Comunicating in the Marconian Age

Rome, April 15^th-16^th 2010
Istituto Italiano di Studi Germanici (Italian Institute of Germanic Studies)
Villa Sciarra-Wurts sul Gianicolo

COMMUNICATING IN THE MARCONIAN AGE
Research project in the centenary of the Nobel Prize awarded to Guglielmo Marconi and Karl Ferdinand Braun

Istituto Italiano di Studi Germanici
Società Italiana per il Progresso delle Scienze
LXX riunione

with the participation of the
Accademia Nazionale delle Scienze detta dei XL
Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche
Fondazione Guglielmo Marconi
Domus Galilaeana
Fondazione Cesalpino
Confindustria Servizi Innovativi

and the sponsorship of the
Ambasciata della Repubblica Federale di Germania

Experience and reason together produce the so called “scientific revolutions”. In the first half of the 17th century, with Galilei, the telescope and geometric thinking paved the way towards the victory of heliocentrism on common sense, geocentric. An analogous event, this too developed by the acquisition of fundamental geometric principles, was repeated with Guglielmo Marconi, in the paradoxical wireless transmission of the human message: a premise to man's new historicity on earth and in the universe.
In the centenary of the Nobel Prize, 1909, jointly assigned to the German physicist Ferdinand Braun, in recognition of his contribution to the discovery, the Germanic Studies/Institute of research and the Sips/Società Italiana per il Progresso delle Scienze (Italian Association for the progress of science) promote an interdisciplinary project on the present and the future of communications: passing through consolidated developments of scientific theory, analyzing applications that up until yesterday were relegated in the imaginary, and opening new possibilities on ulterior advancements, from mathematic formalisms to operative spin-offs. The contrast between rationality, in science and technology, and common sense does not become more minimized but rather heightens with the developments of that which can be called “The Marconian Age”. This meeting provides convincing evidence: with that fluctuating, reciprocal need to go back and forth between theory and procedure, showing the analogies and the links between the two conceptual revolutions, which were previously mentioned.

Scientific coordination:
M. Cumo, F. Balsano, C. Bernardini, E. Casolino, A. Speranza, V. Cappelletti

Thursday April 15^th, 10am - 1.30pm
MAURIZIO CUMO Presidente Società Italiana per il Progresso delle Scienze
e
GIAN TOMMASO SCARASCIA MUGNOZZA Presidente Accademia Nazionale delle Scienze detta dei XL
Introduction and chairmanship

CORRADO CALABRÒ Presidente Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni
From past to future
GABRIELE FALCIASECCA Presidente Fondazione Guglielmo Marconi
Marconi: from the first experiments to the Nobel Prize

Film

NADIA ROBOTTI - FRANCESCO GUERRA Università di Genova - Sapienza Università di Roma
The 'miracle' of the first transatlantic transmission
GIANNI ORLANDI Direttore Dipartimento InfoCom - Sapienza Università di Roma
Communications in today's society

Honours wine

Thursday April 15^th, 4pm - 7.30pm
Chair CARLO BERNARDINI Presidente onorario Sips

WERNER WIESBECK Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
100 Years Nobel Prize for Karl Ferdinand Braun
GIOVANNI PAOLONI Sapienza Università di Roma
Marconi in economics and politics: entrepreneurial events and the relationship with Ciano and Mussolini
RAFFAELLA SIMILI Università di Bologna
Marconi in economics and politics: from nationalism to the presidency of the CNR
GIORGIO DRAGONI Università di Bologna
Marconi and Righi
WALDIMARO FIORENTINO Società Italiana per il Progresso delle Scienze
Marconi: greatness to rediscover, prejudices to discredit
VINCENZO CAPPELLETTI Presidente Istituto Italiano di Studi Germanici
Res extensa, world, nature, information: a journey through scientific reason

Speeches programmed

Friday April 16^th , 10am - 1.30pm
Chair FRANCESCO BALSANO Presidente Fondazione Cesalpino

LAURA LAURO TARONI New College Oxford
The physics of telecommunications
ALESSANDRO ALBERIGI QUARANTA Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia
Electronics and data processing in the development of physics research
ENZO MARINARI Sapienza Università di Roma
The mysteries of the net: from the world of Internet to metabolic nets
PIERGIORGIO SPAGGIARI Direttore Generale Istituti Ospitalieri di Cremona
Relationships between electromagnetism and medicine
FRANCESCO FELICIANI ESA Telecommunications
Telemedicine in the Agenzia Spaziale Europea

Speeches Programmed

Friday April 16^th , 4pm - 6pm
COMMUNICATING: TO WHO, WHAT, HOW
round table

Chair
ANTONIO SPERANZA Presidente Consorzio Cinfai
Speeches made by:
FRANCESCO BALSANO (Fondazione Cesalpino)
CARLO BERNARDINI (Sips)
CARLO BUONGIORNO (Centro Ric. Aerospaz. Sapienza)
MASSIMO CASTELLANO (Vicepresidente Assoweb TV)
STEFANO CICCOTTI (Amm.Del. RAI Way)
GIANNI ORLANDI (Sapienza Università di Roma)
STEFANO PILERI (Presidente Confindustria Servizi Innovativi)
FRANCESCO PROFUMO (Rettore Politecnico di Torino)
Conclusions
MAURIZIO CUMO, VINCENZO CAPPELLETTI

followed by a
POSTHUMOUS INTERVIEW TO GUGLIELMO MARCONI
by and with MARCO FERRAZZOLI Capo Ufficio Stampa CNR
CLAUDIO ALFONSI'S voice as Marconi

A toast in the spirit of friendship

villa sciarra

David Sarnoff

Marconi was the creator of the present day civilization of the radio. All of those who, with spirit of initiative and perseverance, have brought us to the present stage of development have built on the foundations laid by Marconi. Everyone considered him the tutelary genius of their work.