XXXIX Congress of the Italian Society for the History of Physics and Astronomy – Pisa 2019

The 39^th National Congress of the Italian Society for the History of Physics and Astronomy (SISFA) will take place in Pisa on 9-12 September 2019.

The main venue will be at the Enrico Fermi Physics Department of the University of Pisa. A thematic session on the History of General Relativity will take place in Cascina, at the Virgo site. Shuttle transportation from Pisa to Cascina will be on behalf of the local organizing committee.

XXXIX SISFA CONGRESS ONAIR

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Rationale

The Meeting is one of a well-established series that SISFA has been organizing on a yearly basis since its foundation. It aims at promoting the research activities in the history of physics and astronomy in Italy, carried out not only by academic historians but also by independent scholars and school teachers willing to explore the role of the history of physics and astronomy in present-day teaching of the disciplines. At the same time, the Meeting provides an opportunity to strengthen the collaborations and establish new links among the members of SISFA and the members of other scholarly societies, as well as researchers working in the same and in related fields.
Historians of physics and astronomy are then invited to participate and the invitation is extended to all the scholars and researchers sharing the same kind of interests.
The Meeting will host both invited talks and oral communications. The official languages will be both Italian and English.

Topics

Proposals for oral communications should mainly address the history of physics and astronomy, also in connection with the related areas of mathematics, chemistry and the history of science and culture. Studies focusing on historical instruments and documentary sources regarding the mentioned fields are also relevant to the purposes of the Congress, as well as the applications of the history of physics and astronomy in science education and in museum displays.

Topical sessions

The year 2019 is dense of anniversaries, among which the bicentenary of Riccardo Felici (1819-1902), the centenary of 1919 measurement of the deflection of light, the five hundred years since the death of Leonardo da Vinci, the fiftieth anniversary since the first moon landing. Specific topical sessions will consider these important figures and events on the basis of recent scholarly research in the history of physics and astronomy.
Special thematic sessions will be devoted to:

• Riccardo Felici and the birth of electrodynamics
• The experimental tests of Einstein’s theory
• Connections between science education and the history of physics and astronomy
• Historical perspectives on physics and physicists in Venezuela

Scientific Organizing Committee

• Salvatore Esposito, INFN Napoli
• Lucio Fregonese, Università degli studi di Pavia
• Mauro Gargano, INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte
• Marco Grassi, INFN Pisa
• Stavros Katsanevas, EGO
• Roberto Lalli, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin
• Adele La Rana, Museo Storico della Fisica e Centro Studi e Ricerche Enrico Fermi, Roma
• Roberto Mantovani, Università degli studi di Urbino Carlo Bo
• Marisi Michelini, Università degli studi di Udine
• Angelo Pagano, INFN Catania
• Paolo Rossi, Università di Pisa
• Ettore Vicari, Università di Pisa

Local Partners

• Università di Pisa, Centro Dipartimentale Bruno Pontecorvo
• Università di Pisa, Dipartimento di Fisica Enrico Fermi
• Istituto Nazionale Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Pisa
• Fondazione Galileo Galilei, Pisa
• Museo degli Strumenti di Fisica, Pisa
• European Gravitational Observatory, Cascina

Local Organizing Committee

• Carlo Bemporad, Università di Pisa
• Rino Castaldi, INFN Pisa
• Vincenzo Cavasinni, Università di Pisa
• Sergio Giudici, Università di Pisa
• Giuseppe Grosso, Università di Pisa
• Adele La Rana, Museo Storico della Fisica e Centro Studi e Ricerche Enrico Fermi, Roma
• Claudio Luperini, Università di Pisa
• Marco Massai, Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università di Pisa
• Paolo Rossi, Università di Pisa
• Gloria Spandre, INFN Pisa
• Giuseppe Terreni, INFN Pisa