Biography
Dr. Auro Michele Perego received a BSc and an MSc in Physics from Università degli Studi dell’Insubria (Como, Italy) and a PhD degree in Electrical Engineering – as a Marie Curie Early Stage Researcher – from Aston University (Birmingham, UK). He is currently a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellow at the Aston Institute of Photonic Technologies, where he leads his independent research group. His main research interests are: nonlinear science and the theory and applications of instabilities and self-organisation processes, fibre optics, laser physics, and photonic technologies such as optical frequency combs, optical amplifiers, optical sensing, and communication systems.
Unstable Nature by Auro Michele Perego is a remarkable book, and I don’t think I have ever read a similarly rich overview of this extremely important field. Although we all think we may know what “instability” might mean, physicists have a very precise formalism to study unstable phenomena in nature, and this vision is central to virtually all areas of science: from planetary instabilities to microscopic biology. Yet this is a subject that has not been adequately treated in the popular science literature, and Unstable Nature makes an extremely valuable contribution in making the subject accessible in an attractive and jargon-free way. A key aspect of the book I latched onto immediately was how the scientific study of instability provides truly universal insights that connect different areas of science, and the book underlines this constantly throughout. The style combines clear conceptual discussion, historical and personal anecdote, as well as thought-provoking philosophical discussions which are a delight to read. The author leads an independent research group in nonlinear science at Aston University, and it is a real pleasure to see such an active researcher also take a real interest in science communication.
- John Dudley, The FEMTO-ST Institute, January 2024.
Usually we seek stability: in the work place, in health, in economy. However from a scientific point of view instability is much more interesting than stability as it can give origin to unpredictable and counterintuitive developments. Physicist Auro Michele Perego, researcher at the Aston Institute of Photonic Technologies (Birmingham, United Kingdom) is the author of Unstable Nature, an essay where he reviews in a pleasantly didactic way the full repertoire of instabilities, from those of planetary orbits... to the ones in chemical, biological, quantum and mathematical systems.
- Piero Bianucci, La Stampa
