Physicist Antonino Zichichi, a scientist and popularizer, has died at the age of 96.
He called astrology and superstitions a “cultural Hiroshima”: a controversial figure for his criticism of evolutionism and denial of climate change.Per restare aggiornato entra nel nostro canale Whatsapp
Antonino Zichichi, a physicist and science communicator specializing in particle physics, to which he made valuable contributions, has died at the age of 96. He is best known for his long-standing battle against astrology and, more generally, superstitions , which he called a "cultural Hiroshima." This was announced by sources in the scientific community.
He was a highly controversial figure within the scientific community, due to his Catholic beliefs, his harsh criticism of Darwinian evolution , which he always considered lacking sufficient scientific evidence and a solid mathematical basis, and his openly denialist position regarding the relationship between human activities and climate change , arguing that the mathematical models used in studies on the subject were unreliable.
Zichichi worked at Fermilab in Chicago, an American physics laboratory named after Enrico Fermi, and at CERN in Geneva, where in 1965 he led the research group that first observed the antideuteron, an antimatter particle consisting of an antiproton and an antineutron.
He also led the group at the University of Bologna, where he was professor emeritus, during the first experiments on matter-antimatter collisions at the Frascati National Laboratories. From 1977 to 1982, Zichichi served as president of the National Institute for Nuclear Physics and in 1978, he was also elected president of the European Physical Society.
He was one of the main promoters and creators of the Gran Sasso National Laboratories, whose construction began in 1980, and since 1986 he has been the head of the World Lab, an association that supports scientific projects in third world countries, founded by Zichichi himself together with the American physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi.
He also founded the Ettore Majorana Center for Scientific Culture in Erice, Sicily. In 1979, he was at the center of a diplomatic incident during the election of CERN's new director : Italy's pressure on his behalf caused a sharp rift between Italy and all the others. In the end, by 12 votes against, Zichichi's candidacy was rejected and the German Herwig Schopper was elected.
(Unioneonline)