angelo g p nastasi - italian mathematics between the two world wars

[...]... feels the powerful pull of a strongly cohesive research, capable of describing the complexity of macroscopic physical phenomena by using only a few basic equations As regards mathematical physics, the most important contributions, over the turn-of -the- century, regarded the propagation of light in birefractable equipment, the movements of the terrestrial poles (or, to be more precise, the movements of the. .. been E Picard’s transcendent and M Noether’s geometric approach The former had studied simple integrals of total differentials of the first kind annexed to an algebraic surface, coming to the result that these only existed on particular surfaces, for example hyperelliptic ones The latter introduced the invariants constituted by the geometric genus pg, the linear genus p (1) and the numerical genus pa It... singularities in each point of the border of A, providing further evidence in favour of the differentiation between the theory of the single complex variable and the theory of more than one complex variable His research followed Hertogs’s theorem (1906) which signals the rise of multidimensional complex analysis as an independent research field This springtime in Italian mathematics at the beginning... to the capital increased Volterra’s public profile and his involvement in positions of increasing responsibility in determining the scientific and cultural policies of the nation At the beginning of the century, Volterra was elected president of the Società Italiana di Fisica In 1905 the Italian Prime Minister, Giolitti, appointed him to the Senate In 1907 he founded the SIPS (Società Italiana per... (1879–1961)16 The Italian school of algebraic geometry is generally identified with them It is worthwhile having a closer look at their role and activities: they debut brilliantly at the turn-of -the- century but we will find them again – maybe in other fields of academic endeavour – also in the 1930s Severi in particular would become one of the key figures of Italian mathematics between the two world wars Immediately... by completing them and specifying the dominion of their validity Giuseppe Peano (1859–1932), from Turin, was another protagonist of the rigorist turning point His contribution was to present the axioms of arithmetic, to give some counterexamples – some of which were ruthless in their simplicity, with which he ridiculed unsubstantiated hypotheses, mistakes and approximations (some contained in the most... between the Italian regions The development of the Italian education system can be seen from the right perspective when one realizes that it was only in 1877 that the first two years of primary school became compulsory (after a long struggle against the most intransigent sectors of the Catholic church which sought to maintain family prerogatives) Indeed, at the time Italy was united, about 70% of the population... during this period that some of the future protagonists of the years between two world wars began their careers The levels of excellence that this group attained set the standards the following generation would have to measure up to First we deal with the school of algebraic geometry (which we already mentioned when we spoke of Cremona) The Premio Bordin of the Académie des Sciences, was awarded to Italian. .. voyage marked the birth – almost from nothing – of Italian mathematics The theory that the Risorgimento also caused a new starting point in mathematics naturally derived from a patriotic ideology which emphasized the view that unification had set wings to the aspirations and enthusiasm of the best minds in the country, including science2 Actually, it cannot be argued that the mathematical school had sprung... diplomatic issues were of much greater complexity It would only be in 1870 that the Italian government could overcome the temporal power of the papacy On this occasion it exploited the opportunities offered by the difficulties faced by the Vatican’s erstwhile ally, France, in the aftermath of the FrancoPrussian war, the fall of Napoleon III and the end of the Second Empire The annexation of Rome by the