Gino Segrè

Gino Claudio Segrè (born October 4, 1938) is an Italian-American physicist, Professor of Physics Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of several books on the history of science, particularly on atomic physics. Segrè's ''Faust in Copenhagen'' was a finalist in the Los Angeles Times Book Fair and winner of the American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award.

Birth and education

Gino Segrè was born in Florence, Italy, to an Italian Jewish father (Angelo Segrè) and a German Catholic mother (Katherine "Katia" ). Following the anti-semitic laws enacted in Italy in 1938, family immigrated to New York City in May 1939, where they resided for 8 years before returning to Florence. Segrè's uncle, Nobel laureate physicist Emilio Segrè, also emigrated to the United States for the same reason.

Gino Segrè received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard College in 1959 and a Ph.D. degree in physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1963. Afterwards, Segrè became a fellow at CERN and the University of California, Berkeley. He joined the University of Pennsylvania physics department as a professor in 1967, where he remained until he retired in 2007. His honors include fellowships from Guggenheim Foundation, Sloan Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation.

Books

Since 2002, Segrè has published four books on the history of science.

''The Pope of Physics: Enrico Fermi and the Birth of the Atomic Age'' was published in 2016. Written with his wife Bettina Hoerlin, ''The Pope of Physics'' explores the life and career of famous Italian physicist Enrico Fermi, whose colleagues referred to him as the Pope due to his infallibility. Fermi has a rich legacy of scientific advances, and is best known for his leadership in building the atomic bomb. "Pope of Physics" was reviewed by ''The Wall Street Journal'' and ''Nature''.

Segrè's 2011 book ''Ordinary Geniuses'' is a dual biography of Max Delbruck and George Gamow, two physicists who made major contributions to the field of biology with their 'pioneering' spirits and practical jokes. ''Ordinary Geniuses'' was reviewed by Jeremy Bernstein in ''The Wall Street Journal'' and Jonathon Keats in ''New Scientist''.

Segrè's 2007 book ''Faust in Copenhagen'' recounts how a group of 40 physicists assembled at Niels Bohr's Copenhagen Institute focusing on the discovery of the neutron. On the final night of the meeting, the younger physicists mount a skit that was a parody of Goethe's Faust, adapted to the world of physics. By Segrè's description, "What the physicists didn't realize was that within a year, Hitler's ascent to power would change their world and within a decade their studies of the atomic nucleus would force them to make their own Faustian bargains." ''Faust in Copenhagen'' was reviewed in the Sunday New York Times book section by George Johnson.

Segrè's 2002 book ''A Matter of Degrees: What Temperature Reveals about the Past and Future of our Species, Planet and Universe'' explores temperature's many mysteries, from the causes of fevers in humans to the origin of the universe. Marcia Bartusiak reviewed ''Matter of Degrees'' in ''The New York Times''.

Scientific research

Segrè's research has ranged across several major scientific topics within high-energy theoretical physics, including electroweak interactions to develop better understand of symmetry violations. Within astrophysics his research contributions have ranged from baryon asymmetry to pulsar kicks. His work includes: Pulsar Velocities and Neutrino Oscillations (with A. Kusenko, Physical Review Letters, 1996); Pulsar Kicks from Neutrino Oscillations (with A. Kusenko, Phys. Rev., 1999); and Implications of Gauge Unification for the Variation of the Fine Structure Constant (with P. Langacker and Matt Strassler, Phys. Letters, 2002). The Segrè–Silberberg effect is named after him.

Personal life

Segrè is married to Bettina "Nina" Hoerlin (born 1939), a former Philadelphia Health Commissioner. She is the daughter of Los Alamos physicist Hermann Hoerlin and Kate (née Tietz, formerly Schmid). Hoerlin has chronicled her parents meeting and departure from Nazi Germany in her book ''Steps of Courage''. Together they have seven children (including Julie Segre and Kristine Yaffe) and nine grandchildren, and live in Philadelphia.

References

External links

*Segrè's website at University of Pennsylvania
*Segrè's author page
*Segrè's conversation with Claudia Dreifus at ''The New York Times'' - "In the Footsteps of His Uncle, Then His Father"
Scientific publications of Gino Claudio Segre
on INSPIRE-HEP

{{DEFAULTSORT:Segre, Gino
Living people
1938 births
21st-century American physicists
20th-century Italian physicists
Harvard College alumni
University of Pennsylvania faculty
People associated with CERN
Scientists from Florence
American science writers
Italian science writers
Scientists from Philadelphia
20th-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century Italian non-fiction writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century Italian non-fiction writers
Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni
American people of Italian-Jewish descent
American people of German descent
Italian people of Jewish descent
Italian people of German descent
American people of Sephardic-Jewish descent
People of Lazian descent
Italian emigrants to the United States
People who emigrated to escape Nazism