Speaker
Description
The Via Panisperna group is internationally recognized for its fundamental work carried out in Rome during the 1930s and for the leadership of its central figure, Enrico Fermi. Less well-known, however, is the scientific career of another member of the group: Emilio Segrè.
Following World War II, Segrè settled at the Berkeley laboratories where, together with Owen Chamberlain, he succeeded in identifying the antiproton. As is often the case, the awarding of the Nobel Prize conceals complex dynamics and background stories: what criteria guide the Committee’s choices? In what way do these decisions reflect the state and the transformations of scientific research?
In this context, the Nobel Prize awarded to Segrè is situated squarely within a period of profound transition, marked by the shift from the physics of small-scale experiments to the new era of "Big Science", characterized by increasingly complex apparatuses that Segrè himself would define as “battleship experiments.” This work aims to reconstruct this journey, highlighting the link between scientific recognition and the paradigm shift that transformed post-war physics.
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