Categories

Laura Bassi: Emblem and primacy

By . Published on 23 November 2012 in:
Information, November 2012, , ,

A volume in honour of Laura Bassi was recently presented in Bologna, Italy, at the Accademia dell’Istituto delle Scienze, in the presence of the Undersecretary of State for Education, University and Research, Elena Ugolini.

Laura Bassi, in 1732, became the first female member of the influential Accademia in Bologna. She was the first woman in the world to be appointed to a university chair to teach “universal philosophy” (1732), and later “experimental physics” (1776). The Italian Physical Society and the Italian Society of the History of Science (and as a nice coincidence, both chaired by lady-professors of Bologna University) have chosen to pay Laura Bassi a lasting tribute, providing a memory for the future and a potential starting point for further studies.

Cover
Presentation of the volume

The book is a collection of writings by various experts, depicting the personality and work of Laura Bassi. Published in an illustrated bilingual (Italian/English) edition, it is meant to introduce the wider public, in Italy and abroad, to the intellectual legacy that she left us from that distant and marvelous period that was the Settecento.

More information:
Title: Laura Bassi – Emblema e primato nella scienza del Settecento
ISBN 9788877947741




Read previous post:
Stimulating Physics Network

The drastic shortage of specialist physics teachers in England ( ~ 40%) has been getting worse for most of the last 20 years, largely due to low levels of recruitment.

Happily, as a result of recent changes in policy following years of lobbying by the Institute of Physics, recruitment is now healthy. However, it is still the case that many children up to age 16 are taught physics by non-specialists, usually biologists, and will be for at least the next decade...

Close
chemist