Vito Volterra and his commemoration for the centenary of Faraday's discovery of electromagnetic induction

TL;DR

This paper presents a translated memoir by Vito Volterra commemorating Faraday's discovery of electromagnetic induction, highlighting Italian scientists' contributions and reflecting on the political context of 1931 Italy.

Contribution

It provides a historical account of Italian physicists' research post-Faraday and offers political commentary on Volterra's stance during Mussolini's regime.

Findings

Italian scientists' admiration for Faraday

Volterra's refusal to take political loyalty oath

Historical significance of Italian physics research

Abstract

The paper presents a memoir of 1931 written by Vito Volterra on the Italian physicists of the nineteenth century and the researches these scientists made after the discoveries of Michael Faraday on electromagnetism. Here, the memoir entitled "I fisici italiani e le ricerche di Faraday" is translated from Italian. It was written to commemorate the centenary of Faraday's discovery of the electromagnetic induction. Besides being a remarkable article on the history of science, it was also, in a certain extent, a political paper. In fact, in 1931, the same year of the publication of this article, Mussolini imposed a mandatory oath of loyalty to Italian academies. Volterra was one of the very few professors who refused to take this oath of loyalty. Because of the political situation in Italy, Volterra wanted to end his paper sending a message to the scientists of the world, telling that the feeling of admiration and gratitude that in Italy the scientists had towards "the great thinker and British experimentalist" was profound and unanimous.