Farewell Piero Angela, prince of scientific popularization

With a clear and precise language, understandable to all, the notoriety of the journalist Piero Angela – who died today at the age of 93 years – is linked to the production of Anglo-Saxon scientific popularization television programs , with whom he founded a solid documentary tradition for Italian television: among his most successful programs for Rai “Quark” (1981) and “Superquark (1995)) and the numerous derivatives. he was co-author of another popularization program, “Ulysses”, which sees the light in 2001 and is run by his son Alberto.

Born in Turin on 22 December 1928 (his father, Carlo Angela, was a doctor and anti-fascist), Piero Angela began working for Rai during the 1950s: at that time he was a reporter and collaborator of the Radio Newspaper. Between 1955 and 1968 works as a foreign correspondent, in Paris and then in Brussels , for the Rai national news. With the journalist Andrea Barbato he presents the first edition of the 000. 30 is in the 1976 is the first to present Tg2.

Starting from 1968, dedicates himself to documentaries: the first were dedicated to the discovery of space and the “Apollo” program, the American plan that led to the landing of the first men on the Moon with the Apollo mission 11 in July 1969 . Since 1971 it conducts numerous broadcasts of information and educational programs, always using and reinventing different formulas, with an accurate language, always attentive and always evolving: “Destination Man”, “From zero to three years”, “Survey on parapsychology” and “In the cosmos in search of life”.

Starting from 1981 leads ” Quark “, one of the first scientific popularization television programs destined for the general public, which exploits the resources of television communication in a new and original way: the documentaries of the BBC and David Attenborough, the cartoons by Bruno Bozzetto whose immediacy is very effective for explain the most difficult concepts, interviews with experts, explanations in the studio.

The program broadcast by Rai 1 has a remarkable success and will give life to other programs: “Special Quark”, “Quark’s World” (nature documentaries), “Q uark Economia ”,“ Quark Europa ”(with socio-political contents). He then creates the “Italian Quarks” series by having Italian authors produce about fifty documentaries on topics such as nature, environment, exploration, animals; some are made together with his twenty-year-old son Alberto in Africa, where he carries out his paleoanthropological studies on the ancestors of man.

Nel 1983 produces nine film-dossiers dealing with scientific topics. Cure “Quark Pills”, approx. 90 short commercials of 30 seconds each, which pass over 5. 000 times in the programs during the programming of Rai1.

He later produces great TV series of great innovation: travel inside the human body with “The wonderful machine” in 1990 (8 episodes), in prehistory with “The planet of dinosaurs “in 1993 (4 episodes) and in space with” Journey into the cosmos “in 1998 (7 episodes). The series are made with his son Alberto and are also shot in English: they will then be exported further 40 nations, from Europe to America, up to the Arab countries and China.

Since 1995 is the author and host of “Superquark”. Four years later, in 1999, Piero Angela celebrates the 2 o’clock finish. 000 episodes of “Quark” (and related programs ) and in the same year the “Superquark Specials” are launched, monothematic episodes on topics of great scientific, social or psychological interest. Within the historic Rai afternoon program “Domenica In”, still in 1999, there is a space dedicated to culture.

“Ulisse”, from 2001, is another successful dissemination program conducted by Alberto Angela, of which Piero together with son is author. In the same year Piero Angela launched the monthly scientific publication which, linked to the television program “Quark”, bears the same name: in short, it became the most widely read magazine in Italy after “Focus”.

In his long career he has carried out an intense activity of scientific education not only on TV but also holding conferences and writing articles in newspapers and magazines (for example he edited the column “Science and society” on the weekly “Tv Sorrisi e Canzoni “). In order to promote scientific investigations that unmask paranormal events of dubious reliability, in 1989 Piero Angela founded the Cicap (Italian Committee for the Control of Claims on the Paranormal), which is part of the European Council of Skeptical Organizations.

He has obtained numerous awards not only in Italy but also abroad (in the United States and Japan) and received the prestigious Unesco Kalinga International Prize for Scientific Dissemination in Paris. For his activity as a popularizer he has been awarded eight honorary degrees.

There are three honors conferred on him by the Presidency of the Republic: April 2 2002 the Gold Medal for the meritorious of culture and art; the 26 May 2004 the appointment as Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic; L’11 May 2021 the honor of Knight of the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.

Piero Angela is the author of over 30 books , some of which have been translated into English, German, French and Spanish, with a total circulation of well over 3 million copies. Among the numerous books: “From zero to three years. The birth of the mind” Garzanti, 1973); “Archimedes’ tub” (Garzanti, 1971); “Journey into the world of the paranormal. Investigation into parapsychology” (Garzanti, 1975 ); “In the cosmos in search of life” (Garzanti, 1980); “Journeys into science. Quark’s world” (Garzanti, 1982); “The thinking machine. Discovering the brain” (Garzanti, 1983); “Journey into the human body” (with Pietro Motta, Garzanti, 1986); “The extraordinary history of man. Clue by clue an investigation into our origins” (with Alberto Angela, Mondadori 1989); “The extraordinary story of life on Earth. Diary of a journey along four billion years” (with Alberto Angela, Mondadori, 1992); “The planet of the dinosaurs. When the great reptiles ruled the world” (with Alberto Angela, Mondadori, 1993); “The extraordinary adventure of a life that is born. Nine months in the womb” (with Alberto Angela, Rai-Eri Mondadori, 1996); “Journey into the Cosmos. Discovering the Mysteries of the Universe” (with Alberto Angela, Rai-Eri Mondadori, 1997); “Telling science” (Practices, 1998); “I will love you forever. The science of love” (Rai-Eri Mondadori, 2005); “The challenge of the century. Energy. 200 questions about the future of our children “(with Lorenzo Pinna, Mondadori, 2006); “Because we have to have more children. The unthinkable consequences of the collapse of births” (with Lorenzo Pinna, Mondadori, 2008); “What is politics for?” (Mondadori, 2011); “Behind the Scenes of History. Daily Life Through Time” (with Alessandro Barbero, Rizzoli, 2012); “Journey into the mind. Knowing the brain to keep it in shape” (Mondadori, 2014); “Thirteen billion years. The novel of the universe” (Mondadori, 2015). In 2017 he published the autobiographical book “My long journey. 90 years of lived stories “(Mondadori).