The Origins of Solid State Physics in Italy: 1945-1960
Pavia, 21-24 September 1987
Proceedings edited by G. Giuliani, Editrice Compositori (SIF), Bologna 1988.
Promoted by: Gruppo Nazionale di Struttura della Materia del CNR, Gruppo Nazionale di Storia della Fisica del CNR, Centro Interuniversitario di Struttura della Materia del MPI, Dipartimento di Fisica "Volta" dell'Università degli Studi di Pavia.
Sponsored by: Gruppo Nazionale di Struttura della Materia del CNR, Gruppo Nazionale di Storia della Fisica del CNR, Centro Interuniversitario di Struttura della Materia del MPI, Dipartimento di Fisica "Volta" dell'Università degli Studi di Pavia, Università degli Studi di Pavia, Amministrazione Provinciale di Pavia, Ansaldo-Unità Semiconduttori, Banca del Monte di Lombardia, Banca Popolare di Novara, Eniricerche.
Organizing Committee: Fausto Fumi, Giuseppe Giuliani, Guido Tagliaferri.
Seventeen lectures given by physicists, five by historians.
The lectures have been recorded on videotapes.
Foreword by Fausto Fumi: Ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure to welcome you all to Pavia and to the Conference on The Origins of Solids State Physics in Italy: 1945-1960 on behalf of the Organizing Committee.
I believe it was a very good idea of Giuseppe Giuliani and the Group for History of Physics at Pavia to propose this Conference to try and relive the years of the postwar period in which a number of small Italian groups started research in the Physics of condensed matter, in general quite independently in different institutions. These groups operated on an essentially artisan basis but produced already work at international level. People active in this phase have been invited to present the research with which they had been connected.*
These papers are integrated by a study by Galdabini and Giuliani on early lines of research in the same general area in Italy between 1900 and 1940.
The reports by André Guinier, Sir Nevill Mott and Frederick Seitz on the development of Solid State Physics in France, in England and Germany and in the U.S.A., and the reports by three European Historians of Physics on specific areas of Solid State Physics complete the agenda of the Conference.
I am sure we will all find the Conference stimulating and on behalf of the Organizing Committee I wish you a pleasant stay in Pavia.
* Perhaps I might be permitted to inject here a personal element recalling my great indebtedness to Carlo Perrier, the discoverer of technetium with Emilio Segré, Professor of Mineralogy at the University of Genoa during the 1904's, who introduced me to Solid State Science.
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Lectures
- Introduction / Foreword by Fausto Fumi.
- Early Lines of research in Italy. Silvana Galdabini and Giuseppe Giuliani.
- Ferromagnetic materials and the Istituto Elettrotecnico Nazionale "Galileo Ferraris". Giorgio Montalenti.
- Dislocation relaxation and the other aspects of elasticity and anelasticity at the Istituto di Acustica "O.M. Corbino". Piergiorgio Bordoni.
- Magnetic resonance spectroscopy in Pavia under Luigi Giulotto: 1945-1960. Gianni Bonera and Attilio Rigamonti.
- Microwave physics in Pisa in the fifties. Adriano Gozzini.
- Sound waves and physics of fluids in Rome. Daniele Sette.
- Low temperature physics in Frascati, Padua and Rome (1955-1960). Giorgio Careri and Franco Scaramuzzi.
- Research on color centers and semiconductors in Pavia. Gianfranco Chiarotti.
- Theoretical research in the physics of solids. Franco Bassani and Mario Tosi.
- Electron paramagnetic resonance in Palermo. Ugo Palma and Beatrice Palma.
- Solid state physics at CISE under Elio Germagnoli. Aurelio Ascoli and Maria Asdente.
- Research in solid state physics at Ispra. Paolo Camagni and Alfonso Merlini.
- The beginning of neutron diffraction in Italy. Giuseppe Caglioti.
- Experiments on liquid and solid inert gases and on superconductivity in Genoa. Giovanni Boato.
- Experiments on ionic solids in Milano. Roberto Fieschi.
- Reminiscence of a half a century of solid state science with Italians links. Frederick Seitz.
- Proposal for archives on the "History of solid state physics in Italy: 1900-1960". Fabio Bevilacqua.
- Development of solid state physics in England and Germany. Nevill Mott.
- The development of solid state physics in France after 1945. André Guinier.
- Magnetism in France through the history of the molecular field from 1895 to 1948. Pierre Quédec.
- The concept of the color center till 1940. Jurgen Teichmann.
- Conjecture and confirmation. The history of dislocation. Ernst Braun.
- Conclusions. Guido Tagliaferri.