Adriano Morando, or as he probably preferred “the Cavalry Lieutenant Adriano Morando”, had been a researcher, and then associate professor of electrical engineering, since 1990 until 2013, when he prematurely left us, hit by a disease which gave him no quarter, despite his bravery in fighting it.
So much could be said about such a complex character that it is quite impossible to fully describe his essence. Maybe the most appropriate synthesis, which reveals properly the peculiarities of the man and the scientist, lays in this description: “a man of the past, who didn’t live IN the past, but who LIVED the past”.
Adriano was a passionate scholar of history. He was able to fully grasp the connection between history and science: his narration of science history was never a mere chronological account, but a rational search for the links between the two disciplines.
Adriano was a scientific communicator. His dialectic skills and his style captured the attention and thrilled the audience. These characteristics made it extremely easy to follow his reasoning during which he used the engineering tools (physics, mathematics) to analyse technical and theoretical problems, often cutting-edge ones. His reference model of the perfect scientist was “Cartesian”, all-round. For him philosophy and science should proceed together: the first one supporting the intellectual aspects, the second one providing substance and firmness to the first one.
Without these premises it is impossible to understand the complexity and the stature of a man who has been a railway traction pioneer and one of the fathers of the high-speed railways designed and realized in Italy
It is no coincidence that the first mathematical model of the prototype of ETR500 bears also his name. And it is no coincidence also that Adriano, as engineer and industrial researcher, developed the model of a converter later used for railways traction power supplies. Back in 1985 modelling wasn’t supported by calculators and this fact gives clear evidence of his unbelievable ability to manipulate formulas and dominate highly complex problems.
Adriano, as “university researcher” at Politecnico di Milano, had left a living contribution in the modelling of three-phase systems under non-sinusoidal conditions: the application of the Park transformation has outlined a research field particularly rich and still relevant, which provided inspiration and guidance for many scientists, not only Italian ones. It is worth mentioning also his contribution to the definition of uniformly distributed-elements models for induction machines, applicable both to non-symmetrical malfunctions and to inverter powering.
His enthusiasm, his culture, his curiosity and his love for the Greats of the past was infused also in his other big passion: teaching future generations. That is why we are sure that Adriano’s lessons as electrical engineering professor will remain in the hearts of all the students who had the privilege of being charmed by his way of interacting with them, and could learn, fascinated by his truly unique teaching skill.
Similarly, his memory, so rich of many pictures of precious shared moments debating with him on circuit diagrams and formulas with which in a few minutes he filled papers on papers, remains with those who met him together with the regret of his loss, but also the awareness of the privilege of having met him and worked with him.