tribute Edoardo Amaldi: a true statesman of science
Edoardo Amaldi was a scientist who used his talent and insight to re-establish science in Italy and across Europe, particularly in fundamental physics, during the critical period following the Second World War. Giovanni Battimelli and Luciano Maiani review the life of this significant individual.
Edoardo Amaldi was a leading figure in Italian science in the 20th century, particularly in fundamental experimental physics. He con- tributed to nuclear physics in the 1930s and 1940s, and to cos- mic rays and particle physics in the post-war years, then became a pioneer in the experimental search for gravitational waves in the 1970s. It is largely thanks to his drive that Italian physics emerged successfully from the slump following the Second World War. He was also one of the main players in the process that turned the dreams of large European scientific projects into reality, most notably CERN.
In Rome with Fermi Amaldi was born in Carpaneto Piacentino, northern Italy, on 5 Sep- tember 1908. He was the son of Ugo, a distinguished mathe matician and university professor. Ugo’s academic career led him from Modena to Padua and finally to the University of Rome in 1924, where he joined the outstanding Italian mathematicians Vito Volt- erra, Tullio Levi-Civita, Guido Castelnuovo and Federigo Enriques. Edoardo enrolled at the University of Rome as a student of engineer- ing in 1925. Two years later he moved to physics, attracted by the presence of Enrico Fermi, as were a few other brilliant students, including Emilio Segrè and Ettore Majorana. Amaldi took his degree in physics in July 1929, with a dissertation on the Raman spectrum Edoardo Amaldi dedicated himself to fostering peace and science. of the benzene molecule. His thesis advisor was Franco Rasetti, who had moved from Florence to join Fermi in Rome. By the end of the Following the discovery by Frédéric Joliot and Irène Curie of radio 1920s a strong group of young physicists had become established activity induced by alpha particles, Fermi and his collaborators at the institute in via Panisperna and their research efforts deliber- started a methodical search in March 1934, bombarding samples ately steered towards the new frontier of nuclear physics. of different elements with neutrons emitted by a radon-beryllium Under Fermi’s leadership, it became common practice to send source. Their experiments culminated in October 1934 with the dis- young people abroad to stay for extended periods at leading covery of the efficiency of slow neutrons in activating nuclear fission. research centres. In 1931 Amaldi spent 10 months in Peter Debye’s The published papers carried the signatures of all team members laboratory in Leipzig learning X-ray diffraction techniques in liquids. (Fermi, Rasetti, Amaldi, Segrè, the chemist Oscar D’Agostino and, He later spent short periods at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cam- later, the young Bruno Pontecorvo). Fermi was clearly the intellectual bridge, Columbia University and the Carnegie Institution. leader and driving force, and for these results he would receive the s
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Nobel Prize for Physics in 1938. In the meantime, Fermi and Amaldi did most of the work for the next few years following the discovery; Rasetti and Pontecorvo were mostly out of Rome and Segrè had moved to a professorship in Palermo. Amaldi thus acquired a com- petence in nuclear physics, particularly in the subject of neutron properties, that turned him into a leading authority in the field. In 1937 Amaldi won a professorship at the University of Cagliari, but he was immediately called to the chair of experimental physics in Rome, which had been left vacant by the sudden death of Orso Mario Corbino. Amaldi kept this position until retirement. He continued to work on neutron physics with Fermi and Rasetti. They designed and built a Cockcroft–Walton accelerator, which was completed in 1939 at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità. By the late 1930s, however, the general situation in Italy was deteriorating rapidly. The lack of sup- port necessary to keep research competitive, the alignment of fas- cism with Hitler’s Germany and the racial laws promulgated in 1938 led directly to the forced or voluntary emigration of many Italian Edoardo Amaldi (second from right) with Enrico Fermi (left), Ginestra physicists. When the Second World War began, Amaldi was the only Amaldi and Enrico Persico. (Courtesy Amaldi Archives, Dipartimento di member of the original Panisperna group still in the country. Fisica, Universita ‘la Sapienza’ Rome, AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives.)
The war years Lef t alone in Rome with a small group of younger researcher s, Amaldi concentrated his research efforts on nuclear fission, working with physicists from the physics institute and the Istituto di Sanità, while Gian Carlo Wick replaced Fermi on the theory side. This work was interrupted when Amaldi was sent for a few months to the African front in 1940. On his return to Rome, research on fission continued. However, by 1941 suspicion arose that working on fission exposed the group to the risk of being recruited for war-related research. As a consequence, the experimental work shifted focus to the problem of proton–neutron scattering, while some of the younger graduates started research on cosmic rays. Though research conditions were difficult during the war, Rome was still in a better situation than research facilities in northern Italy, especially after liberation in June 1944. By war’s end, most of what had been left of active research in Italy, in terms of both expertise and people, was concentrated in Rome. In collaboration Left to right: Amaldi, Franco Rasetti and Emilio Segrè, together again with Wick and Gilberto Bernardini from Florence, Amaldi steadfastly many years after they first met in Fermi's group in Rome. (Courtesy AIP took it upon himself to reconstruct Italian physics, starting from the Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Segrè Collection.) vantage point offered by his location in the capital. The first move, completed successfully in October 1945, was to obtain from the general policy to which he adhered strictly in the following years. reconstituted Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) the estab- The scale of prestige acquired by nuclear and particle physics in lishment of a research centre for nuclear and elementary particle the US after the war convinced Amaldi that the best course of action physics at the physics institute in Rome. for Italian physics would be to concentrate on those research sec- tors where good results could be obtained with the modest means The years of reconstruction available. As a consequence, emphasis was placed on the relatively During a trip to the US in 1946, Amaldi was offered a chair at the inexpensive research field of cosmic rays, where Italian physicists University of Chicago by none other than Fermi, but he declined could rely on the solid tradition initiated by Bruno Rossi. The first because he felt a duty to take care of scientific development in his step, in 1947, was to construct a high-altitude laboratory in the homeland. During the visit, Amaldi was confronted by the restric- Italian Alps. New research centres followed: Padua in 1948, Turin tions imposed on results and topics in “his” physics because of real in 1951 and Milan in 1952. Meanwhile, Amaldi promoted the devel- or supposed military interest. He realized that, beyond a certain opment of applied nuclear research, training young engineers and limit, it was impossible for him to talk freely even with Fermi about physicists, and raising support among politicians – a programme problems in nuclear physics. Amaldi found this disturbing on ethi- that led to the construction of Italy’s first nuclear reactor. cal grounds and detrimental to scientific progress. The experience Amaldi, Gustavo Colonnetti and Bernardini, relying on the strengthened his conviction acquired during the war years that genu- strength of this active network and on the support of CNR’s presi- ine scientific collaboration is planned free from military control – a dent, were able to achieve a significant goal: the establishment in
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1951 of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN). Bernar- the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics to back the idea. dini was its first president and Amaldi took charge between March The ambitious plan quickly took form using the institutional support 1960 and January 1966. of UNESCO. Amaldi and French physicist Pierre Auger, director of the The first important activity for INFN physicists was their partici- scientific section of UNESCO, were the driving force for a project that pation in three international collaborations, which between 1952 was attractive to the younger generations of European physicists, and 1954 launched high-altitude balloons carrying photographic but which had to overcome difficulties and opposition at both the emulsions for the study of cosmic rays. Amaldi’s group in Rome scientific and the governmental levels. took part in the first and second collaborations. Soon after, a more By May 1951 a selected team of experts from eight countries ambitious INFN programme was initiated for the construction of approved a detailed plan, and by early 1952 an intergovernmental a competitive accelerator for high-energy physics. The project conference established a provisional organization, which took the became reality in less than five years: the electron synchrotron of name of the Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire (CERN). the Laboratori Nazionali in Frascati started operating in February Amaldi was elected general secretary of the provisional CERN and 1959. Amaldi’s active role in the physics community and with poli- he supervised all of the crucial phases in the infancy of the new ticians and administrators in Rome was decisive in winning a site institution, including the early stages of work on the laboratory site, close to Rome for the new laboratory. This was in line with a general on grounds allocated by the city of Geneva. He left the position scheme that assigned the development of nuclear facilities for civil when CERN entered into official existence in September 1954, led purposes to the northern areas of the country and concentrated – among other reasons – by the desire to revert to more active fundamental research at the nation’s capital. research work in physics. Paralleling the development of the labora- tory in Frascati, the big CERN proton synchrotron was successfully Building European science completed in 1959, reaching a record energy of 28 GeV. Soon after the war, physicists throughout Europe came to realize Amaldi always kept strong ties with CERN, maintaining a place that only a collaborative effort between several countries could give in the scientific bodies that helped to shape its policy. In 1963 he Europe a competitive role in fundamental research. The proposal for created the European Committee for Future Accelerators, which was a great European particle accelerator was put forward by Isidor Rabi an independent body charged with planning new machines to be in 1950, and Amaldi was one of the strongest advocates from the built in Europe (both at CERN and elsewhere), and he was president beginning. He took advantage of his capacity as vice-president of until 1969. He headed up the particular group that planned the s
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This was evident when a decision had to be taken between launching a great effort for a new Italian proton synchrotron or giving Italy’s support to the project for the 300 GeV machine in Geneva. In this instance he was strongly in favour of the CERN project, convinced that priority in big science had to be granted to Europe. In the early 1960s, when the project of a joint European effort in space was being discussed, a network of scientists and politicians similar to the one that had contributed to the success of CERN was formed, which included the French physicist Hubert Curien. Amaldi took an important role in launching the idea and pushing it through scientific and political circles. As a result, in 1964 the European Left to right: Pierre Auger, Amaldi and Lew Kowarski in February 1952, Space Research Organisation was established, which later gave founding fathers of the provisional CERN. birth to the European Space Agency. waves is still an open problem almost 20 years after Amaldi’s Research in cosmic rays and particle physics passing. Huge facilities have been built for the purpose in large In the time left over from academic and administrative duties, as international collaborations, involving many Italian physicists – the well as acting as an organizer and planner of science, Amaldi stayed legacy of a tradition borne out of Amaldi’s initial foresight. in active research, leading groups of young collaborators and mov- In his mature years, Amaldi increasingly devoted part of his time ing his interest towards cosmic-ray physics. A high point came in to collecting his memoirs and putting on paper those moments in the mid-1950s with work on one of the emulsions exposed to the the history of physics that he had witnessed. He started with com- cosmic radiation during the 1953 high-altitude balloon collabora- memorations of friends and colleagues, then worked on recollec- tion. The group found a track that could be interpreted as evidence tions of important events. Amaldi’s reconstructions evolved into of the annihilation of an antiproton – a particle the existence of writings with growing insight into the more general historical context, which was taken for granted on a theoretical basis but that had not with a care for sources and documentation not usually found in yet been observed. To gain better support for the evidence offered similar works by scientists. He was helped by a habit developed by the single track, Amaldi turned to Segrè at Berkeley, proposing a in his early days of keeping all relevant documentation related to joint research programme aimed at the detection of similar events in his work and to the institutions that he was involved with. His per- emulsions exposed to the proton beam of the Bevatron. At the time sonal archive helped him to produce works that went far beyond the this was the most powerful accelerator in the world and the only one traditional scientist’s recollection, resembling more the scope of that could reach an energy above the threshold needed to produce a scholarly research by an independent historian. proton–antiproton pair. The Rome–Berkeley collaboration lasted for a couple of years, yielding important results on antiprotons and their Working for peace and arms control annihilation properties. However, the first confirmation of such a Amaldi’s concern for peace, and his strong feeling for the respon- process – clearly visible in the emulsion tracks – came a few weeks sible role that the scientific community should play in this respect, after Segrè and his group had independently detected the anti- was always a natural complement to his unshakable belief in the proton by a different experiment that relied on counters instead of open nature of science and the need for international cooperation. emulsions. For this discovery, Segrè and Chamberlain were awarded By remaining in Italy during the war, he was spared the difficult deci- the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1959. sion about whether to take part in projects related to the military use Amaldi’s interest in the experimental detection of gravitational of science. He later admitted that, had this been the case, he would waves began with a course on gravitational-wave antennas given by in the end have put his competence to the service of what looked to Joe Weber, the pioneer of this instrumentation, at Varenna in 1962. him, beyond any doubt, the right side on which to fight. In 1970, under Amaldi’s leadership, a group formed in Rome with the After the war he followed with interest the first attempts of Ameri- aim of designing and building cryogenic detectors for gravitational can physicists to establish some sort of organization aimed at waves. Initially, small-scale antennas were planned and put into the control of the arms race. Following the 1955 Einstein–Russell operation; then larger detectors were built in succession in Rome, appeal, Amaldi was involved in the Pugwash movement from the Frascati and at CERN – where the cryogenic antenna Explorer was moment it was created in 1957 and became a member of the execu- installed in the 1980s, attaining by 1989 the highest sensitivity tive committee at the second Pugwash meeting in 1958, a position reached for many years. While leaving the direct responsibility to that he held until 1973. In 1966, with his physicist colleague Carlo others, Amaldi played an active role throughout this period in both Schaerf, he founded the International School on Disarmament and the planning and the execution of the experiments, as well as in Research on Conflicts, which he chaired until his death. recruiting young students to the field. The detection of gravitational In 1982 Amaldi led a delegation of Italian physicists to the 16 CERN Courier December 2008 CCDec08AMALDI.indd 16 11/11/08 10:56:09 TRIBUTE PLANNING YOUR 2009 MARKETING STRATEGY? Amaldi (right) at the inauguration of the SPS in 1977, with Chris Llewellyn Smith. Amaldi strongly supported siting a 300 GeV machine at CERN. president of the Italian Republic, presenting a resolution of concern with the ongoing arms race and the danger to Europe created by the deployment of cruise missiles. As a follow-up to this document, the Unione Scienziati Per Il Disarmo was founded – an active group that has since then kept the discussion on disarmament issues alive in Italy. One of Amaldi’s last public official speeches was in 1987, when he led a delegation of Italian scientists to the international forum in Moscow organized by the soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev at a time when a new climate of liberation was opening up. Amaldi was married to Ginestra Giovene, one of the few women among the physics students in Rome during the 1930s. They bore three children: Ugo, Francesco and Daniela. Ugo followed in his father’s steps as a high-energy physicist, leading to a career at CERN. Edoardo Amaldi was a member of a number of academies and learned societies and was the president of the Accademia dei Lincei, Italy’s national academy, between 1988 and 1989. It was at the end of a day’s work in his office at the Lincei, still in his full capacities, that a heart attack killed him in 1989, at the age of 81. Résumé Edoardo Amaldi : un grand homme de science Edoardo Amaldi fut l’une des grandes figures scientifiques italiennes du XXe siècle, en particulier dans le domaine de la physique expérimentale fondamentale. Il apporta sa contribution à la physique nucléaire dans les années 30 et 40 et à la physique des rayons cosmiques et des particules dans les années d’après-guerre, et devint dans les années Reach the key decision 70 un pionnier de la recherche expérimentale sur les ondes gravitationnelles. C’est en grande partie sous son impulsion makers in the high-energy que la recherche italienne en physique put renaître de ses cendres après la seconde guerre mondiale. Il contribua par physics community. ailleurs pour beaucoup aux efforts déployés pour concrétiser de grands projets scientifiques transnationaux européens, essentiellement et avant tout au CERN. Download the 2009 media pack now from Giovanni Battimelli and Luciano Maiani, University of Rome “La Sapienza”. cerncourier.com/cws/mediapack. 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