Regge obtained the
laurea in
physics from the
University of Turin in 1952 under the direction of
Mario Verde and
Gleb Wataghin, and a
PhD in physics from the
University of Rochester in 1957 under the direction of
Robert Marshak. From 1958 to 1959 Regge held a post at the
Max Planck Institute for Physics where he worked with Werner Heisenberg. In 1961 he was appointed to the chair of Relativity at the University of Turin. He also held an appointment at the
Institute for Advanced Study from 1965 to 1979. He was an emeritus professor at the
Polytechnic University of Turin while contributing work at
CERN as a visiting scientist. Regge died on 23 October 2014. He was married to Rosanna Cester, physicist, by whom he had three children: Daniele, Marta and Anna. In 1959, Regge discovered a mathematical property of potential scattering in the
Schrödinger equation—that the scattering amplitude can be thought of as an analytic function of the angular momentum, and that the position of the poles determines power-law growth rates of the amplitude in the purely mathematical region of large values of the cosine of the scattering angle (i.e. \cos(\theta)\rightarrow \infty, requiring complex angles). This was the first of a whole series of state sum models for
quantum gravity known as
spin foam models. In mathematics, the model also developed into the Turaev-Viro model, an example of a
quantum invariant. In the mid-1960s he was approached by
Radical period furniture manufacturer
Gufram, for whom he "transformed a mathematical quartic function into a volume with intentionally ergonomic characteristics" to create the design for his 1968 Detecma seat. Married to the physicist Rosanna Cester, whom he met in the USA in 1954, the couple had three children, Daniele, Marta and Anna. He died at the San Luigi hospital in
Orbassano on 23 October 2014 at the age of 83 due to complications from
pneumonia. The civil funeral rite took place in the Farewell Hall of the Monumental Cemetery of Turin, where the body was cremated. Along with
Piero Angela, in 1990 he co-founded the
CICAP, covering the role of scientific senior consultant in place of
Edoardo Amaldi. According to his daughter Anna, Tullio Regge spoke seven languages:
English,
German,
French,
Spanish,
Russian and
Hebrew because he would like to read the Bible in its original language, while discussing with the
Jehovah Witnesses. He is considered to be the most influential Italian physicist of the 20th century, after
Enrico Fermi. ==Thought==