2016/09/09 by Amelia Carolina Sparavigna, Sparavigna, Amelia Carolina
Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #History and Philosophy of Physics (physics.hist-ph) #physics.hist-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1609.02659
Volterra's original paper at http://www.liberliber.it/online/autori/autori-v/vito-volterra/i-fisici-italiani-e-le-ricerche-di-Faraday/
arxiv created 2016/09/09 · arxiv updated 2016/09/12
The paper presents a memoir of 1931 written by Vito Volterra on the Italian physicists of the nineteenth century and the researches these scientists made after the discoveries of Michael Faraday on electromagnetism. Here, the memoir entitled "I fisici italiani e le ricerche di Faraday" is translated from Italian. It was written to commemorate the centenary of Faraday's discovery of the electromagnetic induction. Besides being a remarkable article on the history of science, it was also, in a certain extent, a political paper. In fact, in 1931, the same year of the publication of this article, Mussolini imposed a mandatory oath of loyalty to Italian academies. Volterra was one of the very few professors who refused to take this oath of loyalty. Because of the political situation in Italy, Volterra wanted to end his paper sending a message to the scientists of the world, telling that the feeling of admiration and gratitude that in Italy the scientists had towards "the great thinker and British experimentalist" was profound and unanimous.