally dedicated to science and teaching. He was an untiring worker, honest, and of a singular modesty. When, some twenty years ago, the professors in Italy agitated for higher salaries, Pieri declared that their salaries were already above the work they did and their merit. ::from Hubert C. Kennedy (1980), Peano, page 142, D. Reidel/Kluwer.
Mario Pieri's collected works were published by the Italian Mathematical Union in 1980 under the title Opere sui fondamenti della matematica (Edizioni Cremonese, Bologna).
Category:Geometers Category:Logicians Category:19th-century mathematicians Category:20th-century mathematicians Category:1860 births Category:1913 deaths Category:Italian mathematicians
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| Ridername | Mario Cipollini |
|---|---|
| Fullname | Mario Cipollini |
| Nickname | Lion King, Cipo, Mooie Mario (Pretty Mario) |
| Dateofbirth | March 22, 1967 |
| Placeofbirth | Lucca, Italy |
| Discipline | Road |
| Role | Rider |
| Ridertype | Sprinter |
| Proyears | 1989–19911992–19931994–19951996–200120022003–200420052008 |
| Proteams | Del TongoGB-MGMercatone UnoSaecoAcqua & SaponeDomina VacanzeLiquigasRock Racing |
| Majorwins | Giro d'Italia, 42 stages |
| Updated | February 17, 2008 |
At the peak of his career, Cipollini's speed was unrivaled, and he is credited with being the first rider with a sprint train. The red jerseys of his Saeco/Cannondale team were commonly seen at the front of the peloton toward the end of the flat Grand Tour stages in the late 1990s. The train kept the pace high in the closing kilometers, to dissuade opposing riders from attacking and to ensure that in the final 200–300 meters, Cipollini was the only cyclist able to maintain the speed. This changed the way teams approached mass sprints and bred a new generation of sprinters such as fellow Italian Alessandro Petacchi.
The beginning of 2002 saw Cipollini win Milan – San Remo with his new Acqua-Sapone team, and later Gent–Wevelgem. However, a falling out with the organizers of the Tour de France made him announce his retirement. Italian national coach Franco Ballerini convinced him to return to competition, and built the Italian national team around Cipollini for the 2002 UCI world championship. Cipollini won the rainbow jersey in a sprint finish in Zolder, Belgium.
In the 2003 Giro d'Italia Cipollini focused on Alfredo Binda's record 41 Giro stage wins while in the world champion's jersey. His attempt was almost derailed by Alessandro Petacchi of the Fassa Bortolo team. After many failed attempts, he finally broke the record, although he had to abandon the next stage due to injuries in a crash on a rain-soaked finish. He said that the crash ended his career. His team, Domina Vacanze-Elitron, was left out of the Tour de France that year, prompting a comment from Cipollini that the organisers disrespected the rainbow jersey. When he retired from the 2004 Giro due to another crash, it was the only time he entered the Giro without winning a single stage.
In 2008, he returned to competitive cycling with the Rock Racing team at the Tour of California.
Cipollini also became infamous for extravagant clothing, especially racing uniforms, sporting custom-made skin suits. Some of memorable kits include a muscle suit, zebra, and tiger prints, and a techno-skinsuit inspired by the 1982 movie Tron. Off the course, Cipollini and his Saeco squad dressed as ancient Romans during a rest day at the 1999 Tour de France, to celebrate Julius Caesar's birthday and to commemorate Cipollini's record fourth consecutive Tour de France stage win. He was fined for wearing an all-yellow outfit while leading the Tour de France.
These antics violated UCI regulations, which resulted in Cipollini and his team being fined thousands of Swiss francs. The muscle suit fetched 100 million lira (US$43,710) in a charity auction, nearly 100 times the fine. Some organisers, especially Jean-Marie Leblanc of the Tour de France, took offence at his hijinks and he wasn't invited to race in the Tour from 2000–2003, despite being the world champion in 2003. Later in 2003, he drew the ire of the organisers of the Vuelta a España when he quit after the prologue time trial. His team had been invited to compete with the condition that Cipollini participated. He said he was recovering from injury and should not have been forced to race in the first place. Three years earlier, Cipollini got kicked out of the 2000 Vuelta a España after he punched Vitalicio Seguros rider Francisco Cerezo to the ground before the start of a stage.
Cipollini, despite being married through much of his career, was regarded as a sex symbol and rumored to be a womaniser. He did little to dispel these notions with comments such as, "If I weren't a professional cyclist, I'd be a porn star".
Daniel Coyle's book Lance Armstrong's War says Cipollini's profile was little more than a decoy. The intent was that competitors would find themselves distracted by the constant media coverage of Cipollini, and demoralised by the impression that he could party all night and beat them the next morning.
Despite this boisterous public image, Cipollini could often be quite humble regarding his fellow cyclists. After breaking Alfredo Binda's record for Giro stage wins he remarked he would have been happy "just to polish [Binda's] shoes." Reacting to the 2004 death of Marco Pantani, Cipollini said, "I am devastated. It's a tragedy of enormous proportions for everyone involved in cycling. I'm lost for words."
Cipo emerged from retirement in early 2008, with Rock Racing. His first race back was the Tour of California, and he finished 3rd on stage 2. On the eve of the Milan – San Remo, he announced that he would retire again; citing disagreements over his leadership role on Rock Racing. Rumor has it that he will be coming out of retirment once again with Team Type 1.
Category:1967 births Category:Living people Category:People from Lucca Category:Italian cyclists Category:Giro d'Italia stage winners Category:Italian Tour de France stage winners Category:Vuelta a España stage winners Category:Reality television participants Category:UCI World Champions Category:Cyclists at the 1996 Summer Olympics Category:Olympic cyclists of Italy
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
