Edoardo Amaldi 1908-89
Edoardo Amaldi, right, with Gilberto Bernar- dini at a CERN Council session in 1965.
Edoardo Amaldi, one of the driving forces of European science and a pioneer of CERN, died on 5 Decem• ber. He began his career in the 1930s with Enrico Fermi in Rome, where he helped discover that slow neutrons were more readily cap• tured in target nuclei. After the premature death of Et- tore Majorana and the decision of Fermi and other prominent Italian physicists to emigrate in the 1930s, Amaldi took essential steps to maintain the spirit of Ital• ian physics. Gian Carlo Wick was invited to take up the Rome chair left vacant after the departure of Fermi. Gilberto Bernardini at Bolog• na commuted regularly to the Ital• ian capital to continue the cosmic ray tradition pioneered by Bruno Rossi. Under their guidance, dra• matic wartime research exploits un• had led the small but vigorous ture. It took many years before fi• der difficult conditions nevertheless group of scientists and politicians nal agreement on the latter was made important contributions to who promoted the idea of a Euro• reached, but it was symbolic that physics, culminating in the epic pean Laboratory in the early Amaldi was President of the CERN 1946 discovery of the muon by 1950s, and it was fitting that he Council when the SPS was finally Marcello Conversi, Ettore Pancini held the position of Secretary Gen• approved in 1971. Subsequently find Oreste Piccioni. eral when CERN formally came into he was a regular visitor, still in• In 1955, while the experiment of being in 1954. His vision and wis• volved in experiments, and a nec• Owen Chamberlain, Emilio Segre, dom in helping to create the Organ• essary presence at all CERN's great C. Wiegand and T. Ypsilantis that ization and its guiding document, events, including most recently the was to discover the antiproton was the Convention, were important LEP Inauguration on 13 November being set up at the new Berkeley factors in enabling CERN to re• (see page 6). Bevatron, an emulsion stack study spond to all the challenges of the From 1957-60 he was President by a Berkeley/Rome collaboration past 35 years. of the International Union of Pure went ahead at the new machine, Following a 1963 proposal by and Applied Physics. In his home and a particle with antiproton-like CERN Director General Viktor country, he was President of the properties was revealed in subse• Weisskopf and Scientific Policy INFN from 1960-65, a member of quent analysis in Rome. An Amaldi Committee Chairman Cecil Powell, the prestigious Accademia dei Lin- group had also seen an antiproton Amaldi was the first chairman of a cei, becoming its President in candidate in cosmic ray studies. new body, the European Commit• 1988, and the Accademia Nazion- In later years, Amaldi pointed tee for Future Accelerators (ECFA), ale dei XL. out how the novelty and intimacy a 'little parliament' of physicists For a man of great vision who of physics at cosmic ray mountain which under his guidance produced could transform his ideas into real• observatories and nuclear emulsion the famous 'Amaldi Report', with ity, he was very modest. At his laboratories in the immediate post• recommendations for new ma• 80th birthday celebrations at CERN war years had suggested wider chines - the Intersecting Storage in 1988 he concluded simply, 'It and more ambitious collaborations. Rings and the 300 GeV machine has always been a joy to work for Putting these ideas into action, he (the SPS) - that secured CERN's fu• CERN'.
CERN Courier, January/February 1990 27