Abstract
While it’s true that the years at the beginning of the century were particularly lively and rich in initiatives for Italian culture in general, and specifically for the scientific movement, Volterra’s energy was singular and genuinely limitless even for that period. The international congress in Rome had hardly finished, with the unpleasant aftermath that we mentioned, before he immediately threw himself into the planning for what would become the Italian Thalassographic Committee.
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Notes
- 1.
More detailed information can be found in S. Linguerri, Vito Volterra e il comitato talassografico italiano (Florence: Olschki, 2005).
- 2.
An accurate reconstruction of the affairs of the Thalassographic Committee and its activities is found in Linguerri, Vito Volterra e il comitato talassografico italiano, op. cit.
- 3.
For more information abut Clark University and more in general about trends in superior education in America in the second half of the nineteenth century, see J. W. Dauben and K. Hunger Parshall, ‘L’evoluzione della ricerca universitaria: Johns Hopkins, Chicago e Berkeley’, in La matematica, vol. I, C. Bartocci and P. Odifreddi, eds. (Torino: Einaudi, 2007).
- 4.
The text of the lessons, revised with the collaboration of the young French mathematician Joseph Pérès, was published under the title Leçons sur les fonctions des lignes, op. cit. This also contains a first, more explicit formulation of the passage from discrete to continuous: ‘tout à fait semblable à celui par lequel on passa de la somme à l’intégrale et par lequel on arrive aux opérations plus générales d’intégration dont nous avons parlé. Est-il possible de se borner dans la philosophie naturelle aux fonctions d’un nombre fini de variables? … On ne fait ainsi qu’un examen approximatif de phénomène, mais on entrevoit facilement qu’il y aura des cas, où, pour approfondir d’une manière convenable la question, il sera nécessaire de passer du nombre fini au nombre infini d’éléments variables’ (quite similar to that by which one passes from the sum to the integral and by which one arrives at the more general operations of integration that we have spoken about. Is it possible to limit natural philosophy to functions of a finite number of variables? … In that way we can make but an approximate examination of the phenomenon, but one easily sees that there will be cases where, to examine the question in depth, it will be necessary to pass from a finite to an infinite number of variable elements).
- 5.
See Volterra’s letter of 17 October 1912 to his wife, quoted by Judith Goodstein in The Volterra Chronicles, op. cit., p. 175.
- 6.
See E. Ragionieri, ‘La storia politica e sociale’ in Storia d’Italia Einaudi, vol. 4, t. III, pp. XIV, 1665–2483 (Torino: Einaudi, 1976). The backing given by the great powers to Italian aspirations, the fear of damage to Italian colonial interests following the agreement between France and Germany regarding the crisis in Morocco, and Giolitti’s pursuit of the Catholic consensus turned the tide of public opinion in favour of the initiative.
- 7.
This passage is cited by Goodstein in The Volterra Chronicles, op. cit., p. 180.
- 8.
On the particular attitude towards the war of the mathematical world, see Angelo Guerraggio and Pietro Nastasi, Matematica in camicia nera (Milan: Bruno Mondadori, 2005).
- 9.
See Linguerri, Vito Volterra e il comitato talassografico italiano, op. cit.
- 10.
As late as 1920, he published his paper ‘Osservazioni sul metodo di determinare la velocità dei dirigibili’ in the Rassegna marittima e aeronautica illustrata.
- 11.
See Guerraggio and Nastasi, Matematica in camicia nera, op. cit.
- 12.
A great deal has been written about this subject. The interested reader can refer to L. Tomassini, ‘Le origini’ in Per una storia del Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche, I, Raffaella Simili and Giovanni Paoloni, eds (Rome-Bari: Laterza, 2001) and the bibliography therein. The quotation by Painlevé given earlier is taken from that essay.
- 13.
Battelli’s appeal appeared in the Giornale d’Italia of 9 July 1915, the same day on which the under-secretaryship for Arms and Munitions was instituted in the Ministry of War. Giordano’s article, which we discuss immediately after that of Battelli, was instead published in the Corriere della Sera on 11 July. The first newspaper, published in Rome, was certainly closer to ministerial circles, while the second, published in Milan, was the utmost expression of industrial interests. One of those called to participate in the Milan committee was Luigi Albertini, the director of the Corriere.
- 14.
Constituted on 9 July, the under-secretaryship would receive its by-laws only on 22 August 1915. The Central Committee for industrial mobilisation (which was one of its primary activities) met for the first time on 18 September. The world of industry always remained diffident about what it considered to be a form of creeping nationalisation.
- 15.
The two meetings took place on 19 July and 14 August 1915. Figuring among the members of the committee were Giuseppe Colombo (of the Politecnico di Milano), Giovanni Battista Pirelli, Carlo Esterle (of Edison), Luigi Albertini and Guglielmo Marconi. Giordano was named director.
- 16.
See Helen Wright, Explorer of the Universe: A Biography of George Ellery Hale (New York: American Institute of Physics, 1994).
- 17.
Members of the executive committee included, among others, Marco Besso, Guido Castelnuovo, Antonio De Viti De Marco and Alberto Tonelli.
- 18.
See Wright, Explorer of the Universe: A Biography of George Ellery Hale, op. cit.
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Guerraggio, A., Paoloni, G. (2012). Days of Firing from a Dirigible. In: Vito Volterra. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27263-9_5
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