Mar 3

A short History of Nuclear Astrophysics. Part II: The Origin of the chemical elements

Giovedì 10 marzo alle ore 15:00, il Dr. Nikos Prantzos dell’Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, terrà il web-seminar dal titolo: History of Nuclear Astrophysics. Part II: The Origin of the chemical elements.

Abstract

I will present an overview of the development of nuclear astrophysics, from its beginnings in the late 1920s, till its maturation in the late 1960s. Nuclear astrophysics emerged from the “marriage” of the old science of astronomy with the young discipline of nuclear physics, with a twofold objective: to understand the energy of the Sun and stars and the origin of the chemical elements in the Universe. Its development is intimately connected to the development of particle physics during its early period. Its history is the result of the work of some of the greatest physicists of the 20th century and it was crowned by two Nobel prizes. In the second part I will discuss how the paradigm about the origin of chemical elements oscillated in the 1930s and 1940s between an early pregalactic origin and a stellar origin, until it stabilized in the latter in the mid1950s.
In an era of evergrowing specialisation in all scientific disciplines, it is useful for students and scientists alike to gain an elementary knowledge of the history of ideas and of their development in the socio-cultural and technological context of their epoch.

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