Adalberto Giazotto (1 February 1940 – 16 November 2017) was an Italian physicist. Born in Genoa to musicologist

Remo Giazotto Remo Giazotto (4 September 1910, Rome – 26 August 1998, Pisa) was an Italian musicologist, music critic, and composer, mostly known through his systematic catalogue of the works of Tomaso Albinoni. He wrote biographies of Albinoni and other ...

, Adalberto Giazotto earned his degree in physics from the

Sapienza University of Rome The Sapienza University of Rome ( it, Sapienza – Università di Roma), also called simply Sapienza or the University of Rome, and formally the Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", is a Public university, public research university l ...

. He helped design the

Virgo interferometer The Virgo interferometer is a large interferometer designed to detect gravitational waves predicted by the general theory of relativity. Virgo is a Michelson interferometer that is isolated from external disturbances: its mirrors and instrument ...

, which first detected

gravitational waves Gravitational waves are waves of the intensity of gravity generated by the accelerated masses of an orbital binary system that Wave propagation, propagate as waves outward from their source at the speed of light. They were first proposed by Oliv ...

in 2017. He won the Caterina Tomassoni e Felice Pietro Chisesi Prize, a

Matteucci Medal The Matteucci Medal is an Italian award for physicists, named after Carlo Matteucci from Forlì. It was established to award physicists for their fundamental contributions. Under an Italian Royal Decree dated July 10, 1870, the Italian Society of S ...

, and shared the

Enrico Fermi Prize The Enrico Fermi Prize, first awarded in 2001, is given by the Italian Physical Society (Società Italiana di Fisica). It is a yearly award of €30,000 honoring one or more Members of the Society who have "particularly honoured physics with thei ...

with

Barry Barish Barry Clark Barish (born January 27, 1936) is an American experimental physicist and Nobel Laureate. He is a Linde Professor of Physics, emeritus at California Institute of Technology and a leading expert on gravitational waves. In 2017, Bar ...

in 2016.

References

1940 births 2017 deaths 20th-century Italian physicists Sapienza University of Rome alumni Recipients of the Matteucci Medal 21st-century Italian physicists Scientists from Genoa {{Italy-physicist-stub