Paolo Straneo

Paolo Pietro Straneo (19 June 1874, Genoa – 24 November 1968, Genoa) was an Italian mathematical physicist.

Biography

Straneo studied at ETH Zurich, where he met and was a friend of Einstein. In 1897 he received his Ph.D. in natural philosophy of the University of Zurich. From 1899 he was a libero docente (Privatdocent) in mathematical physics and for some years he was a docente incaricato (lecturer without tenure) in mathematical physics at the University of Turin. After a period of working as a libero professionista (an engineering consultant or a freelancer performing work similar to that of a libero docente), in 1924 he again became a libero docente and was put in charge of mathematical physics at the University of Genoa. There, from 1925 he was a professor ordinarius in mathematical physics and also taught theoretical physics.

He did research on mathematical physics, in particular, the theory of relativity.[1]

He contributed to the Enciclopedia Hoepli delle Matematiche elementari the articles: Teoria generale delle dimensioni fisiche (General theory of physical dimensions) and Materia, irraggiamento e fisica quantistica (Matter, radiation and quantum physics).

Straneo was an Invited Speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1928 in Bologna and in 1932 in Zürich. He was elected a member of the Accademia nazionale dei Lincei.

The Atti dei LIncei contains in recent numbers two somewhat closely allied papers on thermo-electricity. The first of these is a verification of the principle of thermodynamic equivalence for bimetallic conductors, by Signor Paolo Straneo, who concludes not only that thermo-electric phenomena proceed regularly in perfect accord with theory, but they can be studied with sufficient exactness by temperature observations without recourse to calorimetry. The determination of the Peltier-effect coefficient by the author's method succeeds even in the case in which previous methods are wanting in accuracy, namely, when the two metals possess a high specific resistance and a feeble Peltier-effect. With the present method, the Joule effect only slightly affects the phenomenon under consideration. Signor Straneo's method forms the basis of a paper by Signor A. Pochettino on variations of the Peltier-effect in a magnetic field. The value of the Peltier-effect was observed to vary with the magnetisation.[2]

Selected publications
  • Intorno alla teoria dei quanti, Roma, 1931.
  • Compendio delle lezioni di fisica teorica, Libreria Internazionale Di Stefano, Genova, 1944; 472 pages.
  • Cinquant'anni di relatività. 1905-1955 (with Antonio Aliotta, Giuseppe Armellini, Piero Caldirola, Bruno Finzi, Giovanni Polvani, Francesco Severi), foreword by Albert Einstein. Edizioni Giuntine e Sansoni Editore, Firenze, 1955.
  • Le teorie della fisica nel loro sviluppo storico, ed. Morcelliana, Brescia, 1959; 449 pages.

References
  1. J.P.S. Lemos, ”Unitary theories in the work of Mira Fernandes (beyond general relativity and differential geometry)“, Boletim da Sociedade Portuguesa de Matematica (Numero Especial - Aureliano Mira Fernandes), 147 (2010), preprint, arxiv.org
  2. Lockyer, Sir Norman (24 August 1899). "Notes (concerning the Atti dei Lincei)". Nature. 60 (1556): 400.
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