Giuliano Toraldo di Francia

Giuliano Toraldo di Francia (born September 17, 1916 in Florence , † April 26, 2011 ibid) was an Italian physicist and philosopher. He dealt mainly with optics both theoretically and experimentally .

Life

Toraldo di Francia is the son of the geographer and general Orazio Toraldo di Francia and was Professor of Physics at the University of Florence from 1971 until his retirement in 1991 and Director of the Institute for Research on Electromagnetic Waves of the Italian National Research Council CNR.

In his early days he was at the National Institute for Optics in Arcetri . In the 1950s he dealt with microwave optics and spectroscopy. In the early 1960s, he transferred the laser research that had started in the USA to Italy. After meeting Claude Shannon during his stay in Rochester, he also transferred concepts from Shannon's information theory to optics.

He succeeded in experimentally demonstrating evanescent electromagnetic waves. In 1941 he took the principles of holography by Dennis Gabor in advance (principles of inverse interference ). Due to the war, however, his work did not become internationally known. He introduced the concept of super resolution (Toraldo filter).

In 1969 he received the Young Medal . From 1968 to 1973 he was President of the Italian Physical Society (SIF), whose Honorary President he became in 2005 and whose gold medal he received in the same year. He was editor of the magazine Nuovo Cimento and during this time he campaigned for internationalization and publication in English.

Toraldo di Francia is one of the translators of Richard Feynman's lectures on physics into Italian. He is also known as a philosopher of science and was President of the Italian Society for Logic and Philosophy of Science. He was also a Dante expert, founded a forum for problems of war and peace and was active in a society for the scientific investigation of paranormal phenomena (CICAP, Comitato Italiano per il Controllo delle Affermazioni sul Paranormale). He was the director of the music school in Fiesole, where he also directed and wrote the libretto for an opera.

The architect Cristiano Toraldo di Francia was his son.

Fonts

with Piero Bruscaglioni: Onde elettromagnetiche , Zanichelli 1953
- English translation: Electromagnetic Waves , Interscience 1956
La diffrazione della luce , Einaudi, 1958
L'indagine del mondo fisico , Einaudi, 1976
- English translation: The investigation of the physical world , Cambridge University Press 1981
Il rifiuto. Considerazioni semiserie di un fisico sul mondo di oggi e di domani , Einaudi, 1978
with Maria Luisa Dalla Chiara: Le teorie fisiche: un'analisi formale , Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1981
L'amico di Platone: l'uomo nell'era scientifica , Florence: Vallecchi, 1985
Le cose ei loro nomi , Laterza, 1986
La scimmia allo specchio , Laterza, 1988
Un universo troppo semplice. La visione storica e la visione scientifica del mondo , Feltrinelli, 1990
Tempo cambiamento invarianza , Einaudi, 1994
with Piero Angela: Dialoghi di fine secolo , Giunti, 1996
Ex absurd. Riflessioni di un fisico ottuagenario , Feltrinelli, 1997
In fin dei conti , Di Renzo Editore, 1997
with Renzo Cassigoli: Il pianeta assediato. Conversazione di fine millennio , Le lettere, 1999
with Maria Luisa Dalla Chiara: Introduzione alla filosofia della scienza , Laterza, 2000
Editor: Problems in the foundations of physics , International School of Physics Enrico Fermi, North Holland 1979
Editor: Onde superficiali , CIME Summer School, Springer Verlag 2011

literature

Riccardo Pratesi (Editor): Waves, information and foundations of physics: a tribute to Giuliano Toraldo di Francia on his 80th birthday; Florence, September 15-17, 1996, Bologna: Editrice Compositori, 1998 (on behalf of the Società Italiana di Fisica)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Toraldo di Francia, Giuliano
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Italian physicist and philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH	September 17, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH	Florence
DATE OF DEATH	April 26, 2011
Place of death	Florence