A good friend, a good companion, a brilliant research partner, an enemy of any redundance
and useless diversions, restless in tackling scientific problems, an enthusiastic follower of
research by his colleagues, a person that people around him can rely on.
These are only some qualities of Antonio Restivo that we (the editors, with very different
backgrounds) have come up with.
These qualities supported him throughout his research career that began when he was
a young theoretical physicist at the “Istituto di Cibernetica” (IC), Arco Felice, Naples,
where he provided for his own Copernican revolution by moving to Theoretical Computer
Science. Fundamental for this decision was meeting the research team of the Istituto of
Cibernetica, directed by E.R. Caianiello, and especially the meeting with Professor M.P.
Schützenberger—Antonio was very impressed by the way that they approached research
problems and by the respect that they had for competence and hard work