INFN-LNF Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati
Carlo Bernardini, INFN physicist and professor emeritus at the Physics Department of the Sapienza Università di Roma passed away. Carlo Bernardini was one of the Frascati National Laboratories’ founders and a protagonist in the Laboratory’s history, having participating in the study, realization and experimentation first of the Synchrotron and subsequently of AdA and ADONE.
He moved from Lecce to Rome to study physics and, after he had graduated with Bruno Ferretti, Enrico Persico offered him to join the group that was about to construct in Frascati, under the guidance of Giorgio Salvini, the first Italian high-energy electron accelerator: the Synchrotron. Then, together with Bruno Touschek, Gianfranco Corazza and Giorgio Ghigo, he signed the proposal to realize the first matter-antimatter collider in the world, AdA.
After participating in the experimentation with electron and positron colliding beams at AdA – which had been transferred to Orsay, near Paris – he went back to Frascati to realize an electron-positron collider that, at the time, was the most powerful of the world: ADONE.
He contributed to the layout of the machine optics and to the study of longitudinal dynamics by developing innovative systems for the cure of instabilities of the stored bunches. He also took part to different elementary particle physics experiments that used the ADONE accelerator.
First, he taught General Physics at the Università Federico II di Napoli and then Mathematics Methods for Physics at the Sapienza Università di Roma, where he was also Head of Department.
Carlo Bernardini always showed great interest in social issues; he was Senator of the Republic and participated to various information campaigns like the one for nuclear disarmament. Communicator and brilliant columnist, he published several essays and books in the scientific field and more. For a long time he was editor of the magazine Sapere.
In numerous speeches and interviews, he always depicted the Frascati Laboratories as an example of great implementation capacity, resulting from a continuing close collaboration, and highlighted the importance of human relationships among physicists, engineers and technicians.
Translation by Camilla Paola Maglione, Communications Office INFN-LNF