I FISICI ITALIANI TRA RICERCA SCIENTIFICA E IMPEGNO CIVILE (HISTSEN)

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Coordinator: Nadia Robotti, Professore ordinario di Storia della Fisica, Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Genova, Italia.

Participants:

N. Robotti, Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Genova

M. Leone, Dipartimento di Filosofia e di Scienze dell’Educazione, Università di Torino F. Guerra, Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Roma La Sapienza

E. Colombi, Liceo Sanvitale (Parma); Deputazione di Storia Patria per le Province Parmensi Place of Work & Collaborations:

Università di Genova Università di Torino

Università di Roma La Sapienza Università di Parma

Archivio Storico del Senato delle Repubblica

Collaborators: E. Campochiaro, E. Lantero, Archivio storico del Senato della Repubblica

Rome, December 2018 - PTA 1

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Project main goals and results achieved in 2018

The project aims to analyze the scientific and civil commitment of Italian physicists over a vast period of time, including much of the 1800s and the first half of the 1900s. The researches carried out so far within this project focused on some of these periods.

However, the large amount of original documents now available (e.g. the recently opened Emilio Segrè Archives at the Bancroft Library of the University of Berkeley and the Bruno Rossi Archive at M.I.T.), allow an extension of this project to:

➪ the analysis of the participation of Italian physicists to the Manhattan project and to the Tube Alloys project

➪ the analysis of the mutual contacts between Italian physicists (who remained in Italy) and German physicists during the war years.

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An interesting case-study of interplay between research and civil commitment is Aldo Pontremoli, third in the competition for the chair of theoretical physics at the University of Rome (the first one was Enrico Fermi), whose activity combined pure research (as evidenced by his period in Cambridge with Rutherford), with high level managing

activities (as for the reorganization of the Institute of Physics of Milan) and activities in applied physics (as in the research carried out during the Arctic expedition).

Another significant case-study is Ettore Majorana, for whom the fusion between scientific results and discussions on method reveal a personality deeply attentive to the cultural aspects of research.

Other prominent personalities to analyze are Bruno Pontecorvo, always in balance between pure physics and applicative aspects, Emilio Segrè, who reveals in his actions and assessments deep culture, great understanding and unexpected humanity, and Bruno Rossi, founder of cosmic ray research in Italy

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 The main results achieved in 2018 concern

➪ the action of physicists in the Senate of the Kingdom and in the Chamber of Deputies (1848-1943)

➪ the contribution of physicists to the Great War (1915-1918 )

➪ the birth and development of nuclear physics in Italy, in particular through the Segrè Archives

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Milestones 2018 Milestone 1

Publication of a book, edited by SIF with the collaboration of Centro Fermi and Senate of the Republic

➪ the volume is in press with the title "I Fisici Senatori: 1848-1943”

Milestone 2

Identification of relevant documents, preserved by the Historical Archives of the Chamber of Deputies, relating to the activity of physicists elected to the

Chamber in the period 1848-1943

➪ The most significant contributions at the Chamber of Deputies (by Govi, Cardani, Gherardi, Cantoni, Battelli) have been identified, with particular

reference to the bill on anti-hail guns (which involved Battelli and Blaserna)

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Milestones 2018 Milestone 3

Publication and dissemination of the results achieved in relation to the involvement of Italian physicists in the Great War.

➪ The main results obtained were published in the Milestone 1 monograph and in other papers. Dissemination was carried out in numerous interventions by invitation to congresses and conferences

Milestone 4

Identification in the Segrè Archives of material relevant for the reconstruction of birth and development of nuclear physics in Italy, with regard to the activities of Fermi, Majorana, Pontecorvo, Segrè.

➪ Segrè archives, opened up under our pressure and recently visited, contains material of great interest, which provides new relevant information on Fermi, Pontecorvo, Majorana, Rossi, Segrè and others.

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Publications (2018)

 M. Leone, N, Robotti, I Fisici Senatori: 1848-1943, SIF, Bologna 2018

 M. Leone, N. Robotti, G. Verna, ‘Rutherford’s experiment’ on alpha particles

scattering: the experiment that never was”, Physics Education 53:3 (2018), 35003

 F. Guerra, N. Robotti, Il Premio Nobel a Enrico Fermi, Giornale di Fisica, 59:4 (2018)

 F. Guerra, N. Robotti, In Biblioteca: The Last Man Who Knew Everything, D.N.

Schwartz, Giornale di Fisica, 59:2 (2018), 197-200

 E. Colombi, F. Guerra, M. Leone, N. Robotti, I Fisici Italiani in Guerra: 1915-1918, Quaderni di Storia della Fisica 21 (2008)

 F. Guerra, Enrico Fermi, La Fisica nella Scuola, numero speciale (2018)

 N. Robotti, Ernest Rutherford, La Fisica nella Scuola, numero speciale (2018)

 F. Guerra, Scambi forti, Asimmetrie 25 (2018)

 F. Guerra, N. Robotti, Biographic Notes on Ettore Majorana, in Ettore Majorana Scientific Papers, SIF-Springer, in press

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Conferences (2018)

• M. Leone, N. Robotti, Il Senato dei Fisici: 1848-1943, 104° Congresso Nazionale SIF (Rende, 17-21 settembre 2018)

• M. Leone, Spari nel buio: Blaserna, Battelli e la controversia sui cannoni contro la grandine (1901-1904), 104° Congresso Nazionale SIF (Rende, 17-21 settembre 2018)

• E. Colombi, F. Guerra, M. Leone, N. Robotti, La Fonotelemetria al fronte: 1915-1918, 104° Congresso Nazionale SIF (Rende, 17-21 settembre 2018)

• N. Robotti, La fisica ai tempi di Frankenstein, Mary Shelley e le sue creature.

Maternità mostruose, Casa delle donne (Milano, 27 ottobre 2018)

• N. Robotti, La scienza ai tempi di Frankenstein, Festival della Scienza. Edizione 2018.

Cambiamenti (Genova, 28 ottobre 2018)

• N. Robotti, I Fisici e la Grande Guerra, Le Scienze e la Grande Guerra. Scienze, Industria e Sanità Pubblica nella Grande Guerra (Aula Marconi, CNR, Roma 16 novembre 2018)

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• N. Robotti, Miracoli a via Panisperna, Liceo Enrico Fermi (Genova, 31 gennaio 2018)

• F. Guerra, Enrico Fermi, Scuola A.I.F- Storia della Fisica «Il nucleo: da Rutherford ai quark, via Los Alamos» (Policoro, 19-23 febbraio 2018)

• N. Robotti, Rutherford, Scuola A.I.F- Storia della Fisica «Il nucleo: da Rutherford ai quark, via Los Alamos» (Policoro, 19-23 febbraio 2018)

• F. Guerra, Enrico Fermi: il navigatore italiano, L’uomo dietro la bomba - Psiche e Physis, Liceo Pilo Albertelli (20 marzo 2018)

• F. Guerra, N. Robotti, Enrico Fermi a Roma, Giornata di studio “Storia della Facoltà di Scienze della Sapienza: 1915-1944” (Roma, 21 giugno 2018)

• F. Guerra, Enrico Fermi: miracoli in via Panisperna, Congresso Nazionale della Società Italiana degli Storici della Fisica e dell’Astronomia – SISFA (Messina, 3-6 ottobre 2018)

• N. Robotti, Emilio Segrè, Enrico Fermi, Bruno Pontecorvo verso l'America, Congresso Nazionale della SISFA (Messina, 3-6 ottobre 2018)

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• F. Guerra, Lo scienziato Ettore Majorana e i Ragazzi di via Panisperna, Ettore Majorana:

80 anni di domande aperte, Liceo Scientifico e Classico, «E.Majorana» (Desio, 14 aprile 2018)

• N. Robotti, Chi è davvero Ettore Majorana?, Ettore Majorana: 80 anni di domande aperte, Liceo Scientifico e Classico E.Majorana (Desio, 14 aprile 2018)

• N. Robotti, Bruno Pontecorvo: l'uomo delle scelte, Università del Salento (Lecce, 11 maggio 2018)

• N. Robotti, F. Guerra, Bruno Pontecorvo: da Pisa a Dubna, un viaggio senza ritorno, Pinacoteca di Como (Como, 24 luglio 2018)

• F. Guerra, Majorana and neutrinos, History of the neutrino, Université Paris Diderot (Paris, 5-7 settembre 2018)

• F. Guerra, N. Robotti, L'archivio Emilio Segrè alla Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 104° Congresso Nazionale SIF (Rende, 17-21 settembre 2018)

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Plan of activities 2019 - 2021

 It is planned the continuation of research on the civil commitment of the physicists during the Kingdom of Italy, with particular reference to the physicists elected Deputies between 1848 and 1943 and on interactions and collaborations between the physicists present in the Chamber and those present, in the same period of time, in the Senate

 A specific activity will be dedicated to Aldo Pontremoli. His figure will be studied not only in relation to his participation in the Nobili polar expedition of 1928 (in which he lost his life), but also regarding his activity as a volunteer of the First World War and as a member of some Italian Federations, as well as in relation to the his scientific activity at the Institute of Physics in Rome, where he became Corbino's assistant and collaborated with Fermi. Pontremoli was one of the first Italian physicists to travel, thanks to a scholarship of National Fighters Association, at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge.

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 It is planned the continuation of research on the scientific and methodological characters of Majorana's activity in the field of relativistic wave equations, which led him to the formulation of the symmetric theory of the electron and positron within the quantum field theory. A side product of this formulation is the Majorana neutrino, which thus finds a natural historical and methodological framework. We will use so far unpublished materials belonging to the Family, to be compared with material conserved at the Majorana Archives of Pisa and the Majorana Family Archive in Cata- nia

 It is also planned the research on the nuclear physics activity in Rome after Fermi's departure. At that time, some of the most interesting nuclear physics phenomena (such as the uranium fission cross section by high-energy neutrons and the diffusion phenomena neutron-proton) were studied by the 1.1 MeV Cockroft-Walton at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità.

Notwithstanding its instrumental limits, this activity, together with the

parallel research on cosmic rays, will be essential for the resumption of physics research in postwar Italy.

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 Finally, it is planned the reconstruction of all the scientific, academic and social aspects that preceded and followed the phases of forced emigration in the United States, at the end of the 1930s, of many Italian physicists. In

particular, we will analyze the participation of Fermi, Segrè, Rossi to the Manhattan project and that of Pontecorvo to the Tube Alloys project in Canada. We plan using primary sources coming from: Fermi Archives

(Chicago), Segrè Archives (Berkeley), Pontecorvo Archives (Churchill College, Cambridge), Heisenberg Archives (Berlin), Amaldi Archives (Rome), Records of the Security Service at the National Archives in London.

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Milestones 2019 Milestone 1

Analysis of specific case-studies of collaboration between physicists- deputies and physicists-senators (e.g. with reference to the 1901 anti-hail guns bill).

Milestone 2

Continuation of the research on the intertwining between scientific activity and civil commitment in the case of Aldo Pontremoli

(besides the polar expedition)

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Milestones 2019 Milestone 3

Reconstruction of the scientific and methodological characters of Majorana’s researches in the field of relativistic wave equations, which led him to the formulation of the symmetric theory of

electron and positron Milestone 4

Reconstruction of the activity in nuclear physics in Rome after

Fermi’s departure, with reference to the research carried out with

the 1.1 MeV Cockroft-Walton at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità

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Expected funding in the 2-year period

- Request of funding by Centro Fermi

Expected funding: 45000 € to cover the following costs:

· travel, accomodation, meal for missions in archives, libraries, conferences, etc.

· conference fees

· reproduction rights

· duplication and digitization costs

· publication costs

- Co-funding

Expected 15000 € from University of Genova, Turin, Rome, INFN

- Potential external funding

It is expected the participation as Centro Fermi, if the opportunity occurs, to calls for external fundings