Bruno Maksimovic Pontecorvo. From slow neutrons with Enrico Fermi in Rome to neutrino oscillations in Dubna.

Luisa Bonolis (MPI f. Wissenschaftsgeschichte Berlin)
DESY Auditorium, 16.45 h

Historical research basing on previously unknown documents and on materials never examined by historians, is beginning to shed new insight on Pontecorvo's life and science. At his arrival in Soviet Union in late summer 1950, Bruno Pontecorvo was a brilliant physicist with a thorough experience in nuclear physics. After the war, the fascinating novelties coming from cosmic ray studies had also attracted his attention on the emerging field of particle physics. But it was his longstanding passion for the neutrino, with its ubiquitous presence in decay phenomena, that stimulated his deep reflections on weak interactions and on the role of this intriguing particle in different physical processes. Pontecorvo's bold ideas and intuitions led him to become the founder and father of modern neutrino physics, opening the way to some of the most interesting research challenges of the new millenium.

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