Bruno Bertotti is an Italian physicist, emeritus professor at the University of Pavia

University of Pavia

The University of Pavia is a university located in Pavia, Lombardy, Italy. It was founded in 1361 and is organized in 9 Faculties.-History:...

. He was one of the last students of Erwin Schrödinger

Erwin Schrödinger

Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger was an Austrian physicist and theoretical biologist who was one of the fathers of quantum mechanics, and is famed for a number of important contributions to physics, especially the Schrödinger equation, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933...

. Bruno Bertotti is well known for his contributions to general relativity

General relativity

General relativity or the general theory of relativity is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1916. It is the current description of gravitation in modern physics...

 — particularly the Bertotti-Robinson electrovacuum, an exact solution

Exact solution

In mathematics and especially physics, an exact solution is a solution to a problem that encapsulates the whole mathematics or physics of the problem without using an approximation.-References:*...

 of the Einstein field equation. He has also obtained a more accurate measurement of the parameter gamma of the parameterized post-Newtonian formalism

Parameterized post-Newtonian formalism

Post-Newtonian formalism is a calculational tool that expresses Einstein's equations of gravity in terms of the lowest-order deviations from Newton's theory. This allows approximations to Einstein's equations to be made in the case of weak fields...

, with the Cassini radioscience experiment. The PPN gamma parameter measures the curvature of space in metric theories of gravity and it is equal to one in general relativity

General relativity

General relativity or the general theory of relativity is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1916. It is the current description of gravitation in modern physics...

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Bertotti has been awarded the Italian Gold Medal of Merit in Science and Culture.