Conveners
20th century physics
- LUIGI ROMANO (Università degli Studi di Bari)
The Institute of Physics in Milan was established by Giovanni Polvani after he was called as professor of Experimental Physics by the Royal University of Milan after Aldo Pontremoli's death declaration in 1929. In this communication I will sketch the educational and research activities up to the end of World War II as well as some issues of the impact of the Fascist Regime on the life of the...
Independent research, like studies on aurorae borealis and cosmic rays, founded their point of union in the use of Differential Analyzer, an analog computer invented by Vannevar Bush () in 1931, for measurements. In fact, the computers answered a growing demand for computing fundamental to prove new cosmological hypotheses whit scientific measurements. The Analyzer was used by Manuel Vallarta...
La prematura morte di Enrico Fermi (1954) lo stroncò nel pieno dell'attività e all'apice della fama, non solo in Occidente: se era noto in tutto il mondo per i suoi risultati, vi sono tuttavia alcuni interessanti e trascurati aspetti della ricezione della sua figura di scienziato al di là della Cortina di Ferro. Grande promotore della conoscenza della vita e delle opere di Fermi in Unione...
We discuss part of Feynman’s work in classical and quantum gravity, first presented at the Chapel Hill Conference of 1957 [1]. Being concerned with the relation of gravitation with the rest of physics, Feynman embraced a field-theoretical and non-geometrical approach to general relativity in which, after the recognition that the gravitational interaction must be mediated by quanta of a...
Both casual readers and long-time enthusiasts of Feynman's Lectures on Physics, when reaching the section entitled “Planetary Motions” [1], sense they are experiencing content rarely available elsewhere, delivered via a strategy quite unique in the history and practice of introductory physics pedagogy and basic scientific computing. In fact, a careful reading makes it obvious that, although...
An interesting issue in the history and philosophy of science concerns possible relations between scientific theories, in particular reductions of theories. According to Nickles [1], a possible notion of reduction is the physicist's one, according to which a theory is reduced to another theory by a mathematical limiting process on a parameter. When the correspondence relation between theories...
