Conveners
Da Poleni a B. Rossi e oltre / From Poleni to B. Rossi, and Beyond: Apertura dei lavori
- Chairperson: Pasquale Tucci
Da Poleni a B. Rossi e oltre / From Poleni to B. Rossi, and Beyond: 18th and 19th Centuries
- Chairperson: Simone Zaggia
Da Poleni a B. Rossi e oltre / From Poleni to B. Rossi, and Beyond: 18th and 19th Centuries
- Chairperson: Leonardo Gariboldi
Da Poleni a B. Rossi e oltre / From Poleni to B. Rossi, and Beyond: 18th and 19th Centuries
- Chairperson: Danilo Capecchi
Galileo, one of the founding fathers of the new science, spent eighteen fruitful years in Padua from 1592 to 1610. But modern physics and astronomy would fully enter the university system more than a century later: in Padua in particular with Giovanni Poleni and Giuseppe Toaldo. The talk traces the development of physics and astronomy in Padua, focusing on some of the significant places and...
Regarding physics, Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) is practically known only among few general relativistic theorists for his sort of special-relativistic theory of gravitation, formulated in opposition to general relativity. However, in my opinion, the greatest work of Whitehead is just a physical one, even if it has very important philosophical and mathematical implications. And it is...
Enrico Federico Jest was the progenitor of an important family of scientific instrument makers who remained active in Turin until 1900. His career as a “mécanicien” began in 1810. In 1814 he became the “machinist” of the Physics Cabinet at the University. He held this position until 1849. In 1852 he handed it over to his son Carlo. Handwritten documents reveal Enrico's intense mechanical...
In the mid-eighteenth century, one of the most urgent astronomical problems was to determine the exact value of the Earth-Sun distance (the so-called Astronomical Unit, AU), necessary to establish the real dimension of the entire solar system. The most promising methods for measuring the AU, due to Edmond Halley (1656-1742) and Joseph-Nicolas Delisle (1688-1768), were both taking advantage of...
In my master’s thesis, I transcribed and studied the correspondence between Giovanni Poleni and a mostly unknown character: Father Jacopo Belgrado. Born in Udine in 1704, he joined the Jesuit company of Parma in 1723. In 1738, he was assigned to the chair of mathematics at the Studium Parmense, precursor of the University of Parma. In this role, he improved the didactics and became one of the...
In 1709, the Marquis Giovanni Poleni (1683-1761) described his "pinwheel" calculator project in the essay "Miscellanea" of 1709. Poleni was an attentive reader of European scientific news of his time, despite the communication difficulties of the period. News of the inventions of calculating machines by Pascal and Leibniz did not escape him. He built the "pinwheel" to perform addition and...
In the second half of the Eighteenth century, a large number of physicists dealt with atmospheric phenomena. It was generally acknowledged that meteorological conditions could have a great influence on the life of humans and animals, as well as on the plant growth. A considerable amount of quantitative data was collected, using hygrometers, rain gauges, electrometers, etc. In Apulia, one of...
I intend to focus my attention on Giuseppe Bianchi (Modena 1791-1866), an astronomer and mathematician whose versatile culture made him a protagonist of Modena's scientific culture from the Restoration of the Austro-Estense Dukes in the Estense State. To the Dukes he owed his training in Milan at the Brera Observatory from 1814 and the prestigious assignments they entrusted him with in Modena...
On the evening of 17 December 1819, Carlo Brioschi made the first astronomical observation from the new observatory of Naples on the hill of Miradois. This building, founded on 4 November 1812, represented an architectural innovation for Naples, being the first neoclassical building and for Italian astronomy, being the first building built to be an observatory. But the events on the...
This study aims to reconstruct the work of Abbot Giuseppe Conti during his time in Naples.
Born in Pellegrino Parmense, distinguished himself in the study of scientific disciplines. After completing the usual course of studies, he received holy orders. In 1801 he obtained the chair of repeater of experimental physics and mathematics at the local Lalatta College. The notoriety of his lectures...
In the early morning of 8th July 1842, a total solar eclipse ran across Europe, passing through the major cities of the Habsburg Empire: Milan, Venice, Gratz, Wien, Bratislava, Budapest, Lemberg (Lviv). The eclipse received a great attention from the astronomers given the many observatories present along the path. At the Astronomical Observatory of Padua the Director Santini was ready to...
In 1889, the physicist Temistocle Calzecchi Onesti (Lapedona 1853 – Monterubbiano 1922), the inventor of the coherer, organized a visit to the physics laboratory of the Royal Classical Lyceum Annibal Caro in Fermo for the Maggiori sisters. The physicist from Fermo, who discovered in 1883 the detecting properties of electromagnetic waves by a glass tube filled with metal filings, took care of...
In the following, some important inventions and innovations are described, as created from 1840 until the 1917 revolution by Immanuel and his sons Robert, Ludwig, and Alfred, the last representatives of the Nobel family.
Alfred's invention of dynamite was born from Immanuel's research into underwater mines and new explosives.
Robert was fascinated by the city of Baku in Azerbaijan while on...
