Oscar Sala

This article is about the physicist. For the composer and musician, see Oskar Sala .

Oscar Sala (born March 26, 1922 in Milan , † January 2, 2010 in São Paulo ) was an Italian-Brazilian experimental particle and nuclear physicist .

Sala graduated in physics from the University of São Paulo in 1943 , where he was a student of Gleb Wataghin and Giuseppe Occhialini . At that time, the group dealt with experimental particle physics of cosmic radiation. He became assistant to Marcelo Damy de Souza Santos (1914-2009) and later professor at the Institute of Physics at the University of São Paulo (Instituto de Física da Universidade de São Paulo). In 1946 he went to the USA as a Rockefeller Scholarship to the University of Illinois and then to the University of Wisconsin – Madison . There he learned how to build particle accelerators for nuclear research and after returning to São Paulo he built a large Van de Graaff generator and later a Pelletron . From 1970 to 1979 and 1983 to 1987 he headed the nuclear physics department.

He was one of the founders of the FAPESP Foundation (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo), which promoted research in the State of São Paulo, and was its scientific director from 1959 to 1965. He was also a member of the Academia Brasileira de Ciências (Brazilian Academy of Sciences), the Third World Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1988). He was president of the Sociedade Brasileira para o Progresso da Ciência (Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science). From 1968 to 1971 he was President of the Sociedade Brasileira de Física (Brazilian Physical Society).

Web links

• Oscar Sala on the website canal ciência (Portuguese)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ e.g. Sala, Wataghin Showers of penetrating particles , Physical Review, Volume 67, 1945, p. 55