Bruno B. Rossi (April 13, 1905 – November 21, 1993) was a leading Italian-American experimental physicist. He made major contributions to cosmic ray and particle physics from 1930 through the 1950s, and pioneered X-ray astronomy and space plasma physics in the 1960s. Experimental physics is the part of physics that deals with experiments and observations pertaining to natural/physical phenomena, as opposed to theoretical physics. ... Cosmic rays can loosely be defined as energetic particles originating outside of the Earth. ... Thousands of particles explode from the collision point of two relativistic (100 GeV per nucleon) gold ions in the STAR detector of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. ... ROSAT image of X-ray fluorescence of, and occultation of the X-ray background by, the Moon. ... A plasma lamp, illustrating some of the more complex phenomena of a plasma, including filamentation. ...

Rossi was born in Venice. After receiving the doctorate degree from the University of Bologna, he began his career in 1928 as assistant at the Physics Institute of the University of Florence where he made his first discoveries regarding the nature of cosmic rays. In 1932 he was called to the University of Padua as professor of experimental physics. There, in addition to teaching and research, Rossi planned the new Physics Institute of the University and oversaw its construction. In the fall of 1938 he was expelled from his position as a result of the racial decrees of the fascist state. Rossi was Jewish and so was his wife, Nora Lombroso (daughter of the famous anthropologist Cesare Lombroso), so they had to leave Italy and traveled to America with brief stays in Copenhagen, Denmark and Manchester, England. Venice (Italian: Venezia, Venetian: Venezsia) is the capital of region Veneto, and has a population of 271,663 (census estimate January 1, 2004). ... The University of Bologna (Italian: , UNIBO) is the oldest continually operating degree-granting university in the world, and the second biggest university in Italy. ... The University of Florence (Università degli Studi di Firenze, UNIFI) is one of the largest and oldest universities in Italy. ... Gymnasivm Patavinum: The Universitys main Bo palace shown in a 1654 woodcut The University of Padua (Università degli Studi di Padova, UNIPD) is one of the most well-renowned universities in Italy. ... Fascism is a political ideology and mass movement that seeks to place the nation, defined in exclusive biological, cultural, and/or historical terms, above all other sources of loyalty, and to create a mobilized national community. ... The word Jew ( Hebrew: יהודי) is used in a wide number of ways, but generally refers to a follower of the Jewish faith, a child of a Jewish mother, or someone of Jewish descent with a connection to Jewish culture or ethnicity and often a combination... Cesare Lombroso Cesare Lombroso (Verona, November 6, 1835 - Turin, October 19, 1909) was a historical figure in modern criminology, and the founder of the Italian Positivist School of criminology. ... Copenhagen (IPA: , rhyming with pagan (the way the Danes themselves pronounce the name of the capital in English), or , with a as in spa; Danish   IPA: ) is the capital of Denmark and the countrys largest city (metropolitan population 1,211,542 (2006)). It is also the name of the... Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough, in the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester, North West England. ... Motto: (French for God and my right) Anthem: God Save the King/Queen Capital London (de facto) Largest city London Official language(s) English (de facto) Unification    - by Athelstan AD 927  Area    - Total 130,395 km² (1st in UK)   50,346 sq mi  Population    - 2006 est. ...

They arrived at the University of Chicago in June 1939 where he was given a temporary position as research associate. Rossi immediately began a series of experiments that yielded the first proof of the decay of a fundamental particle, the mesotron, now called muon, and a precise measurement of its mean life at rest. The latter was achieved at Cornell University where he was appointed associate professor in 1942. During the war Rossi worked first as consultant on radar development at the Radiation Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and then at Los Alamos as co-director of the Detector Group responsible for development of instrumentation for experiments that supported the development of the atomic bombs. The University of Chicago is a private university located principally in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. ... In particle physics, an elementary particle or fundamental particle is a particle not known to have substructure; that is, it is not made up of smaller particles. ... The muon (from the letter mu (μ)--used to represent it) is an elementary particle with negative electric charge and a spin of 1/2. ... Cornell redirects here. ... This long range Radar antenna, known as ALTAIR, is used to detect and track space objects in conjunction with ABM testing at the Ronald Reagan Test Site on the Kwajalein atoll[1]. Radar is a system that uses radio waves to determine and map the location, direction, and/or speed... The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private, coeducational research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ... Los Alamos National Laboratory, aerial view from 1995. ... The mushroom cloud of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, 1945, rose some 18 kilometers (11 mi) above the hypocenter. ...

In the fall of 1946 Rossi was appointed professor of physics at MIT where he established the Cosmic Ray Group to investigate the nature and origins of cosmic rays and the properties of the sub-nuclear particles produced in the interaction of cosmic rays with matter. In the late 1950s, when particle accelerator experiments had come to dominate experimental particle physics, Rossi turned his attention to exploratory research made possible by the new availability of space vehicles. At MIT he initiated rocket experiments that pioneered the direct measurements of the interplanetary plasma. As a consultant to American Science and Engineering, Inc. he initiated the rocket experiments that discovered the first extra-solar source of X-rays, Scorpius X-1. Rossi was made Institute Professor at MIT in 1965. Physics (Greek: (phúsis), nature and (phusiké), knowledge of nature) is the science concerned with the discovery and understanding of the fundamental laws which govern matter, energy, space, and time and explaining them using mathematics. ... A 1960s single stage 2 MeV linear Van de Graaff accelerator, here opened for maintenance A particle accelerator is a device that uses electric fields to propel electrically charged particles to high speeds and magnetic fields to contain them. ... A Soyuz rocket, at Baikanur launch pad. ... In the NATO phonetic alphabet, X-ray represents the letter X. An X-ray picture (radiograph) taken by Röntgen An X-ray is a form of electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength approximately in the range of 5 pm to 10 nanometers (corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 PHz... Scorpius X-1 is an X-ray source some 9,000 light years away. ...

Among his contributions to the electronic techniques of experimental physics are the inventions of the coincidence circuit (Florence 1930), the time-to-amplitude converter (Cornell 1942) and the fast ionization chamber (Los Alamos, with H. Staub 1943). In physics, a coincidence circuit is an electronic device with one output and two (or more) inputs. ...

Rossi retired from MIT in 1970 and moved back to Italy. From 1974 to 1980 he taught at the University of Palermo. In 1990 his autobiography, titled Moments in the Life of a Scientist, was published by Cambridge University Press. He died at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1993. 1974 (MCMLXXIV) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ... 1980 (MCMLXXX) was a leap year starting on Tuesday. ... The University of Palermo (Italian: Università degli Studi di Palermo) is a university located in Palermo, Italy, and founded in 1806. ... 1990 (MCMXC) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The headquarters of the Cambridge University Press, in Trumpington Street, Cambridge. ...   Settled: 1630 â€“ Incorporated: 1636 Zip Code(s): 02138, 02139, 02140, 02141, 02142 â€“ Area Code(s): 617 / 857 Official website: http://www. ... 1993 (MCMXCIII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and marked the Beginning of the International Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination (1993-2003). ...

Honors

Awards

• Wolf Prize in Physics for his role in the development of X-ray astronomy (1987)
• National Medal of Science (1983)
• Rumford Prize award of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for "discoveries concerning the nature and origins of cosmic radiations" (1976)
• Gold Medal of the Italian Physical Society (1970)
• Honorary doctorates from the universities of Palermo, Durham, and Chicago

Past winners of the Wolf Prize in Physics: 1978 Chien-Shiung Wu 1979 George Eugene Uhlenbeck, Giuseppe Occhialini 1980 Michael E. Fisher, Leo P. Kadanoff, Kenneth G. Wilson 1981 Freeman J. Dyson, Gerard t Hooft, Victor F. Weisskopf 1982 Leon M. Lederman, Martin M. Perl 1983/4 Erwin L. Hahn... National Medal of Science The National Medal of Science, also called the Presidential Medal of Science, is an honor given by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral and social... Not to be confused with the Rumford Medal In 1796, Benjamin Thompson, known as Count Rumford, gave $5000 separately to the Royal Society of London and the other by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences to give awards every two years for outstanding scientific research on heat or light. ... The House of the Academy, Cambridge, Massachusetts. ...

Named after him

• Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer, a NASA satellite X-ray observatory
• Bruno Rossi Prize of the High Energy Astrophysics division of the American Astronomical Society
• There is an endowed chair named in honor of Bruno Rossi at MIT. It is currently held by Prof. Claude R. Canizares.

The Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) satellite observes the fast-moving, high-energy worlds of black holes, neutron stars, X-ray pulsars and bursts of X-rays that light up the sky and then disappear forever. ... The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is an agency of the United States Government, responsible for that nations public space program. ... The Bruno Rossi Prize is awarded annually by the High Energy Astrophysics Division of the American Astronomical Society for a significant contribution to High Energy Astrophysics, with particular emphasis on recent, original work. ... The American Astronomical Society (AAS) is a US society of professional astronomers and other interested individuals, headquartered in Washington, DC. The main aim of the AAS is provide a political voice for its members and organise their lobbying. ... Claude R. Canizares is the Bruno Rossi Professor of Physics at MIT. He is also an associate provost at MIT and associate director for MIT of the Chandra X-Ray Observatory Center. ...

Works

• Rossi, Bruno (1952). High-energy Particles. Prentice-Hall. 

• Rossi, Bruno (1964). Cosmic Rays. McGraw-Hill. 

• Rossi, Bruno; S. Olbert (1970). Introduction to the Physics of Space. McGraw-Hill. 

• Rossi, Bruno (1990). Moments in the Life of a Scientist. Cambridge Univ. Press. ISBN 0-521-36439-6. 

• Rossi, Bruno (1957). Optics. Addison Wesley. 

External links

• Cosmic Ray Observations in Eritrea: Research Notes of Bruno Rossi, 1933