20th Century Physics: Essays and Recollections, a Selection of Historical Writings by Edoardo Amaldi, World Scientific 9810223692 (£83).
This interesting book was published in the Edoardo Amaldi Foundation Series and, as Ugo Amaldi, Edoardo's son, writes in the preface, "offers, by reading Amaldi's own words, the occasion to delve into his way of viewing the people he liked and the events which he had participated in".
It contains a collection of articles and speeches by Amaldi and gives sometimes very personal views, being based "in part on my memory and personal diary". Although intended to be a historical book, it cannot conceal Amaldi's deep love of science. Hence even the recollections of old friends are full of interesting scientific anecdotes.
The text contains two parts: "From nuclei to particles: 50 years of physics in Italy"; and "European physicists and their institutions". I found the articles describing the work of Fermi's group at Rome from 1934 to 1936 particularly fascinating. Amaldi describes from his own experience the exciting developments of the time, with details of the experimental arrangements and, for example, the correspondence with Rutherford.
As well as the rise of the Rome group, he relates the creation of the group at Florence, which was engaged mainly in cosmic ray physics. After the years of glory, Amaldi, in his typical sober and objective style, also covers the dark times of decay, of racial persecution and of emigration of many Italian physicists. It is touching to read the reasons for Amaldi's decision not to join the emigration, although in 1942 he was onboard a ship sailing for the USA.
Several articles deal with the resurrection of Italian physics after the war, starting from the beginnings after the arrival of Allied troops in Rome, when cosmic-ray equipment built by Conversi and Piccioni was recommissioned, and the gradual build-up of new groups, under the leadership of Bernardini and Ferretti among others, which eventually led to a flourishing new physics in Italy and also included groups in fields like optics and solid-state physics.
Knowing Edoardo, I am not surprised that his own contributions are played down. Of course, many articles are devoted to the foundation of CERN in which Amaldi as first secretary-general played such an important role. His recollections provide an extremely interesting complement to the description of CERN's foundation, written by professional historians. They include inside stories about divergences involving P Auger (director at UNESCO), I Rabi, N Bohr and H A Kramers (president of IUPAP), and they relate how the final agreement to create a particle physics institute at Geneva was reached, pushed by the strong desire of the European physicists to be able to compete on a worldwide scale.
Regrettably, Amaldi mentions only briefly the time before UNESCO came into play, probably because he was then less involved. However, in this key phase of the history of CERN, the wish of the physicists was preceded by far-sighted politicians advocating a united Europe. Denis de Rougemont (who considered himself to be one of the founding fathers of CERN but is only mentioned once by Amaldi) told me about this crucial 1949 political initiative when I explained to him the LEP project.
To my knowledge, CERN is the only laboratory created to foster science and international collaboration. The great human qualities of Amaldi are revealed when he writes about his friends. His closest colleagues were G C Wick, B Touscheck and F G Houtermans. Amaldi gives a full account of their scientific achievements, but also offers warm words about the personal relations, and reports many interesting and amusing stories (among them 11 pages of cartoons drawn by Touscheck) about their careers.
Many reminiscences concern the then famous groups at Leipzig with W Heisenberg and at Copenhagen with N Bohr. Another long chapter is devoted to the genius of E Majorana, describing his conversion from an engineer to a theoretical physicist, his ability to make complicated computations in his head, and his remarkable life, including his mysterious disappearance.
A reprint of the CERN John Adams Lecture summarizes the brilliant career of Adams not only at CERN, but also in plasma physics, and demonstrates again Amaldi's deep attachment to the laboratory that he helped to create.
Finally, several articles deal with the scientific work and personal careers of friends who have contributed to the development of Italian physics, including E Persico, E Pancini and G Placzek.
The editors did an excellent job in preparing this book. All of the articles, including those originally written in Italian, appear in English. For some of them it is not clear where they were originally published or presented. I also regret the omission of a good photograph of Edoardo. However, this also reflects his modesty. The book captures the personality of a remarkable man, a great scientist and a perfect human character whom I had the honour and pleasure to know.