Francesco Rossetti (
Trento
Trento ( or ; Ladin and lmo, Trent; german: Trient ; cim, Tria; , ), also anglicized as Trent, is a city on the Adige River in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol in Italy. It is the capital of the autonomous province of Trento. In the 16th centu ...
, 14 September 1833 –
Padova
Padua ( ; it, Padova ; vec, Pàdova) is a city and ''comune'' in Veneto, northern Italy. Padua is on the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice. It is the capital of the province of Padua. It is also the economic and communications hub of the ...
, 20 April 1885) was a notable Italian experimental physicist.
Biography
Son of Giovanni Battista, Rossetti started his education in his natal town Trento. He then attended the
University of Padova
The University of Padua ( it, Università degli Studi di Padova, UNIPD) is an Italian university located in the city of Padua, region of Veneto, northern Italy. The University of Padua was founded in 1222 by a group of students and teachers fro ...
and, from 1854 to 1857, the
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich hi ...
, where he heard classes in mathematics, chemistry and physics, and graduated in physics and mathematics. His advisor was
Andreas von Ettingshausen
Andreas Freiherr von Ettingshausen (25 November 1796 – 25 May 1878) was an Austrian mathematician and physicist.
Biography
Ettingshausen studied philosophy and jurisprudence at the University of Vienna. In 1817, he joined the University of Vi ...
.
Among his fellow students there were
Josef Stefan (future supervisor of
Ludwig Boltzmann
Ludwig Eduard Boltzmann (; 20 February 1844 – 5 September 1906) was an Austrian physicist and philosopher. His greatest achievements were the development of statistical mechanics, and the statistical explanation of the second law of ther ...
) and
Ernst Mach
Ernst Waldfried Josef Wenzel Mach ( , ; 18 February 1838 – 19 February 1916) was a Moravian-born Austrian physicist and philosopher, who contributed to the physics of shock waves. The ratio of one's speed to that of sound is named the Mach n ...
.
In 1857 he became a teacher at the Liceo di Santa Caterina in
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
. In 1860 he was hired by the University of Padova. Having obtained a year's leave by the Austrian government, he spent 1864 in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...
working in the laboratory of the physicist and chemist
Henri-Victor Regnault. In 1866 he became extraordinary professor and in 1880 full professor of experimental physics at the University of Padova. He was the dean of the faculty of science from 1876 to 1885. He has been member of the
National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nat ...
since 1879, of the
National Lincei Academy since 1882, and of other important Italian and international scientific academies and societies.
His scientific activity mainly concerned
electrostatics
Electrostatics is a branch of physics that studies electric charges at rest ( static electricity).
Since classical times, it has been known that some materials, such as amber, attract lightweight particles after rubbing. The Greek word for a ...
,
electrochemistry
Electrochemistry is the branch of physical chemistry concerned with the relationship between electrical potential difference, as a measurable and quantitative phenomenon, and identifiable chemical change, with the potential difference as an out ...
, and thermometry of flames. He published 42 papers. In 1862 he was the doctoral advisor of
Andrea Naccari.
Main works by Rossetti
* ''Sull'uso delle coppie termoelettriche nella misura delle temperature'' 1867.
* ''Sul maximum di densità e sulla dilatazione dell'acqua distillata, dell'acqua dell'Adriatico e di alcune soluzioni saline'' 1868.
* ''Sul magnetismo'' 1871.
* ''Uso della macchina di Holtz in alcune ricerche elettrometriche sui condensatori elettrici'' 1872.
* ''Sul potere specifico induttivo dei coibenti'' 1873.
* ''Nuovi studii sulle correnti delle macchine elettriche'' 1874.
* 1874.
* ''Indagini sperimentali sulla temperatura del sole'' 1878.
* ''Sul potere assorbente, sul potere emissivo termico delle fiamme e sulla temperatura dell'arco voltaico'' 1878.
References
* ''Francesco Rossetti'' in Enciclopedia Biografica Universale Treccani, XVI, p. 614, Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Roma, 2007.
* ''Rossetti, Francesco (1833-1885), Physiker'' i
Österreichisches Biografisches Lexikon 1815-1950, Bd. 9 (Lfg. 43, 1986), S. 263* Obituary of Francesco Rossetti, made by the secretary Blaserna of the Reale Accademia dei Lincei
Atti della Reale Accademia dei Lincei, anno CCLXXXII, 1884-85, serie quarta, Rendiconti pag. 337.
External links
* Francesco Rossetti,
Bibliografia italiana di elettricità e magnetismo', F. Sacchetto (1881).
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rossetti, Francesco
19th-century Italian physicists
1833 births
1885 deaths