Mario Livio

Life and scientific career

Livio was born in Romania, and lived with his grandparents when his mother and father were forced to flee the country for political reasons. He left Romania at age five with his grandparents, and the family settled in Israel. He served with the Israeli Defense Forces as a paramedic in the 1967 Six Day War, the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and the 1982 Lebanon War.

Livio earned a B.S. degree in physics and mathematics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a M.S. degree in theoretical particle physics at the Weizmann Institute, and a Ph.D. in theoretical astrophysics at Tel-Aviv University. He was a professor of physics at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology from 1981 to 1991, before moving to the Space Telescope Science Institute.

From 2000 Livio focused his research on supernova explosions and their use in determining the rate of expansion of the universe. He has also studied so-called dark energy, black holes, and the formation of planetary systems around young stars. He has contributed to hundreds of papers in refereed journals on astrophysics. In 2009, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Council elected him as a Fellow of the AAAS. Livio was cited for his "distinguished contributions to astrophysics through research on stars and galaxies and through communicating and interpreting science and mathematics to the public." He is also cited in the American Men and Women of Science.

Dr. Livio has been nominated three times by the USA Science and Engineering Festival as one of the "Nifty Fifty Speakers" to talk about his work and career to middle and high school students in 2010, 2011, and 2013. Other honors include: Carnegie Centenary Professor in 2003, Danz Distinguished Lecturer in 2006, Resnick Distinguished Lecturer in 2006, Iben Distinguished Lecturer in 2008, and Terzian Distinguished Lecturer in 2011.

Livio and his wife Sofie, a microbiologist, have three children.

Popular works

For almost twenty years Livio has popularized astronomy and mathematics through books, lectures, magazine articles, and radio and television appearances. He has delivered popular lectures at TEDxMidAtlantic on YouTube, the Smithsonian Institution, the Hayden Planetarium, the Maryland Institute College of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, and the Glasgow Science Centre. He has appeared on radio and TV outlets including PBS, NPR and CBS to discuss scientific and mathematical subjects.

Livio's first book of popular science was The Accelerating Universe (2000), which explained in layman's terms the theory that the universe was expanding at a faster and faster rate. He explored the possible causes and the theoretical implications of continuing expansion, especially its implications for beliefs about the "beauty" of the scientific laws that govern the cosmos.

A self-described "art fanatic" who owns hundreds of art books, Livio put this interest to good use in his next book, The Golden Ratio: The Story of Phi (2002). He traced the influence of the golden ratio through many centuries of art, architecture, music, and even stock market theories. Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code, endorsed the book stating, "Livio unveils the history and mystery of the remarkable number phi in such a way that math-buffs and math-phobes alike can celebrate her wonder ... you will never again look at a pyramid, pinecone or Picasso in the same light."

The Equation That Couldn't Be Solved (2005) explains how efforts to solve the quintic equation led to group theory and to the mathematics of symmetry. He emphasizes the crucial roles of Évariste Galois and Niels Henrik Abel in developing this branch of mathematics. He also "keeps the hard stuff to a minimum," in the words of a Publishers Weekly review. The book contains biographical sketches of Galois, Abel and several other mathematicians.

Is God A Mathematician? was released on January 6, 2009. It discusses the uncanny ability of mathematics to describe and predict accurately the physical world. Livio also attempts to answer a question with which mathematicians and philosophers have struggled for centuries: Is mathematics ultimately invented or discovered? The book was selected by the Washington Post as one of the best books of 2009, and it was also selected as a "2009 Borders Original Voices" finalist.

Brilliant Blunders (2013) summarizes serious mistakes by five notable figures in science: Charles Darwin, Lord Kelvin, Linus Pauling, Fred Hoyle, and Albert Einstein.

His upcoming book (July 2017) is Why? What Makes Us Curious.

Works