Revista Científica Multidisciplinar Núcleo do Conhecimento - RC: 64338 - ISSN: 2448-0959 https://www.nucleodoconhecimento.com.br/philosophy-en/life César Lattes: A life to be told ORIGINAL ARTICLE LIMA, Gabriel Augusto Câmara Paiva [1] SAPUNARU, Raquel Anna [2] LIMA, Gabriel Augusto Câmara Paiva. SAPUNARU, Raquel Anna. César Lattes: A life to be told. Revista Científica Multidisciplinar Núcleo do Conhecimento. Year 05, Ed. 10, Vol. 05, pp. 181-196. October 2020. ISSN: 2448-0959, Access Link: https://www.nucleodoconhecimento.com.br/philosophy- en/life SUMMARY This article reports a little of the life and work of one of the greatest Brazilian physicists, César Lattes. Many important names crossed lattes' path and together with him they built Brazilian physics. It can be affirmed that without the dedication and charisma of this remarkable scientist, the teaching of physics in Brazil would not be the same. His dedication to research had a worldwide effect, opening doors for the improvement of physics teaching. Lattes possessed a unique personality, captivating and exuberant, but sometimes troubled. For these and many other reasons, his life and work has inspired to this day other physicists, as well as teachers, journalists and historians from all over the world. This article is a historical report that can serve as support in the teaching of physics or sciences in general. This is a bibliographical research. Keywords: Lattes, physics, life. INTRODUCTION Who was César Lattes? According to himself (2001), the surname Lattes, inherited from his father's grandfather is of Jewish origin. His father came to Curitiba from Italy at the age of 19, in 1912, to work at the French-Italian Bank. In 1914, he sailed by ship to fight in the 1st. great war alongside the Austrians and Germans. It was during this period that his father met his mother, a French teacher. Upon his return in 1921, he created Banco Brasul, in which he took over the general management. His father died in 1975 and his mother in 1986. Lattes says that they helped him a lot, because they gave him an apartment when he was a father for the fourth time, in addition to costing the medical treatments of his depressions. 1 / 14 Revista Científica Multidisciplinar Núcleo do Conhecimento - RC: 64338 - ISSN: 2448-0959 https://www.nucleodoconhecimento.com.br/philosophy-en/life Lattes was born in 1924 in Curitiba and at the age of two moved to Caxias do Sul. Then he went to Porto Alegre, during the Revolution of 1930. From Porto Alegre he went with his family to Italy, where he stayed for six months and studied in a public school in Turin. Returning from Italy to Curitiba, he remained there until 1933, when at the age of nine, he went to São Paulo to study at Dante Alighieri boarding school. He married, had four daughters and nine grandchildren, but none of them followed the path of physics. It is worth exploring a little more the motivation of Lattes for the study of Physics. This was due to two facts: first, when finishing the gym, he learned that a teacher had three months of vacation a year, instead of a month, as occurred with most other professions, which made him very interested and second, that most subjects were of the type "decoreba", except for Physics and Mathematics, which he liked and had ease. Thus, Lattes leaned towards the study of Physics (BASSALO, 1990; MARQUES, 2005). According to Letícia Oliveira (2013), curiously discovered by professors José Leite Lopes[3] and Gleb Vassielievich Wataghin[4] and possessed the best grades of the vestibular exam at the University of São Paulo, no one could imagine the magnitude of this feat when Lattes at the age of 22, suggested to Cecil Frank Powell[5] to add boron to his photographic plates, used in the study of nuclear emulsions. This led him to be nominated several times for the Nobel Prize in Physics, a title he did not receive just because at the time it was a tradition that the prize was awarded to the heads of the research groups, in this case, Powell. These events changed the picture of Brazilian physics, because Lattes' work showed that even in a less developed country where the research material was not so abundant, it was possible for a young man to make a world-important discovery. From this, scientists became excited and created numerous research institutes even before Lattes' return to the country. Lattes became so notable that he received several national and international awards and honors. The largest of them in 1999, when CNPq graced him giving the system of academic curricula his name. Having said that, this article is the subject of a brief biographical study that set out to raise and praise some aspects of the life of one of the most brilliant Brazilian scientists, perhaps in the world, the great physicist César Lattes. Thus, a reflexive and systematic procedure was performed, in which the data were obtained by indirect documentation, that is, research of an existing bibliography, since it seeks to explain and tell the life of this thinker based on theoretical contributions published in books, articles and institutional sites. It is, then, a compilation article, remembering that this type of study consists in neatly gathering the selected bibliography, combining it and extracting from it what is interesting for the fulfillment of the objective. Generally speaking, a bibliographical research was carried out combined with a historical research that covers the reading, analysis and interpretation of books, articles and established institutional sites. This is because this type of research aims to know the different contributions available on a given topic. LIFE AND WORK César Lattes did not consider himself a physicist, but a teacher, so he said that "The physicist believes in an objective reality and the teacher teaches it". (LATTES, 2001, p.18). Moreover, in relation to recent physics, he stated that physicists only declared that they were coming to the end of science and that we are not even at the beginning of everything that is to be discovered. 2 / 14 Revista Científica Multidisciplinar Núcleo do Conhecimento - RC: 64338 - ISSN: 2448-0959 https://www.nucleodoconhecimento.com.br/philosophy-en/life For Lattes (2001), the greatest Brazilian physicist until then had been Marcelo Damy[6], because not only would he have discovered important things, but also manufactured the equipment, measured and published his results, along with Gleb Wataghin and Paulus "Pompéia" Aulus[7]. Particularly about Wataghin, it is worth mentioning that he was the pioneer in Modern Physics in Brazil. He came on a mission from the Italian government when Teodoro Ramos went to seek teachers in Europe to found the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters. His family was of Russian origin and was connected to the royal family. He was finishing physics in Kiev when he was forced to move to Turin because of the revolution of 1917. So although most physicists don't know, they're heirs to Wataghin. Three other very important personalities in his opinion were Giuseppe Occhialini[8], involved with the discovery of antimatter of new particles, a crucial starting point for the exploration of the universe through X-rays and gamma rays and Joaquim Costa Ribeiro[9], discoverer of the dipole formation of electric charge in the phase changes of solids and liquids. He continued his account by stating that the fact that there are few relevant names in physics was not due to the fact that he was demanding about it, but rather that the works had more names than results. This made it difficult to say who was good, since even with the increase in the number of scientists in this area the great triumphs did not arise. During his undergraduate course, Lattes studied Mathematics and Physics, as well as other subjects. It was about six hours of classes a day, with lab classes that took almost all of their day, with the students themselves putting together the experiments. In 1943, at the age of 19, he graduated with a bachelor's degree in physics and from there all the knowledge he obtained was through studies, both alone and with his colleagues, in addition to reading scientific journals. The library where he graduated was beautiful and had been given by the Italian government. This was the work of Wataghin, who negotiated with the Italian government the donation of complete collections of updated physics and mathematics books. Salaries were much better than the current ones. When he graduated, Lattes says, "I should make about 900 a month, which should give, today, about four thousand dollars." (LATTES, 2001, p.28). Early in his career, Lattes was invited to be the third assistant to the chair of Theoretical Physics and Mathematics, conducted by Wataghin. He did work together with Wathaghin on the abundance of elements in the universe. For this, he used statistical thermodynamics of high densities and temperatures. Soon after, he was invited by Mário Schenberg[10] to calculate the field of a puntiform dipole with angular momentum. After this second work, he gave up theoretical physics and went to Wilson's chamber[11]. It's important to know that Occhialini and Wataghin didn't work together. Wataghin was director of the Physics Department and always gave greater credit to his assistants. During the Great War, he and his wife stayed here. Considered an enemy, he could not remain at the head of the department and won a room with another entrance, because the department produced sleepers and other equipment, all focused on war. Now Occhialini invented an automatic control and put it in Wilson's chamber.