The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the Nobel Prize in Physics annually. To date there have been six winners of Italian descent. Carlo Rubbia, who was born in Italy, was awarded this prestigious prize along with Simon van der Meer in 1984 for his contributions, which led to the discovery of W and Z particles. Each of them received a citation, a gold medal and half the prize money.

Birth and early years
Carlo Rubbia was born in the town of Gorizia, Italy on March 31, 1934. His father was an electrical engineer at the local telephone company and his mother was an elementary school teacher. At the end of the World War II most of the province of Gorizia was taken over by Yugoslavia. So his family fled to Venice and later on moved to Udine.

As a young boy Rubbia was very interested in electrical and mechanical ideas and read a lot on these topics. Although he began his university education by studying engineering at the University of Milan, he soon moved to the renowned and exclusive Scuola Normale (Normal School) in Pisa where he studied physics. He completed his thesis on cosmic ray experiments under his thesis advisor Marcello Conversi. He earned a doctorate from the University of Pisa in 1957. He and Conversi also participated in new instrumentation developments. They also developed the first pulsed gas particle detectors.

Move to the United States
After completing his degree in 1958 he moved to the United States to increase his knowledge about particle accelerators spending one and a half years at Columbia University. Along with W. Baker he measured the angular asymmetry in the capture of polarized muons at the Nevis Synchro-cyclotron. Together they demonstrated the presence of parity violation in this fundamental process. This was the first in a long series of experiments on Weak Interactions, which remained his main area of interest.

Move to Europe-at the CERN
Around 1960 the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) was established in Geneva. Carlo Rubbia was appointed as a senior physicist at CERN. This idea of a joint European research effort in Pure Science appealed greatly to him and he went on to conduct a large number of experiments using the syncro-cyclotron, which was built in 1957 at the CERN. With his team he made a large number of important and fundamental discoveries including the discovery of the beta decay process of the positive pion and the first observation of muon capture by free hydrogen. He also conducted some weak interaction experiments like the determination of the parity violation in the beta decay of the lambda hyperons. During the summer of 1964 he started a series of observations on CP violation following their discovery by Fitch and Collin but this has not been as fruitful as his other observations.

A few years later he returned to the study of the more orthodox weak interactions with David Cline and Alfred Mann. They proposed a major neutrino experiment at the Fermi Lab in the United States . However due to a variety of reasons they were unable to make many meaningful conclusions.

The Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) was built in the 1970’s. This was the period when the weak force theory was formulated. In 1973 a group of researchers working under Rubbia provided one of the clues by observing neutral weak currents. These are weak interactions where electrical charge is not transferred between the particles involved. These interactions differed from those previously observed and were direct analogues of electromagnetic interactions. This lead to the formulation of the electro-weak theory. This theory embodies the idea that the weak force can be transmitted by any of the three particles (W+, W-, and Z0 ). These particles are called intermediate vector bosons and should have masses nearly hundred times that of the proton.

In 1976 Rubbia proposed that the CERN synchrotron be modified to allow beams of accelerated protons and antiprotons collide head on so that sufficient energy would be released for the weak bosons to materialize. This was exactly what happened. The collider started running in 1981 and in1983 experiments with the colliding- beam apparatus gave the proof that W and Z particles can be produced. These particles were found to have the properties that agreed with the theoretical predictions. These techniques for creating antiprotons, confining them in a concentrated beam and colliding them with a proton beam were developed at CERN with the help of many scientists and researchers including Guido Petrucci, Jacques Garevte and Simon Van der Meer. This was known as the UA1 Collaboration.

As a proton-antiproton collider in the 1980’s it provided CERN with one of its greatest moments in history. It recorded the first observations of the W and Z particles, the particles that carry the weak force. This momentous discovery fetched Professor Rubbia and Simon van der Meer the Nobel Prize in Physics.

Rubbia did further analysis on the results obtained in 1983 and concluded that in some decays of the W+ Particle the first firm evidence of the existence of the sixth quark had been found . This quark was called top and the discovery of this confirmed an earlier prediction that three pairs of these particles should exist.

On December 17, 1987 Professor Rubbia was appointed as the Director General of the CERN from January 1, 1989 for a period of five years.

At Harvard
In 1970 Carlo Rubbia was appointed Professor of Physics at Harvard University. From then onwards he divided his time between Harvard and CERN. He worked as a professor of physics at Harvard till 1988. He was the Higgins professor of Physics. For eighteen years he dedicated one semester per year to teach the students.

The Nobel Prize and other awards
In 1984 Carlo Rubbia and Simon Van Der Meer were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the subatomic particles W and Z. These particles convey the weak force, one of the four fundamental forces of nature. This is one of the shortest intervals ever between discovery and award.

In 1985 he also “Cavaliere di Gran Croce” (Knight of the Grand Cross) and in 1989 he received the title of “Officier de la Legion d’Honneur. In 1993 after he completed his mandate as Director general of CERN he received the Polish Order of Merit.

Energy Amplifier
Rubbia has also discovered a unique concept, which has helped to design a new type of nuclear energy reactor called the energy amplifier. He published a proposal for a power reactor based on a proton cyclotron accelerator. This inherent safe design combines a particle accelerator with a sub-critical nuclear reactor. It would use the elements thorium, as fuel and lead as a coolant. Thorium is abundantly available in nature and is essentially meltdown- proof. The waste produced by thorium is dangerous for a much shorter period of time compared to the waste produced by conventional rectors. It also can break down long life waste from conventional nuclear reactors to less harmful substances.

Carlo Rubbia was the president of the Italian Institute for New Technologies, Energy and Environment (ENEA) till July15, 2005.

Rubbia is currently Full Professor of Physics at the University of Pavia, Italy. He has been conferred Honorary Doctorate degrees from many of the famous universities of the world. He has obtained these honours not only from his hometown Italy or from the United States but also from countries in Europe, South America the United Kingdom and the U.S.S.R.

He is also a member of most of the prestigious academies of science world- wide. Some of the organizations he is a member of are the American Academy of Arts and Science, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the European Academy of Sciences and the Societe Françoise de Physique. He also has the status of foreign member in the Polish Academy of Sciences, the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences, the Third World Academy of Sciences, the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts and many other famous and august institutions in the world.

Personal Life
He is married to Marisa. She teaches physics at High School. They have two children. Their daughter Laura is a doctor and their son Andre studied high-energy physics.

Current Activities
At the 2004 Institute of Nuclear Physics Conference in Edinburgh , United Kingdom Professor Rubbia said that the detection of dark matter would be possible within a decade and said that this would change our view of our place in the cosmos. Thus Rubbia continues to be involved in ground- breaking theories of evolution.

The first World Conference on the Future of Science was held in Venice from September 21 –23 2005. This main theme of this conference was the Impact of Science on Human Life. Experts of international renown from various fields were invited to give their views on the social, economic and cultural consequences of the technological revolution in the sciences. Carlo Rubbia was the one of the chairpersons of the September 22 session of Future Sources of Energy for Mankind.

Carlo Rubbia has been one of the pioneers of nuclear research and his discoveries have a far- reaching consequence on how we can further understand the complexity of the universe and space. His contributions will be remembered for a long time. His research has been fundamental in nature and will contribute and benefit mankind in the decades ahead.