Scientific profile
Tommaso Ruggeri is an Emeritus Professor of Mathematical Physics at the University of Bologna. His research has focused on the mathematical structure of continuum theories, with particular attention to nonlinear hyperbolic systems and nonequilibrium thermodynamics.
He made foundational contributions to the entropy symmetrization of systems of balance laws admitting a convex entropy, and to the theory of acceleration and shock waves. Together with Ingo Müller, he was one of the founders of Rational Extended Thermodynamics (RET), a macroscopic theory of non-equilibrium thermodynamics that provides a bridge between continuum mechanics and kinetic theory. With Müller he co-authored the monograph Rational Extended Thermodynamics, and with Masaru Sugiyama two further monographs developing RET beyond the monatomic gas and within both classical and relativistic frameworks. His subsequent research extended the theory to dense gases and mixtures, and more recently to nonlinear viscoelasticity and non-Newtonian fluids. In General Relativity, with Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat, he proved the hyperbolicity of the 3+1 system of Einstein equations, contributing to the mathematical formulation of the Cauchy problem.
