PHYSICAL SCIENCE IN ITALY

D. D. Ivanenko

Participation in the International Congress on World Constants in Turin in the autumn of 1956 and visits to the principal laboratories allowed us to form a fairly complete picture of the state of Italian physical science and at the same time to become acquainted with the organization of higher educational institutions and institutes.

Unfortunately, the ties between our science and Italian science have never been very close. Speaking of the past, one may mention the trips to Italy by the well-known physicist and seismologist B. B. Golitsyn, who in the 1890s attended Bartoli’s lectures and then continued his work on the light pressure. The Moscow physicist A. A. Eichenwald was also connected with Italy, having been treated there in the 1920s and 1930s and, as we found out, having worked for some time at the University of Milan, up to his death soon after the Second World War. The Florentine Optical Institute once hosted S. I. Vavilov. In 1955, after a long interval, Italy was visited by two Soviet physicists, and two Italian professors (Conversi and Clementel) took part in the Moscow May All-Union Conference (meeting) on high energies in 1956.

I had occasion to participate in the 1956 Congress, convened in honor of the well-known atomist Avogadro (1776–1856). This congress was organized by the Italian Physical Society with the participation of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, UNESCO (UN), the Italian National Research Council, the University of Turin, and the jubilee committee for the celebration of the famous Turinese Avogadro. Simultaneously with the congress, scientific and organizational sessions of the 42nd Congress of the Italian Physical Society were held, devoted to elementary particles, the atomic nucleus and certain other questions, mainly to the physics of liquids. The abstracts of the reports of the congress and the society’s congress were published in a single volume, and in what follows we shall speak of them together. The full proceedings will be published later.

In view of the great interest presented by the problems of organizing the congress and the society’s congress, we shall dwell on them somewhat more fully. The main role in organizing both congresses was played by the president of the Physical Society, Prof. G. Polvani, director of the Physical Institute of the University of Milan; the dean of the faculty of the University of Turin, Prof. R. D’Egglio, who served as scientific secretary of the congress; the director of the Physical Institute of the University of Turin, Prof. G. Wataghin; and the director of the Physical Institute of the Turin Polytechnic, Prof. E. Perucca. The president of the Avogadro Congress itself was the well-known American specialist in the analysis of constants, Prof. B. Birge (California). The leaders of the section on atomic and general physics of the 42nd congress were a pupil and closest collaborator of Fermi, Prof. E. Amaldi (director of the Physical Institute of the University of Rome), and Prof. E. Persico (Rome). In addition to Italians, the congress was attended by Nobel laureates who had come—Dirac, Powell, and Yukawa—as well as many other scientists from England, the USA, West Germany, France, and individual representatives of Poland, Belgium, Sweden, India, and other countries.

A detailed, brilliant report on Avogadro’s activity was delivered by E. Perucca. Amedeo Avogadro di Quaregna was born on August 9, 1776, in a family belonging to the old Piedmontese nobility. In 1796 he graduated from the University of Turin, but, renouncing the family tradition, he changed the career of a jurist for that of a scientist (Avogadro—from the word advocatus). These were stormy years for Italy, especially for the north of the country, associated with Napoleon’s campaigns and the formation of the Cisalpine and other republics linked with France, partly later transformed into kingdoms, partly temporarily annexed to France. In 1803 Avogadro was admitted to the Turin Academy, which then bore the French name*,

* Académie des Sciences, Littérature et Beaux-Arts (Academy of Exact Sciences, Literature, and Fine Arts).

about the nature of the electric fluid. In the French Journal de Physique his work on dielectrics was published in 1806, and here, in July 1811 (vol. 73, pp. 58–78), appeared an article with his famous hypothesis on the proportionality of the number of gas molecules to the volumes they occupy, developing Gay-Lussac’s idea. In 1819 Avogadro became a member of the Turin Academy of Sciences, and from 1820 a professor at the University. Professor E. Perrucca broadly sketched also the scientific fate of Avogadro’s “hypothesis,” developed by Cannizzaro and Loschmidt, which became a “rule” in Mendeleev’s monograph on the kinetic theory of gases (1877), and was declared, finally, in 1903 by van ’t Hoff to be a “law,” which, together with the laws of thermodynamics, constitutes the true foundation of physical chemistry.

Before the new building of the University’s physical institute, a bust of Avogadro had already been installed in 1911. Its characteristic, sharply defined facial features are well conveyed on the jubilee medal presented to the participants in the congress.

Reports in honor of Avogadro were also given by Dzialosh and Bärtsch. Turning to the other reports, one should note first of all the impressive picture of the struggle for the most precise measurement of the universal constants, which was brought out at the congress. All the fundamental constants—the speed of light, the charge of the electron, Planck’s constant, Avogadro’s number, which determines in the end the number of molecules in any volume, the gas constant, and other constants—are now measured with enormous precision by the latest means of radio engineering and atomic physics. It is clear that on the most precise determination of these constants depend, in the final analysis, all physical and technical measurements. The refinement of old constants, as well as new ones of the type of the magnetic moment of the electron, the constants of nuclear forces, and others, as is known, has made it possible to discover many new phenomena. It is enough to recall that the discovery of the additional “anomalous,” or better “vacuum,” part in the electron’s own magnetic moment, made by Kusch in 1947, together with Lamb’s discovery of the additional shift of the levels of the electron in the hydrogen atom, made in the same Rabi laboratory at Columbia University, made it possible to discover the polarization of the vacuum and to construct the modern, considerably more exact, picture of the interaction of particles with the vacuum. A great impression was made by the reports of Bärtsch, DuMond, and Cohen (USA) on the careful analysis of errors and on the determination of a new decimal place. Huntoon, from the American Bureau of Standards, set forth an extensive program of work on the measurement of constants and standards.

As before, among standards the mass is measured most precisely, with an error of only three units in the ninth digit; the error in the measurement of length reaches three units in the eighth digit, and for time—one unit in the eighth digit. Of course, the standards must in their turn be determined through the universal constants, since the standards themselves may change with time. Electrical measurements lead to much larger errors: six units in the sixth digit (ampere), four units in the sixth digit (ohm), and so on. In recent years a number of important constants have been measured here, including the speed of light \((c)\), Faraday’s constant \((F)\), the gyromagnetic ratio for the proton \((\gamma)\), the charge-to-mass ratio for a number of elementary particles \((e/m)\), and the second radiation constant.

Precise measurements of electrical standards, the value of the acceleration due to gravity \((g)\), and extensive comparisons of optical wavelengths have recently been completed. It is proposed in the future to remeasure \(c\), \(F\), and \(\gamma\), in the hope of attaining an accuracy characterized by a probable error of \(1\cdot10^{-7}\) for \(c\) and \(g\).

Let us dwell now on the best values of two most important quantities: the speed of light and Avogadro’s number.

According to Bergstrand (Sweden), the speed of light is \(299792.85\pm0.19\) km/sec. This value is obtained from an analysis both of the indirect methods of Essen, Aslakson, and Froome (microwave interferometer), which give \(c=299792.93\pm0.15\), and also of the results with a geodimeter (Bergstrand’s installation with a Kerr cell), which led, in three Swedish and two Australian series of measurements, to the value \(c=299792.76\pm0.17\).

A report by Addink (Holland) was devoted to the analysis of imperfections of the crystal lattice in connection with the determination of Avogadro’s number. Professor Bärtsch recalled that the first complete critical review of constants was made in his work of 1929, continued in publications of 1941 and 1945. Bärtsch dwelt especially on measurements of the constants \(c\), \(e\), and Avogadro’s number \(N\), determined from the diffraction of X-rays in crystals: \(N=(6.02501\pm0.00041)\cdot10^{23}\ \mathrm{mol}^{-1}\) on the physical scale. This value practically coincides with the result of DuMond and Cohen, obtained on the basis not only of diffraction, but also of all other ratios (of the type of the theory of Brownian motion), into which \(N\) enters: \(N=(6.02486\pm0.00010)\cdot10^{23}\). Smakula and Kalnajs (USA) arrive at a new determination \(N=(6.02536\pm0.00002)\cdot10^{23}\) from the lattice constant and the density of single crystals. This is somewhat higher than Bärtsch’s result, but, in the opinion of these authors, by using the latter also a number of less precise data:

In the analysis of atomic constants carried out by Birge and Wilson (USA), a certain possibility was indicated of the existence of a dependence of the speed of light on frequency. In the related reports by DuMond and E. R. Cohen, the general physical and mathematical foundations for calculating universal constants were discussed, with the role of the field—in particular, of such new and important quantities as the magnetic moments of the proton and electron, the fine structure of deuterium, etc.—being considered alongside the familiar old constants.

Fig. 1. Monument to A. Einstein in front of the façade of the Physical Institute in Tunis. (Photograph by the author.)

It should be noted that the accuracy of measurement of the Lamb shift of the energy levels of atomic electrons has now reached such a degree that it should also prove possible to approach, from this side, the determination of the sizes of elementary particles and the distribution within them of charge and magnetism. Indeed—

D. D. IVANENKO

respectively, allowance for the proton volume leads to a correction in the Lamb shift, which lies already at the boundary of measurement accuracy (of the order of 0.1 megacycle). Sanders (Oxford) reported a new precise measurement of the proton magnetic moment by determining the ratio of the spin-precession frequency to the cyclotron frequency in a magnetic field \((\mu_p = 2.79281 \pm 0.0004)\), in nuclear magnetons (in agreement with Triggert). The value of the gyromagnetic coefficient for the proton, obtained experimentally by Kirchner and Wilhelm (Cologne), namely \((\gamma = 2.67549 \pm 0.00016 \cdot 10^4)\), in direct current does not exceed the result of Thomas—Driscoll—Hipwell (U.S.A.). It is possible that the discrepancy is rooted in the inaccuracy of the conversion factor from the international to the absolute ampere, which entered in different ways into the calculations in the two series of experiments. Stille (Chamber of Measures and Weights of West Germany) reported determinations of Avogadro’s number and Loschmidt’s number, as well as of the molar volume \((N = 6.025 \cdot 10^{23},\) physical scale), \((L = 2.6872 \cdot 10^{19}\ \mathrm{cm}^{-3})\); a refinement of the values of the gas constant and of Boltzmann’s constant: \(R = 8.31698 \pm 0.0003 \cdot 10^7\ \mathrm{erg/degree \cdot mole}\), \(k = 1.38041 \cdot 10^{-16}\ \mathrm{erg \cdot K^{-1}}\), molar volume \(V_0 = 2.24208 \cdot 10^4\ \mathrm{cm^3\ mole}\) (physical scale). J. Terrien (France) reported on the selection of monochromatic radiation for the purpose of a new measurement of the meter standard, indicating in a number of examples (the green line 5461 Å Hg\(^{198}\), the line 5570 Å Kr, and others) how carefully one must be in the assertion that the wavelength of light emitted by atoms is constant, since under the conditions of real light sources perturbations due to temperature, etc., take place. According to Tuve (Washington), the solar constant is equal to \(2.00\ \mathrm{cal/cm^2}\) per minute with a probable error of 2%.

A natural continuation of these reports were communications on works connected with the determination of the masses of elementary particles and atomic nuclei. A well-known specialist in the study of nuclear masses, Mattauch (West Germany), discussed the state of the question of masses in the region of light nuclei on the basis of Nier’s mass-spectrographic data, which in general lie higher than the data obtained from nuclear reactions. Precision measurements, in addition to their direct significance for science, have great educational importance for experimentalists. In this connection one must express regret at the absence among us of interest in such useful undertakings both in the institute of metrology (the Chamber of Measures and Weights) and in other laboratories. Apart from the well-known measurements of P. I. Lukirskii of the quantum constant and the determination of the speed of radio waves by the group of Mandel’shtam—Papaleksi, it is difficult now to name analogous results of Soviet physicists. An interesting communication by Crowe (Stanford University, U.S.A.) concerned the question of the masses of new elementary particles. The best values are, for the \(\mu\)-meson: \(\mu = 206.86 \pm 0.11\) (everywhere in electron masses); for the charged \(\pi\)-meson \(273.27 \pm 0.11\).

The values of the masses of \(K\)-mesons and hyperons, according to Crowe, are: \(K_{\pi 2} = 966.0 \pm 1.5\); \(K_{\mu 2} = 965.3 \pm 1.9\); \(K_{\tau} = 966.8 \pm 0.4\). For neutral hyperons we have \(\Lambda_0 = 2181.74 \pm 0.35\). Thus the most recent data confirm the discovery in 1955 of equality of the masses of all heavy mesons, i.e. the \(K\)-group. One of the important problems of the physics of particles and atomic nuclei is the determination of the mesonic quasicharge of nucleons, or of the interaction constant of pseudoscalar \(\pi\)-mesons, which chiefly realize nuclear forces with nucleons (protons, neutrons). Analysis of this question led Chew and Fubini to values of the corresponding so-called pseudovector dimensionless constant lying within rather narrow limits:

\[ \frac{f^2}{\hbar c} \simeq 0.07\text{—}0.1. \]

A similar conclusion had already been made at the Moscow conference in May 1956 by I. E. Tamm, by us, and was recently repeated by Prof. F. Low.

In our communication we pointed to the importance of determining the constants of nonlinear coupling of fields with one another. We presented the conclusion (together with A. M. Brodskii) of a calculation of the mass differences of the proton—neutron and \((\pi^\pm-\pi^0)\)-mesons, which requires the introduction of a cutoff at \(r_0 \simeq 2 \cdot 10^{-14}\ \mathrm{cm}\). This value in a curious way coincides with the boundary proposed by Chew on the basis of the theory of meson scattering on a nucleon.

These calculations develop Feynman’s idea that the mass difference of nucleons is connected with mixed terms caused both by the magnetic moments and by the charges of the nucleons. Recently an analogous calculation was made by Marshak and Sudarshan to explain the mass difference of \(\Sigma^-\) and \(\Sigma^+\)-hyperons (about \(14 m_e\))*).

General considerations on fundamental dimensionless quantities, including the gravitational constant, were expressed by Oskar Klein (Stockholm), who indicated the universal minimum length \(r_0 = 10^{-32}\ \mathrm{cm}\), which is the square root of the product of the quantum length \(\frac{h}{mc}\) and the gravitational radius \(\frac{\varkappa m}{c^2}\), as a certain natural boundary. Cosmological problems were analyzed by Peverucci.

) See E. C. G. Sudarshan and R. E. Marshak, Phys. Rev. 104*, 267 (1956); see also the report by R. Marshak with collaborators at the 7th Rochester Conference in April 1957.

A whole group of papers was devoted to the study of \(K\)-mesons, in particular by the method of photographic emulsions; Konconi—Puppi—Quareni—Stanghellini came to the important conclusion that there is a repulsive potential between \(K\)-mesons and nuclei. The same conclusion was reached by a group of German physicists (Biswas et al., Göttingen)*). A group of Irish physicists studied the interaction of \(K\)-mesons on plates irradiated at the American Bevatron (Anderson et al.).

A communication by Conforto and Fash (Rome) was devoted to the increase in the intensity of cosmic rays on 23 February 1956, which was also observed in Soviet laboratories.

For the decay energy of \(\tau\)-mesons the following value was obtained: \(75.0 \pm 0.4\) MeV (collective report, Vanderhaeghe (Brussels), Levisetti (Milan), et al.). Merlin and other Paduan physicists, together with Bonetti (Milan) and Vanderhaeghe, analyzed the energy and angular distribution of pions arising in about 400 cases as a result of \(\tau^{+}\)-decay, with the aim of determining the spin and parity of heavy mesons according to the theoretical calculations of Dalitz, Fabri, Costa, and Taffaro. The entire modern analysis leads to the value 0 for the sought spin and to the pseudoscalar character of \(\tau\)-mesons (decaying into three \(\pi\)-mesons). A report by Bellaro and others (Rome) was devoted to the analysis of 30,000 photographs in a Wilson chamber containing 220 liters of \(\Lambda\)-particles. Physicists of the University of Padua, headed by Dallaporta and Merlin, studied the interaction of \(K^{+}\)-mesons, analyzing their tracks on plates irradiated at the American accelerator—the Bevatron. Tracks of a total length of 50.7 m (energies from 40 to 90 MeV) and 41.7 m (energies from 90 to 160 MeV) were traced. The 224 observed cases are interpreted according to the optical model of the nucleus. The theory of scattering of \(K^{+}\)-mesons by nuclei according to this model was considered by Costa and Paterniani (Bologna). A report by Cecc (Padua) was devoted to the theory of the complex nuclear potential.

The analysis of \(\tau\)- and \(\theta\)-decays, made by Biswas, Ceccarelli, et al. (Göttingen), led to the conclusion that parity is not conserved in weak interactions.

The Bologna physicists Borelli, Ferretti, Tomasini, Puppi, Ranzi, Quareni, Jessaroli, and Lendinara Quarini considered the interaction of \(\pi^{\pm}\)-mesons with nuclei (energy up to 130 MeV) in photographic plates irradiated at the Chicago synchrotron. The experiments are interpreted on the basis of the gas model of the nucleus and of a nuclear potential acting on pions.

At the Turin Conference, naturally, the question of parity nonconservation was raised.

In the chain of decays \(\pi \to \mu + \nu; \mu \to e + \nu + \bar{\nu}\), the \(\mu\)-meson arising in the decay of the \(\pi\)-meson plays the role of an oriented nucleus, being polarized relative to the direction of motion. The question is the detection of asymmetry in the angular distribution of electrons, i.e. of the noninvariance of the right and left sides. In the report of Castagnoli, Franzinetti, and Manfredini (Rome), the results of an analysis of 410 cases of the decay \(\pi \to \mu \to e\) were reported, indicating that the possible asymmetry is less than 20%. As is known, later Lederman and collaborators at Columbia University found the sought asymmetry without difficulty, showing the nonconservation of parity in these decays. In the corridors and conversations we discussed with G. A. Sokolik the hypothesis of the merging of ordinary and isotopic space, in other words, of a closer connection between internal and external degrees of freedom. We were glad to meet Dirac and Pauli after almost a 20-year interval.

Among the few purely theoretical reports, interest was aroused by Dirac’s attempt (Cambridge) to obtain, on the basis of quantum electrodynamics, such an approximate description of the vacuum in which the probability of the appearance of an electron–positron pair would disappear and only the probability of the appearance of two pairs would remain. In other words, the new description better corresponds to the understanding of the vacuum as a stationary state.

During his subsequent stay in Moscow at the beginning of October 1956, Dirac repeated, in the main, his Turin report at the theoretical seminar of Moscow State University and in other institutes.

In conversations with Prof. Pauli, many current questions of modern theoretical physics were touched upon. In particular, Pauli considers the nonlinear field theory a fruitless hypothesis, bringing additional difficulties and unable to provide anything positive, although he himself was at one time preserved and other questions in this theory. Pauli regards with great interest the development of the theory of quantum gravitation, considering that on this path one may arrive at substantial results. However, Pauli regards the quantization of a weak field as of little significance, since, in his opinion, in the case of gravitation a linear approximation is in principle inadmissible. In reply we allowed ourselves

*) M. Gell-Mann used these results in his report at the 7th Rochester Conference.

to express the hope that the gravitational transmutations of photons and electron-positrons into gravitons and the reverse transformations of gravitons into ordinary matter, which we have so far considered in the linear limit, will at least qualitatively be preserved also in the nonlinear approximation. We have the impression that Pauli considers gravitation essential in the theory of elementary particles.

Mario Verde (Turin) considered the collision of high-energy particles from the point of view of determining the form factors of the distribution of nuclear and electric charge. G. Wataghin (Turin), continuing his well-known work that laid the foundations of nonlocal field theory, analyzed nonlocal theories and the introduction of a universal minimum length in connection with the causality principle, proposing a new form of the cut-off operator. The Polish physicist Prof. E. Rayski (Toruń), known for interesting work on nonlocal field theory, also participated in the congress.

Nuclear reactions were touched upon in a few reports: correlations of \(\gamma\gamma\) (\(\mathrm{Fe}^{56}\)) were analyzed by Bertolini; fast photoneutrons were considered by Ferrero et al. (Turin), using the \(\gamma\)-radiation of a new betatron at \(30\ \mathrm{MeV}\); photoprotons and the polarization of bremsstrahlung were determined by Ricamo.

The Milan physicists L. Colli and W. Facchini (the “Chise” nuclear laboratory) determined the spectrum of protons emitted by neutrons (\(\varepsilon = 14\ \mathrm{MeV}\)) from various nuclei; the photoeffect on an oxygen nucleus was investigated by Milone et al. (Catania), using the same new Turin betatron.

The Bologna physicists Brini, Peli, Rimondi, and Veronesi reported preliminary experiments on studying the asymmetry of the photoeffect caused by polarized photons (\(\gamma\)-rays of \(\mathrm{Co}^{60}\)).

In connection with the construction of an electron accelerator for 1 billion eV at Frascati, in an interesting communication Alberigi Quaranta et al. considered the radio-frequency circuit of this enormous accelerator. Questions related to the magnetic analyzer of particles for this machine were considered by Cristini et al. (Milan).

The question of the binding energy of neutral hyperons was considered by Dallaporta and Ferrari (Padua) on the basis of a field of forces, realized by \(K\)-mesons and pairs of \(\pi\)-mesons, with coupling constants of the same order as for ordinary nuclear forces. In this connection it should be noted that N. N. Kolesnikov and I recently established a linear increase of the binding energy of hypernuclei with atomic weight in proportion to saturation, observed in ordinary nuclei, starting with \(\alpha\)-particles. We note that, after the discovery by the Polish physicists Danysz and Pniewski (1953) of hypernuclei containing, along with protons, one neutral \(\Lambda_0\)-particle, very recently in Padua a nucleus was discovered consisting of a \(\Sigma^-\)-hyperon and a proton *).

A number of communications concerned instruments of nuclear physics. The Milan physicists Sucki et al. reported on a gigantic Wilson chamber (126×116×50 \(\mathrm{cm}^3\)) (!) with 20–25 plates. We visited this laboratory of the University of Milan, which is under the patronage of the well-known physicist Occhialini.

The discharge and observation of enormous tracks in this record Wilson chamber, dimensions comparable with a good cage, make a strong impression.

The adjustment of mass spectrographs with double focusing was considered by Eberling (Mainz). A new type of ionization chamber was reported on by the Milan physicist W. Facchini with collaborators. The transmission of the fastest commands in a coincidence circuit was considered by Bella, Focardi, and others (Rome—Pisa).

After describing the bulk of the reports devoted to atomic-nuclear physics in the broad sense, we shall briefly note communications relating to solid bodies, liquids, ferromagnetism, and other analogous questions. Prof. Careri (Rome) reported on the completion of construction of the first cryogenic laboratory in Italy, possessing installations of liquid hydrogen and helium (a machine with a capacity of 8 l/hour). From the Neapolitan university there was a whole series of works connected with studies by the ultrasonic method of coefficients of second viscosity at different frequencies, with measurement of the dielectric constant of solutions at high frequencies, with a new method of measuring ultrasounds in liquids, with the search for the Debye effect in colloidal solutions in an ultrasonic field, with measurement of thermal waves in liquids, with measurement of the dielectric constant in mono-, bi- and trivalent electrolytes at high frequencies. Individual reports were devoted to galvanomagnetic phenomena in germanium (Della Pergola, Rome), transistors (Bihara, South Africa), and also to ferromagnetism (André Ferro).

Before the end of the congress, one of the meetings of the Physical Society was devoted to the presentation of prizes to young physicists.

*) In a recent April Rochester report, Gell-Mann gives arguments in favor of the view that the interaction of \(K\)-mesons with nucleons will be only “moderately strong,” in comparison with the interaction of \(\pi\)-mesons, being characterized, accordingly, by a dimensionless constant roughly an order of magnitude smaller.

Participation in the congress made it possible to obtain a sufficiently clear picture of the state of Italian physics, and the meetings that took place with the leaders of Italian physics greatly facilitated our subsequent acquaintance with all the laboratories that interested us. It should be emphasized that the exceptional forethought and hospitality—far exceeding the bounds of the ordinary hospitality customarily shown at congresses—displayed toward us by the leaders of the physical societies of Turin and other universities were undoubtedly connected with the great attention that Italian scientists, like many other foreign scholars, devote to the development of Soviet physics and Soviet institutions of higher learning.

At the final reception I noted the necessity of broadening scientific contacts in every possible way for the benefit of the progress of science and of the peoples of our countries.

After the congress was over, we visited all the principal centers of physical science in Italy, which are sections of the National Nuclear Institute and are connected with the universities of Turin, Milan, Padua, and Rome. These sections correspond closely to the scientific-research institutes that have survived at some of our universities. The sections of the Nuclear Institute are equipped better than other laboratories and have their own staffs. Many other laboratories are attached to the main sections of the nuclear institute mentioned above; for example, the physicists of Trieste are connected with the Padua section, the researchers of Genoa with the Turin section, and so on. We shall attempt to characterize the present state of Italian physical science.

It should be recalled that Italian physics is justly proud of the traditions of Galileo and his old academies, as well as of a whole constellation of scholars of the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century (Galvani, Volta, Avogadro). Although in the middle and at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century Italians also made a notable contribution to the development of the science of electricity, electrical engineering, and optics (the electricians Ferraris and Pacinotti, Righi; the theoreticians Mossotti and Bartoli; the opticians Corbino and Lo Surdo), nevertheless these Italian scientists did not play any role in the greatest events of later physics, up to the 1920s–1930s of our century. In those years in Rome, with the assistance of Corbino, who had become a senator, there formed a group of brilliant scientists headed by the famous Enrico Fermi. It included E. Segrè, head of the work on the discovery of three new chemical elements (technetium, astatine, promethium) and of a new antiparticle (1955), Rasetti, Pontecorvo, Amaldi, Wick, and others.

However, the reaction that intensified under the fascist regime led, in the end, to the emigration from Italy of almost all the members of this group. Fermi, until his death in 1954, worked in the USA; Segrè is a professor at the University of California; Pontecorvo became a Soviet physicist.

We note that the instruments of many great scientists, beginning with Galileo, are carefully preserved in modern Italian institutes; numerous memorial plaques recall the work of Avogadro (Turin), Fermi (Rome), Marconi (Rome), Mossotti (Naples), and other researchers.

An inspection of a small exhibition of Galileo’s original instruments in the vestibule of the Physics Institute of the University of Padua, where he had once been a professor and where previously Copernicus had studied, was one of the most remarkable impressions of our trip. The very new building of this institute, with spacious laboratories and several rooms for visiting scholars, was apparently built in the early 1930s under the director B. Rossi, known for his work on cosmic rays.

The large Physics Institute of the University of Rome is located in the new university town, built in a modernized geometric style; among the buildings there are many neo-Roman figures of ancient heroes and Latin inscriptions on the pediments. The university church was built in the same new style. In the vestibule of the Physics Institute there is a bust of Marconi and a memorial plaque in honor of the discovery of artificial radioactivity by E. Fermi, who worked in this building in 1934.

The somewhat different character is borne by the considerably more modest physical laboratories of the University of Naples, situated in a building constructed, apparently, at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Here many of Mossotti’s instruments are preserved, including a mirror given to him by Fresnel.

During the Second World War, science in Italy was in considerable decline. The first postwar years were devoted to the reconstruction of the country, and a noticeable rise of science began only in 1952, when the National Nuclear Institute was created.

The main task of all its four sections consists in the investigation of elementary particles and the study, for this purpose, of cosmic rays by means of photographic plates, as well as of Wilson chambers and bubble chambers. There is almost no nuclear physics proper in Italy, in view of the absence, until recently, of reactors and accelerators. Special photographic plates, specially developed to make possible the registration of particle tracks—for example, the G-5 type of the English firm Ilford and others—are sent for irradiation to American accelerator laboratories and then studied in Italy. With the University of California (Segrè and others), the Roman nuclear ...

section (Amaldi, Castagnoli, and others) is conducting successful joint research on antiprotons and their transformations into \(\pi\)-mesons and other particles.

In this connection one can understand the special interest of leading Italian physicists in the accelerator laboratories of the Soviet Union, where there are machines of \(680\ \mathrm{MeV}\) for accelerating protons, \(250\ \mathrm{MeV}\) for accelerating electrons, and where final preparations are under way for experiments on a proton synchrotron (or, as it is called in Dubna, a synchrophasotron), on which quite recently a record energy of \(10^4\ \mathrm{MeV}\) was reached.

The first small, but very good-quality, betatron-type electron accelerator of \(30\ \mathrm{MeV}\), purchased in Switzerland (the well-known firm Brown—Boveri), was installed in the summer of 1956 at the University of Turin; here, too, an electron accelerator of \(100\ \mathrm{MeV}\), being built by the same firm under the direction of one of the founders of betatron theory, Wideroe, will be installed. Work on the nuclear photoeffect has begun in the Turin laboratory.

At the same time, at the University of Rome, under the direction of D. Salvini, the construction of an enormous synchrotron-type electron accelerator, with the record energy of \(10^3\ \mathrm{MeV}\), is being completed. This machine, which will be installed at Frascatti near Rome and which is expected to be completed according to plan in the autumn of 1957, will apparently be the first installation of this kind in Europe. Salvini’s accelerator laboratory is being organized as the 5th section of the National Nuclear Institute.

We go to Frascatti, famous for its vineyards and old villas, through the Tuscolan hills southeast of the city. After making a small loop through hilly country near the summer papal residence of Castel-Gandolfo, we return to Rome along the historic Via Appia, observing the picturesque landscapes of the Roman Campagna and the Alban Hills. The building of the laboratory itself is being constructed with the southern climate in mind, with broad windows. The machine will be located on the second floor. The magnet is being made in Genoa by the firm Ansaldo. It is interesting that the vacuum chamber is to be made not of ceramic, but of the resin-impregnated technical fabric used also in the nuclear laboratories of Saclay in France. Incidentally, on the same site at Frascatti is the new cryogenic laboratory of Prof. Careri.

In view of the special interest presented by the record electron accelerator, we give some of its parameters:

Salvini’s high-energy laboratory, in which young collaborators work with enthusiasm, and the construction site left the very best impression on us.

Italian physicists participate in the West European nuclear scientific association “CERN” in Geneva; E. Amaldi plays an active role in it. Apparently, the construction of the large electron accelerator in Rome—Frascatti is connected in part with the fact that an accelerator of heavy particles, a proton synchrocyclotron in the region of \(600\)—\(700\ \mathrm{MeV}\), is being built in Geneva, and a giant proton synchrotron-type machine of \(25\) billion eV is being designed.

As was published in the press and reported at the Moscow conference on high energies in 1956, in the Soviet Union a proton accelerator of \(50\) billion eV is being designed, and in the USA one of \(30\) billion eV.

It should be said, by the way, that the construction of the electron synchrotron in Italy was given nationwide significance; the machine is called “national,” and several years ago the newspapers printed appeals with proposals for donations.

We note that a similar instrument is being built in Stockholm under the direction of Vepferland, and that the Americans are testing a machine operating at approximately \(1100\)—\(1200\ \mathrm{MeV}\).

Returning to the Italian laboratories, we note that there are no very significant proton accelerators there, apart from a small accelerator of the Cockcroft—

*) A Cockcroft—Walton type injector, with which Prof. Salvini expects to achieve a high beam intensity.

of the Van de Graaff apparatus in the “Cise” laboratory*) in Milan, making it possible, by bombarding beryllium with protons, to obtain a beam of neutrons with an energy of 14 MeV and to use it for the study of nuclear reactions (Prof. Facchini, Dr. Colli, and others).

Fig. 2. Milan physicists at the Basilica of Sant’Ambrogio, from left to right: Dr. Colli, Prof. Facchini, Dr. Amanti. (Photo by the author.)

In particular, there is not a single cyclotron in Italy. The still rather modest, but favorably impressive, “Cise” laboratory (Milan, Via Procaccini) is a semi-scientific, semi-technical center around which the creation of Italian technical nuclear physics is unfolding. Research is being conducted here on the production of metallic uranium, deposits of which have recently been found in Italy, as well as studies on heavy water, etc.

*) Cise — Centro Informazioni, studi es perienze (Center for information, studies, and experience).

In Milan, at the Physical Institute of the Polytechnic, there is a laboratory engaged in the study of processes connected with β-decay.

Prof. Bolla, an active propagandist of technical nuclear physics, has organized at the Polytechnic regular courses in nuclear physics, tracer atoms, and other questions of technical atomic physics, which have already been operating for several years. Similar courses have begun to be created in other higher schools as well, for example at the University of Rome.

Let us give some data on the 3rd course on radioisotopes of the Milan Polytechnic (October 1—November 13, 1956): classes 5 times a week, the number of participants somewhat more than 10 persons. The main sections of the course are devoted to Geiger counters, an ionization chamber, a photomultiplier, proportional counters. The following are studied: the mean lifetime of Mn⁵⁶, I¹²⁸, the decay curve of P³², absorption of γ-rays of Cs¹³⁷, formation of I¹²⁸ by the Szilard–Chalmers reaction, autoradiography of Co⁶⁰. The cost of the course is 100,000 lire (at the Gosbank exchange rate 1000 lire amount to about 6 rub. 40 kopeks). Along with laboratory classes, the course includes lectures on the fundamentals of nuclear physics, basic dosimetry, and the organization of nuclear laboratories, tracer atoms, and means of protection.

Alongside this, at the Milan Polytechnic, with the assistance of the university and the “Cise” laboratory, advanced-training courses in applied nuclear physics are in operation. The annual 7th course (from December 3, 1956 to June 15, 1957) includes the fundamentals of quantum mechanics, nuclear physics, reactor physics, isotope techniques, radiochemistry, nuclear geology, meteorology, questions of protection, and the economics of nuclear energy. Two-hour lectures are given 6 times a week. The cost of the course is 258,530 lire. The National Council for Nuclear Research grants participants 6 stipends of 400,000 lire each. Along with the course director Prof. Bolla, we see in the list of professors all the principal Milan physicists (Polvani, Caldirola, Immirzi, Bonetti, the women physicists Dr. Kolli, Dr. Ciappi, and others). Persons with higher-school diplomas in physics, chemistry, and engineering are admitted to the courses on radioisotopes and applied nuclear physics. In the advanced-training courses the number of students is limited to approximately thirty.

Undoubtedly, before us is a fully valuable, though modest, beginning of training cadres in the field of technical nuclear physics.

Until recently there were likewise no nuclear reactors in Italy, and consequently questions of the application of atomic energy in technology, medicine, and agriculture were only a subject of detached discussions. In this respect Italy lagged not only behind the Soviet Union, the USA, and England, but also behind India, which recently installed its first reactor. However, the Italians have now purchased in the USA their first CP-5 type nuclear reactor, which will be installed on the base of the Milan laboratories in northern Italy, at Varese, near the Swiss border. For financing this laboratory in 1957 one and a half billion lire are being allocated.

Despite the absence, until recently, of reactors and accelerators and the insignificant development of nuclear physics proper, the physics of cosmic rays and elementary particles, as we have already noted, stands very high in Italy. Suffice it to say that Italian physicists succeeded in discovering new charged elementary particles, the so-called Σ-hyperons, whose masses and lifetimes are intermediate between those of the proton and the neutron. It was in Padua that the first Σ-hypernucleus was discovered. These successes are connected with the presence of a number of cosmic-ray stations in the Alps and installations for continuous registration of cosmic rays, with the excellently organized technique of studying particles in photographic emulsions, and with a highly developed theoretical physics. The cosmic station of the University of Turin is situated at an altitude of about 3000 m in Cervinia; from it Mont Blanc is visible.

The greatest impression on us was made especially by the photographic-emulsion laboratories, equipped with excellent apparatus in the form of appropriate developing chambers, good microscopes, special tables for moving the plates examined in the microscope micron by micron, etc. In the summer of 1956, at the Roman Physical Institute of Amaldi, “Catania” and others created an installation for automatic scanning of plates. The microscopes themselves (of the Koristka type, etc.) are for the most part purchased by the Italians abroad: in Switzerland and West Germany, while the photographic plates are purchased in England from Ilford (the G-5 type so popular among physicists, with the aid of which many new particles and phenomena have been discovered). The design of other instruments also makes a favorable impression (the bubble chambers of Dr. Bassi in Padua, the giant Wilson chamber mentioned above, more than a meter in size, for recording cosmic rays in the Milan laboratory of Occhialini—Lovati, etc.).

Contemporary Italian theoretical physicists still preserve the living traditions of the Fermi school, but in the main they are talented young people who have mastered the newest theory of the nucleus, quantum field theory, and the theory of elementary particles, and have already produced a number of very interesting results in these fields, which have attracted the attention of…

attracted attention (Chini, Gamba, Fubini, Clementel, Caldirola, Dallaporta, Gatto, and others). Incidentally, a number of these theoreticians, like other physicists, are active progressive public figures.

The close connection between theory and experiment is evident, for example, at the Turin Physical Institute, whose director, Prof. G. Wataghin, known for his generalizations of quantum theory in the spirit of nonlinear field theory, is at the same time actively working in the field of cosmic rays and in a number of branches of nuclear physics.

Other, non-atomic branches of physics are represented in Italy much more weakly, or are not represented at all. In Florence there is a small National Optical Institute, where work is being carried out in geometrical and physiological optics and in the theory of diffraction of electromagnetic waves, including the latest methods of information theory (Prof. Toraldo di Francia). Its director, Prof. Ronchi, was the organizer of an international congress on the history of science in Florence and Milan at the beginning of September 1956, in which two Soviet representatives took part. The Optical Institute, like the nearby astronomical observatory located in Arcetri, stands on one of the famous hills surrounding Florence. In Florence there is also a valuable museum on the history of science.

The insignificant development of work in spectroscopy and X-rays attracts attention. Low-temperature physics is also only getting on its feet in connection with the launching, in the summer of 1956, under the direction of Prof. Careri, of the first cryogenic installation, supplying liquid hydrogen and helium. For comparison let us recall that in the Soviet Union there are several cryogenic laboratories, two of which were created even before the war.

The physics of magnetic phenomena, ferromagnetics, and semiconductors is almost not represented in Italy. At the same time, the properties of liquids are being investigated here rather intensively by ultrasonic methods (University of Naples with a laboratory headed by Prof. Carrelli). Radiophysical processes and ultrasonics are being studied fairly successfully in Italy in special institutes (the Microwave Physics Center in Florence, etc.).

To summarize, one may say that Italian physics, having concentrated its attention on a number of current atomic problems, is first-rate, but rather narrow; in this it differs substantially from Soviet physics of the “solid front,” as well as, to a lesser degree, from the field of science represented by the broad American or English physics.

We wish to emphasize that Italian physical science is now going through a turning-point period. The activity of the National Nuclear Institute, founded in 1952, with its four sections and its new accelerator laboratory, as well as that of the Physical Society and the National Research Council, has made it possible to eliminate the lag of the late 1930s and 1940s and to achieve well-known successes. However, the demands of modern science, especially its technical applications, specifically in the field of atomic-nuclear physics, cannot be satisfied at the present level of Italian science. The leading figures of Italian physics have clearly recognized the need for fundamental measures aimed at a significant expansion of the base of physical science and instrument-making, and at increasing the number of personnel. Particularly painfully felt in Italy is the lag in the field of nuclear physics and the application of nuclear energy. For Italy, which is very poor in the natural resources of iron, oil, coal, etc., already exhausting 61% of its reserves of hydroenergy and increasing its annual consumption by 4%, the question of the broad use of nuclear energy is extremely pressing. In this connection, immediately after the congress in honor of Avogadro in Turin, a congress of employees of physical institutes was convened, which created an Association that, alongside the defense of professional interests, set itself the goal of promoting the development of science. The chairman of the Association was elected the well-known theoretician Gamba (Turin), and the vice-chairman—Lovattti (Milan). Heated discussions in the press and at various congresses at the end of 1956 and the beginning of 1957 about whether atomic-nuclear energy should be nationalized and be entirely in the hands of the state, as the more progressive circles believe, or whether, following the American example, it may be handed over partly under the control of private firms.

It should be recalled that the lion’s share of Italian industry is located in the north and in Lombardy: the Ansaldo shipyards in Genoa, the Fiat automobile plants in Turin, the Montecatini chemical enterprises in Milan, the Venice shipyards, and others. It is no accident that three of the four main sections of the Nuclear Institute (Turin, Milan, Padua), as well as both polytechnics (Turin, Milan), are also located in the north. Here, too, the deployment of nuclear technology is being planned.

In connection with the circumstances indicated, a change is also taking place in the structure of the leadership of physical science in Italy and a corresponding change in legislation.

In its main features the structure of Italian science, naturally, differs substantially from the Soviet one and has the following form. At the head of science, to a considerable extent, stands the National Research Council (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche), founded as early as the 1920s on the initiative of the well-known mathematician V. Volterra and G. Marconi, and which expanded its activity after the war. It has sections of physics, chemistry, etc. For a long time the head of the Council was G. Colonnetti, who has now been succeeded by Prof. G. Giordani. An important role in directing physics is played, as has already been said, by the National Nuclear Institute.

Since January 1, 1957, the Nuclear Institute has been under the authority of the National Committee for Nuclear Research (Comitato Nazionale per le ricerche nucleare) (President B. Ferago). Along with the four sections and the accelerator laboratory, this includes the “Cise” laboratory, a reactor laboratory, and others.

According to the plan of the Research Council, in the next ten years Italy is to create an Institute for the Mechanization of Agriculture, an Institute for Problems of Nutrition, a Metrological Institute (of the type of the Bureau of Weights and Measures) in Turin; to expand the Institute of Biophysics (Turin); and to draw up the question of creating a Ministry of Science, approximately on the French model. It is proposed to increase substantially the ranks of young scientists. The Italians believe that in the number of scientists (calculated, for example, per million inhabitants) they lag considerably behind other Western countries and the Soviet Union. Indeed, as far as physics students are concerned, for example, with about 100 persons admitted to such a large university as Rome, only about 20 complete the four-year course because of the large dropout.

In an interesting collection devoted to the program for the development of scientific research in Italy in 1956–1965 and provided with an address by the former chairman of the National Research Council, Prof. G. Colonnetti, to the then prime minister Prof. A. Segni (Rome, September 1955), we find various information concerning the history of the postwar development of Italian science and projects for the coming decade. In the collection we find the following figures characterizing the number of certified scientific workers in different countries per million inhabitants: Sweden — 17, England — 12, Denmark — 9, France about 5, Italy about 1, USA — 53. Although in this table the broad network of Italian scientists, a number of data that put, for example, Portugal above France, obviously do not correspond to reality, on the whole we obtain a curious picture.

In particular, in the above-mentioned program the importance of Turin as an industrial and scientific center is emphasized; there, alongside the University, there is a Polytechnic, a Research Electrotechnical Institute named after Galileo Ferraris, and where the construction of a reactor is planned following the installation of a betatron at 30 Mev and a synchrotron at 100 Mev.

In connection with the problems of the development of nuclear power in Italy we also draw attention to the substantial, though highly debatable, report by Prof. G. Bolla, read at the Rotary Club of Milan on July 3, 1956.

As for the Academy of Sciences as a central and oldest one in Rome, as well as the other regional ones (Turin, Naples), they are basically honorary institutions and at present play no noticeable role in the organization of science in Italy. On the contrary, the Italian Physical Society, founded in 1897 and headed by its present president Prof. Polvani, has developed vigorous activity. The Society convenes international and national congresses, organizes valuable “summer schools,” and publishes, very quickly, the most rapidly growing in the world, highly informative journals on physics, and also began in the autumn of 1956 the publication of a journal for teachers. The externally splendid journal Il Nuovo Cimento, founded as early as 1855 by Matteucci and Piria, with its Supplemento, as is known, has in recent years advanced into the ranks of the most authoritative and informative bodies of the whole world, specially concentrating a significant portion of papers on current questions of elementary-particle physics. In speed of printing, the Italian journal Il Nuovo Cimento (Nuovo Cimento is approximately translated as “New Experiment,” although the word Cimento has many shades of meaning, for example “test,” “force,” “risk,” “danger,” and others), which has recently entered upon its second century of existence, publishing articles approximately in 3–4 months and short communications within several weeks, has few rivals. It is understandable that authors from various countries of Europe, and even Japanese and Americans, willingly publish their works here. Recently Soviet scientists, too, have begun to be printed here. Incidentally, several issues of the Supplemento were devoted to reviews of various sections of Soviet physics together with a preface devoted to an outline of the history of our science since the time of Lomonosov. It should be noted that, striving by every means to ensure the speed of scientific information, the Italian Physical Society undertook to publish its main journal on thin “India” paper and to send it by airmail; it also supplies the major abstract journals with galley proofs of the journal even before its publication (regularly on the 1st day of each month).

In the “summer schools,” the most authoritative scientists from many countries of the world conduct, over the course of a month, courses and seminars for a limited number (35–40) of listeners—young scientists who already have some works to their credit. The school is located in a beautiful area in an old building in northern Italy, in the town of Varenna. In the classes at the summer schools the distinction between lecturers and listeners is, to a considerable extent, erased. The style of the joint discussions recalls, in its way, the ancient Platonic academy. Last summer, 1956, the classes at the school were devoted to magnetism. This year, as the school’s secretary, Prof. Fumi of Palermo, informed us in advance, a range of questions is being considered that are connected with irregularities of the crystal lattice and their influence on the properties of solids, as well as problems of condensation and melting. The general wish of the leaders of Italian physics is the desire to see guests from the Soviet Union both at the summer-school sessions and at the conferences of 1957, including the conference on discharges in gases and plasma processes, in particular nuclear ones (June 1957; scientific secretary Prof. Ugo Facchini, Milan, “Cise” Laboratory), at the international congress at the end of September 1957 in Venice and Padua, which will be devoted to elementary particles (scientific secretary Prof. A. Rostagni, Padua), and at the conference on liquids in mid-September in Varenna on Lake Como (secretary Professor Careri of Rome).

Let us turn to the universities. Admission to them is open, as in other Western countries. There are about 30 universities in Italy, including the oldest: the Neapolitan (1224), Padua (1222), Rome (1303), and others. With the exception of Turin and Milan, where separate polytechnic institutes exist, in other cities the technical, medical, etc., faculties are everywhere included within the universities. Incidentally, let us note that although all the principal scientific centers are located in the north and in the central regions, in the south, in Sicily, for example, there are six universities (Messina, Palermo, Catania, and others). The largest universities, such as Rome and Naples, have up to 30,000 students; at the University of Turin there are about 9,000 students and 90 professors. There are very few scholarships; incentive prizes are available. For example, at the University of Naples, for students of the faculty of mathematics, physics, and natural sciences, in 1954/55 there were 100 incentive prizes of 40,000 lire each and 13 stipends of 80,000 lire each. There are dormitories here for persons living far from the city. As a rule, university education is paid; for example, in the same Naples a physics student must pay, in addition to the basic fee, 1,400 lire per year for laboratory classes alone, plus 5,000 lire for preparation for the diploma examinations. Chemists pay more for laboratories—from 3,000 to 7,000 lire per year, depending on the course. For comparison, let us point out that participation in courses on radioisotopes (1 October–13 November 1956) at the Milan Polytechnic costs participants about 100,000 lire; participation in the year-long course (5 December 1956–15 June 1957) for advanced training in nuclear technology there costs approximately 260,000 lire. Teaching, at least in the principal universities, is at a high level. The teaching staff in them is qualified, raising its scientific level, and in particular through fairly broad contact with foreign Western colleagues. Libraries are growing rapidly; they have sets of all the principal journals, including Soviet ones. (ZhETF in the American edition was shown to us everywhere; the Optical Institute receives the new journal “Optics and Spectroscopy,” etc. However, there are no scientific books in Russian.)

Let us give, incidentally, information about salaries: professors receive up to 200,000 lire per month. The system of scientific degrees, as everywhere abroad, is single-stage in Italy, i.e., the Soviet Candidate of Sciences corresponds to the foreign doctor. To obtain a professorship, seniority, a trial lecture, and approval by a special commission are required, but not the defense of a second dissertation.

To characterize university life, and also the life of the whole country, it is useful to list the calendar and note at least the days off and holidays. According to the official timetable-calendar of the University of Rome for the academic year 1955/56, issued under the rector’s signature, we note that the academic year begins on 1 November; autumn examinations begin on 1 October. The summer examinations begin on 1 July. In addition to the summer holidays, which last for students from July to September, there are winter two-week Christmas holidays and spring Easter week-long holidays. In addition, the following civil holidays are days off, on which attendance is not required: 4 November—the day of victory in the First World War; 5 February—the anniversary of the “reconciliation” (Conciliazione) of the Catholic Church with the state (1929); 25 April—the anniversary of liberation (the end of the Second World War); 1 May—Labor Day; 29 May—the anniversary of the battle at Curtatone and Montanara in 1856 during the period of the unification of Italy, for participation in which, among others, Mazzotti received an award; 2 June—the anniversary of the proclamation of the republic in 1946; in addition, all the days of church holidays.

Incidentally, let us note that the wall newspaper, in our sense, does not exist in Italian physics institutes, but there are photographic newspapers with photographs of sights taken in cities, mountaineering pictures, and also beach amateur and purchased photographs. In many offices and laboratories there hang on the walls excellent reproductions of paintings and photographs of cathedrals and castles, chiefly of Italy itself, but, at the same time, also of France and Switzerland.

In striving to increase enrollment, to get rid of the large dropout rate and other weak points of their system of higher education, Italian scholars—as, incidentally, do other figures in foreign higher schools—look attentively at the Soviet system of higher education.

It should be noted that interest in our country among physicists is by no means limited to scientific questions. Although knowledge of the Russian language is not very widespread in Italy, interest in Russian literature, music, theater, and Soviet culture is very great. I recall, for example, the serious test I had to undergo in a friendly conversation with Professor N., who proved to be a connoisseur of our music and poetry. Knowing not a word of Russian, Prof. N. knew by heart and recited to me in Italian whole poems by Blok, Esenin, Akhmatova, and Mayakovsky, demanding from me parallel Russian lines. Further, our inspection of the Optical Institute in Florence began with a conversation in Russian with its deputy director, Prof. Toraldo di Francia, who proved to be a great admirer of the music of Prokofiev, Khachaturian, and Shostakovich. Incidentally, our interlocutor had not yet been to the Soviet Union. Translations of L. Tolstoy, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, works by Soviet historians Tarle, Potemkin, and other books are visible in the windows not only of bookstores, but also of station kiosks, which, it must be said, are very extensive and attractive.

Despite the fact that scientific meetings and inspections of laboratories left little time for tourism in the proper sense, the two-week stay in Italy left, of course, many impressions.

Allow me, in conclusion, to share a few cursory remarks which, as we hope, will help to give a better understanding of the situation in Italian science and its style. First of all, a few words about the north of the country, strange as this word may sound for Italy, where in mid-September the most real summer, in our view, was blazing. As has already been mentioned, a significant part of the country’s industry is located in Lombardy. The railways here are electrified; trains with single soft first- and second-class cars run in Italy at great speed—about 100 km per hour. Turin (about 750,000 inhabitants), situated in the foothills of the Alps, and Milan (about 1,300,000 inhabitants) are very lively, smart, clean cities. Turin, being one of the main centers of physical science and industry in Italy, from the point of view of historical monuments is not in first place, with the exception of a first-class museum of Egyptian antiquities. In the city and its environs are the austere palaces of the Savoy dukes. As is known, Turin was for a time the capital of Italy, during the period of its unification in the 1860s.

Among the Turin monuments, the monument to Lagrange attracts attention, not far from the station, with the inscription “From a grateful fatherland”—the famous French mathematician and mechanician, as is known, was born in Turin and, as Italian colleagues assured us, was partly of Italian origin.

I confess that, as an automobilist, I was especially glad of the opportunity to inspect the Fiat automobile plant. The entire assembly of passenger cars takes place here in one gigantic shop (850 × 400 m²) without in-plant transport; on the main conveyor belt the density of the flow of these cars is very great. Various parts move along suspended tracks, replacing the absent parts warehouse. Here too there is a large track with very steep bends for testing finished cars. We were kindly taken to the office of the engineer Agnelli, the founder of Fiat (1899), preserved as a historical treasure, and the schedule of decades of honorary visitors was shown to us. In the vestibule of the new main building of Fiat, a huge mourning memorial plaque with the names of approximately 200 workers of the plant who perished in fascist concentration camps and in partisan detachments during the Second World War catches the eye.

In general, we constantly encountered memorial plaques and tablets marking the names of fighters against fascism and the places of their deaths on the streets of the northern cities. The progressive character of many municipalities of the northern cities of Italy, which are under the influence of the workers, is reflected in the large number of names of streets and squares connected with the names of revolutionary figures and with the Soviet Union: Gramsci Street, Matteotti Street leading to Fiat, “Via Unione Sovietico,” Moscow Street, etc.

In all likelihood, the progressive strata of scientific workers and students are most strongly represented in the natural-science faculties precisely of the northern universities of Italy. We recall the posters pasted up in Padua with greetings from the students of the university to Prof. E. Clementel on the occasion of his arrival

from the Soviet Union in the summer of 1956. In general, on the streets of Italian cities one sees a great many not only various advertisements, but also notices and announcements of various parties and of the Vatican chancery, even of the Freemasons (sic). Of course, in Turin and Milan, as in all other cities of Italy, there are invariably streets and monuments to Garibaldi and to King Victor Emmanuel, as well as more modest busts or monuments to Cavour, with whose names the heroic epic of the country’s unification is connected in one way or another.

It is worth recalling that many physicists of that time took a direct part in the military actions connected with the liberation of Italy; among them were Mossotti, Pacinotti, and Matteucci.

The Piedmont valleys at the foot of the Alps are very picturesque. There are many beautiful traces of former times: Monviso, Monte Rosa, and others, visible on the way from Turin to Milan. At the same time, the road passes through plantations of maize and rice—for Lombardy is also the granary of Italy. On the magnificent, though narrow, Turin—Milan autostrada (about 150 km) there are petrol stations, repair stations, and restaurants almost every 30–40 kilometers.

It should be emphasized that behind the outward trimness and bustle of the central, well-lit streets, with their barely regulated, intense stream of cars and scooters (motorcycles of a special type with small wheels), in the north, in Rome, and in other Italian cities, there are hidden not only the well-known general contradictions of the capitalist economy, but also difficulties specifically characteristic of Italy. As is known, the country has considerable unemployment. In this connection, one is struck by the almost complete absence of women in the post office, in transport, as conductors or attendants in hotels, elevator operators—all are men. On the other hand, we note that quite a few women scientists took part in the physics congress, and the names of the active nuclear physicists Dr. Ciappa and Dr. Kolli (Milan) are well known in science. Some of the unemployed even prefer to leave the country. We ourselves more than once happened to see in trains special cars bearing the inscription “for emigrants.” More than four hundred thousand people leave each year. Italian newspapers publish articles about “dead men,” Italian workers who are exploited in the mines of Belgium and other countries.

The opposite of the industrial centers of Lombardy is the capital of the south, Naples, where the main streets also bustle with life and trade in abundance with every kind of seafood. The center, built up in the second half of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, i.e., in years of architectural timelessness, is of little interest; but the panorama of the lights of the city, climbing into the mountains along the gigantic arc of the bay, is justly noted by all travelers.

Speaking of Italy, of course, one cannot fail to mention the great influence of Catholicism, and not only in Rome, but also in Venice and other cities. One is immediately struck, in the streets, and also at historical buildings and in museums, by the abundance of persons of both sexes and of different ages in black cassocks, often with groups of children.

Clerical influence is also very noticeable among students, especially in the humanities faculties; it is also vividly manifested in student organizations.

If one tries briefly to define the chief attraction of a journey through Italy, it apparently lies in the legacy of many epochs in this life-loving country. Indeed, neither in Leningrad, Paris, or Prague, nor in any other of the most beautiful cities of the world, except Italian ones, can one see whole squares and streets, preserved in one way or another from antiquity, together with a multitude of medieval buildings, cathedrals, monuments of the Renaissance—all this together with modern, often very much modernized quarters.

Many Italian physicists proved to be excellent connoisseurs of the history of art and gave us many valuable suggestions for seeing the country, most of which, however, had to be passed over because of the brevity of time.

We left Italy with a feeling of deep sympathy for her people, of increased respect for her excellent science, and with a desire to promote in every way the development of scientific contacts between our countries.