Talk of the "International Workshop on Paolo Farinella (1953-2000): the Scientists, the man", Pisa, 14-16 June 2010

1. Why this conference
Paolo’s memories 10 years after his
death

2. SOC
• Luciano Anselmo (ISTI/CNR, Pisa) • Corrado Lamberti (Giornalista
Carlo Bernardini (Dip. Fisica, Scientifico)
Università "La Sapienza"; USPID, Francesco Lenci (IBF/CNR e USPID,
Roma) Pisa)
Bruno Bertotti (Dip. Fisica, Università David Lucchesi (IFSI/INAF, Roma;
di Pavia) ISTI/CNR, Pisa)
Adriano Campo Bagatin (Dip. di Andrea Milani (Dip. Matematica,
Fisica, Università di Alicante) Università di Pisa)
Andrea Cardillo (ISTI/CNR, Pisa) Anna Nobili (Dip. Fisica, Università di
• Mario Carpino (OAB/INAF, Milano) Pisa)
Alberto Cellino (OATo/INAF, Torino) Paolo Paolicchi (Dip. Fisica, Università
• Priscilla Cerroni (IASF/INAF, Roma) di Pisa)
Angioletta Coradini (IFSI/INAF, Roma) Alessandro Rossi (ISTI/CNR, Pisa)
Valerio Iafolla (IFSI/INAF, Roma) Giovanni Valsecchi (IASF/INAF, Roma)

3. A vivid scientific life
Paolo Farinella of the University of Pisa and Donald Davis of the Planetary Science
Institute in Tuscon, Arizona, claim that although the Kuiper Belt is vast, so many
objects orbit near the same plane that many collisions are likely to have taken place
during the life of the Solar System (Science, vol 273, p 938).
Davis and P. Farinella U. of Pisa put forth a new paradigm for the evolution of
short period comets as part of their studies of the collisional evolution of small
bodies of the solar system.
As a planetary scientist, his work changed our view of the solar system
revolutionizing the way we understand the orbital and collisional histories of
asteroids. More than most scientists, he understood the physics, the mathematics
and the data equally well.

4. Asteroid Comets Meteors 89
Paolo showing the Piazzi Mission “White Book”

5. Yarkovsky effect
• His main field of research, and the one dearest
to him, was on the Yarkovsky effect.
• Farinella's study of this effect represents the
peak of a lifetime of research on
interplanetary dynamics and the collisionary
evolution of asteroids.
• His many articles and publications have
received international recognition, and serve
to reflect his vast scientific production.

6. Science for Peace
• SCIENCE FOR PEACE series
• Paolo was member of the Scientific Council of “Unione
Scienziati Per Il Disarmo” and the Forum on the Problems of
Peace and War.
• Paolo began his 14-year association with Pugwash by
attending the 1986 Pugwash Workshop, "Conventional Forces
in Europe", in Castiglioncello, Italy.
• He attended a total of eight Pugwash conferences and
workshops, the last of which was the 1992 42nd Conference:
"Shaping Our Common Future: Dangers and Opportunities" in
Berlin, Germany.

7. Popularization
• GAV ( Gruppo Astronomico di
Viareggio) Honorary President
• Benché il nostro sia il paese di Galileo, non si può dire che in
esso la scienza goda di buona salute.
• Le nostre spese per la ricerca non superano l’ 1,5% del
prodotto nazionale lordo, circa la metà rispetto agli altri
paesi industriali avanzati; gran parte di tali risorse sono
destinate a finanziare ricerca industriale e applicata, non
ricerca fondamentale; l’insegnamento della scienza nella
scuola, in particolare nella scuola media, è
quantitativamente ridotto e spesso qualitativamente
scadente; e per quanto riguarda i media, dominano in
questo campo il sensazionalismo, la superficialità,
l’approssimazione.
• Tutto ciò non è un caso: ancor oggi la cultura dominante in
Italia vede la scienza come un insieme di specialismi e di
tecniche, magari utili ed efficaci, ma inesorabilmente aride,
noiose, criptiche.
• Corrado Lamberti will surely speack about his work with
Paolo

8. Teaching

9. The different themes
• Planetary science: small
bodies, collisions,
satellites
• Space geodesy and
fundamental physics
• Planetary science and
space debris
• Science popularization
• Social committment of
concerned scientists

10. Thanks Paolo!
• Paolo Farinella will be greatly missed and long
remembered for, as noted by Paolo Cotta
Ramusino "how much his presence has
enriched all of us…”
• We miss his rigor, his sharp intelligence, his
generosity, his youth!

11. Pugwash
• The Pugwash Conferences take their name from the fishing village of
Pugwash, Nova Scotia, site of the first meeting in 1957 which was
attended by 22 eminent scientists (seven from the United States, three
each from the Soviet Union and Japan, two each from the United Kingdom
and Canada, and one each from Australia, Austria, China, France, and
Poland). The stimulus for this first Pugwash meeting was the "Manifesto"
issued in 1955 by Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein, and also signed by
Max Born, Percy Bridgman, Leopold Infeld, Frederic Joliot-Curie, Herman
Muller, Linus Pauling, Cecil Powell, Joseph Rotblat, and Hideki Yukawa,
which called upon scientists of all political persuasions to assemble to
discuss the threat posed to civilization by the advent of thermonuclear
weapons. The 1957 meeting was hosted by the American philanthropist
Cyrus Eaton at Thinkers' Lodge in Pugwash, his birthplace, and Mr. Eaton
continued to provide crucial support for Pugwash in its early years.