Elementary-particle physics at the University of Milan 1951–1956

Abstract

If history was made in the development of strange-particle Physics, under the guidance of Giuseppe Occhialini (Beppo), by the nuclear emulsion researchers at the Universities of Genoa and Milan, scant record is to be found in the literature under Beppo’s name. Only toward the end of 1955 does Beppo’s name appears, in the reports of the “G-Stack Collaboration” that he orchestrated. Although he would have been fully entitled, as well as his wife Mrs. Connie Occhialini-Dilworth, at first as Miss Dilworth, to co-author most of the publications of our group, neither of them did. In this brief summary of the new Physics we were fortunate to uncover, I take the liberty of relating the excitement of our discoveries also on behalf of my closest collaborators, A. Bonetti, M. Di Corato, B. Locatelli, M. Panetti, L. Scarsi, and G. Tomasini, the Genoa-Milan group. The list of publications of the group, covering the period 1951–1956 and reproduced here, was taken in its entirety from my CV. Thus Beppo’s legacy is bound to transpire through the work of his pupils and apprentices, being myself one of them. The manner by which his guidance of our work manifested itself deserves a separate memoir of mine, to accompany this writing.