Oreste Piccioni (October 24, 1915 – April 13, 2002) was an Italian-American physicist who made important contributions to

elementary particle physics Particle physics or high energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The fundamental particles in the universe are classified in the Standard Model as fermions (matter particles) and b ...

during the early years of its history. He was a graduate student of

Enrico Fermi Enrico Fermi (; 29 September 1901 – 28 November 1954) was an Italian (later naturalized American) physicist and the creator of the world's first nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1. He has been called the "architect of the nuclear age" and ...

at the University of Rome, receiving his doctorate in 1938."Oreste Piccioni, Leading Physicist, Dies at 86", Obituary, by Kenneth Chang, ''New York Times'' , April 27, 2002

/ref>Wenzle, W.A., Swanson, R.A., and Mehlhop, W.A.W., Physics Today, April 2003

/ref> Remaining in Italy during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, he did fundamental research under difficult conditions in the basement of a high school, which first clarified the nature of the

muon A muon ( ; from the Greek letter mu (μ) used to represent it) is an elementary particle similar to the electron, with an electric charge of −1 '' e'' and a spin of , but with a much greater mass. It is classified as a lepton. As wi ...

.M. Conversi, E. Pancini, and O. Piccioni, Phys. Rev. 68 (1945) 232

Biography

In 1946 he emigrated to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, where he worked first at

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the mo ...

with

Bruno Rossi Bruno Benedetto Rossi (; ; 13 April 1905 – 21 November 1993) was an Italian experimental physicist. He made major contributions to particle physics and the study of cosmic rays. A 1927 graduate of the University of Bologna, he became in ...

, and then at BNL's

Cosmotron The Cosmotron was a particle accelerator, specifically a proton synchrotron, at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Its construction was approved by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission in 1948, reaching its full energy in 1953, and continuing to r ...

, developing faster nuclear electronics and essential techniques for extracting, transporting, and focusing beams of high energy particles. Later at

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...

Lawrence Radiation laboratory Lawrence may refer to: Education Colleges and universities * Lawrence Technological University, a university in Southfield, Michigan, United States * Lawrence University, a liberal arts university in Appleton, Wisconsin, United States Preparator ...

he was a co-discoverer of the anti

neutron The neutron is a subatomic particle, symbol or , which has a neutral (not positive or negative) charge, and a mass slightly greater than that of a proton. Protons and neutrons constitute the nuclei of atoms. Since protons and neutrons beh ...

in 1955 at the

Bevatron The Bevatron was a particle accelerator — specifically, a weak-focusing proton synchrotron — at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, U.S., which began operating in 1954. The antiproton was discovered there in 1955, resulting in the ...

. His important contributions to the design of the experiment that discovered the

antiproton The antiproton, , (pronounced ''p-bar'') is the antiparticle of the proton. Antiprotons are stable, but they are typically short-lived, since any collision with a proton will cause both particles to be annihilated in a burst of energy. The exist ...

in 1955 were acknowledged in the 1959 ceremony in which the

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

in physics was awarded to E. Segrè and O. Chamberlain. Unfortunately a famous quarrel over credit and priority for the discovery embittered Piccioni for much of his later life, to the point that he filed a lawsuit in 1972 against Segrè and Chamberlain, seeking damages and public acknowledgment of his contributions. The suit was ultimately dismissed as filed too late for consideration of the issues. An important theoretical paper with

Abraham Pais Abraham Pais (; May 19, 1918 – July 28, 2000) was a Dutch-American physicist and science historian. Pais earned his Ph.D. from University of Utrecht just prior to a Nazi ban on Jewish participation in Dutch universities during World War II. W ...

in 1955 considered regeneration in neutral

kaon KAON (Karlsruhe ontology) is an ontology infrastructure developed by the University of Karlsruhe and the Research Center for Information Technologies in Karlsruhe. Its first incarnation was developed in 2002 and supported an enhanced version of ...

mixing. In 1960 he joined the faculty of the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...

(UCSD), where his group made the first measurement of the neutral kaon K₁-K₂ mass difference.Francis Muller, Robert W. Birge, William B. Fowler, Robert H. Good, Warner Hirsch, Robert P. Matsen, Larry Oswald, Wilson M. Powell, Howard S. White, and Oreste Piccioni, "Regeneration and Mass Difference of Neutral K Mesons", Phys. Rev. Lett. 4, 418 (196

/ref> Nicola Cabibbo, Cabibbo, N. (2004),"From Theory to Experiment: Interference in Particle Physics

/ref> Piccioni retired from UCSD as Professor Emeritus in 1986, but continued to give review talks and work in the investigation of fundamental problems in quantum mechanics. In 1999 he was awarded the Matteucci Medal by the

Accademia Nazionale delle Scienze The Accademia Nazionale delle Scienze (), or more formally L'Accademia Nazionale delle Scienze detta dei XL, and also called the Accademia dei XL (), is Italy's national academy of science. Its offices are located within the Villino Rosso, at the co ...

(National Academy of Sciences) in Italy.

Selected publications

* On the Disintegration of Negative Mesons. With M. Conversi and E. Pancini. Phys. Rev. 71, 209 (1947). * External Proton Beam of the Cosmotron. With D. Clark et al. Rev. of Scien. Instruments 26, 232 (1955). * Note on the Decay and Absorption of the Theta-zero. With A. Pais. Phys. Rev. 100, 1487 (1955). * Antineutrons Produced from Antiprotons in Charge Exchange Collisions. With B. Cork et al. Phys. Rev. 104, 1193 (1956). * Regeneration of Neutral K Mesons and their Mass Difference. With R. Good et al. Phys. Rev. 124, 1223 (1961). * Is the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox Demanded by Quantum Mechanics? With P. Bowles et al. In Open Questions in Quantum Physics. Ed. G. Tarozzi and A. van der Merwe. D. Reidel Publishing Co., Holland 103-118 (1984). * A Discussion of the EPR Contained in QM Terms without Arguments of Politics or Bell's Relations. With W. Mehlhop. In Proc. of Symposium "New Techniques and Ideas in Quantum Measurement Theory", New York, Annals of New York Academy of Sciences 480, 458 (1987). * Bell's Theorem and the Foundation of Modern Physics. Ed. A. van der Mezne and F. Selleri. World Scientific Publishing Co., Cesena, Italy, October 1991.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Piccioni, Oreste Particle physicists 1915 births 2002 deaths Italian emigrants to the United States