Physics

Enrico Fermi in the '40s

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Enrico Fermi was born on September 29, 1901 in Rome, Italy. He was a brilliant physicist in both theoretic and experimental works. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1938. He died in Chicago on November 28, 1954.

OPERA Detector at Gran Sasso (photo OPERA Experiment)

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This news was often reported with sensationalism, sometimes already taking for granted that Einstein’s theory of relativity can be discarded, reporting various inaccuracies. However, it’s extraordinary that a beam of neutrinos sent from the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron to the National Laboratories of Gran Sasso in Italy has traveled faster than light. In travelling the 730 km between the two laboratories neutrinos took 60 nanoseconds less than light.

Luis Alvarez celebrate the Nobel Prize for Physics

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Physicist Luis Walter Alvarez was born on June 13, 1911 in San Francisco, California. His research concerned radioactive elements but also radars. For his dvelopments theoretical and practical concerning research on particles he received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1968. During the last years of his life he worked with his son Walter Alvarez on the theory of the extinction of the dinosaurs due to an asteroid strike.

Statue of Andrei Sakharov at the Univirsity of St. Petersburg

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Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov was born on May 21, 1921 in Moscow, then in the USSR. He took part to Soviet nuclear program and seeing the weapons power helped him to develop his activism against atomic proliferation. In 1975 he was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize.