Presentation Speech by Anders Österling, Permanent Secretary of the Salvatore Quasimodo, the Italian poet who has been awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature, is a Sicilian by birth. He was born near Syracuse, to be more exact, in the little town of Modica some distance from the coast. It is not difficult to imagine…

Salvatore Quasimodo (1901-1968) was born of Sicilian parents in Modica, near Syracuse. Desiring to become an engineer, he attended technical schools in Palermo and later enrolled at the Politecnico in Rome. In addition, he studied Latin and Greek at the University there. However, for economic reasons he was unable to complete his studies. He obtained…

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Emilio Segrè was born in Tivoli, Rome, on February 1st, 1905, as the son of Giuseppe Segrè, industrialist, and Amelia Treves. He went to school in Tivoli and Rome, and entered the University of Rome as a student of engineering in 1922. In 1927 he changed over to physics and took his doctor’s degree in…

Presentation Speech by Professor E. Hulthén, Chairman of the Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen. The notion of matter as something built up of very tiny and indivisible atoms is a heritage from classical times. Since, however, experimental research in our days has shown that the atoms in their turn are complicated structures,…

Owen Chamberlain was born in San Francisco on July 10, 1920. His father was W. Edward Chamberlain, a prominent radiologist with an interest in physics. His mother’s maiden name was Genevieve Lucinda Owen. He obtained his bachelor’s degree at Dartmouth College in 1941. He entered graduate school in physics at the University of California, but…

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