Alfred Nobel the founder of dynamite established the Nobel Prize in 1901. It is awarded to person or persons who have contributed to important modern discoveries and inventions. This award is given annually for achievements in the field of physics, chemistry, physiology (medicine), literature and peace. In 1968 a Nobel Prize in Economics was added. The prize consists of a personal diploma, a medal and a monetary award. It is a very prestigious prize.

The Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences annually in Stockholm on December 10. These prizes have been awarded for discoveries and achievements in communications technology, super fluidity, structure of matter cosmic radiation, discovery of X rays and X ray astronomy to cite a few examples.

In 1901 Wilhelm Roentgen was awarded the Nobel Prize for physics for his discovery of X Rays. Just over a hundred years later Riccardo Giacconi was awarded the same prize for his pioneering work in X Ray astronomy. He was awarded this prestigious award for his outstanding discoveries of cosmic X ray sources that have paved the way for the development of X ray astronomy. Since 1901 there have been six winners of Italian descent the last one being Riccardo Giacconi who was awarded this prize in 2002 along with two other physicists. Giacconi received half the prize while Raymond Davis Jr. and Masatoshi Koshiba each received one fourth of the prize

Early childhood and formative years

Riccardo Giacconi was born in Genoa, Italy on October 6, 1931. He was the only child born to Antonio Giacconi and Elsa Canni Giacconi. His father owned a small business and his mother was a high school teacher who taught Mathematics and Physics.

His early schooling was not conventional. He went to live in Canni, in Cremona following the 1942 bombings of Milan. He returned to Milan in 1944 and he even jumped a year in high school to directly enter the University of Milan. He had access to a large number of books and scholarly works which he enjoyed reading. He received his doctorate in four years. From his first year at the university he began his research. He was encouraged to do so by a young professor called Antonio Mura. Carlo Suci also encouraged him to do laboratory work. Apart from schoolwork he was very interested in climbing, hiking, skiing and traveled all over Europe.

He did his thesis on the development of nuclear interactions by protons in the lead plates of a cloud chamber at the laboratory of Testa Grigia. Just before being hired as a physics professor he met Guiseppe Occhialini who had a profound influence on his work and future. Guiseppe Occhialini advised him to go the United States of America and work under R. W. Thompson a physicist who was held in high regard by both of them.

Fellowships and Career in the United States of America

In 1956 Giacconi obtained a Fulbright Fellowship and sailed to the United States of America. From 1956 to 1958 he worked in Bloomington, Indiana analyzing the data previously obtained by Thompson. He also worked on the construction of a new and bigger cloud chamber for cosmic ray research. In 1958 he moved to Princeton University to work in the G. Reynolds laboratory. This brought him in contact with the MIT group lead by Herbert Bridge and with American Science and Engineering (AS&E) led by Martin Annis. His fellowship in Princeton expired in 1959. Although he did consider joining CERN, which was led by Occhialini, he finally joined AS&E in September 1959 and began pursuing a serious career in Science.

At the American Science and Engineering

Giacconi joined AS&E in 1959 to find some permanence in his life. He was married to Mirella whom he had known from the age of sixteen from his days in Milan. They had two daughters Guia and Anna and he was looking for stability in his life. He began the task of creating a space program for the company. According to him the years between 1959 and 1962 were the most productive years of his life. He was involved in classified research. This was when he laid the fundamental steps of radio astronomy. It was the dawn of the era of new research, which led to plans and a program of experiments. These experiments began from the development of the X ray telescope to rockets to UHURU to Einstein to Chandra and finally to ALMA.

CfA (Centre for Astrophysics)

In 1976 Giacconi along with Harry Tananbaum of the Harvard- Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics submitted a proposal letter to NASA to initiate the study and the design of a large telescope. The work began in 1977. It was initially known as Advanced X ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF). In 1988 it was renamed as the Chandra X ray Observatory. In 1978 he also lead the development of the Einstein X ray Observatory, which was the first fully imaging telescope to be put into space. It also had the distinction of being the first NASA mission to have a Guest Observer program. Giacconi then became the first director of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI).

The Hubble Telescope

Giacconi was the director of the Space Telescope Science Institute – (STScI) from 1981-1993. As the first director of the STScI he was able to plan and execute all the operations of the Hubble. Using the talents of several scientists and engineers Giacconi went on to build one of the most well known telescopes which is not only a superior research tool for astronomers but is well recognized by the lay person. He examined every aspect of the mission himself. He was the driving force rallying everyone to get all the problems fixed when there were problems. With his drive and enthusiasm he attracted the best of talent to implement all the different aspects of the Hubble Space Telescope. This was one of his greatest contributions to the Hubble Space Telescope. With NASA’s consent the team took responsibility for Hubble beyond the construction of glass and metal and turned it into an outstanding scientific tool. They also developed an outstanding outreach program to reach the general public, colleagues, students and researchers.

European Southern Observatory (ESO)

In January 1993 Giacconi joined ESO as the Director General. His son Mark had died in an automobile accident, which devastated him and his wife so the offer from the ESO was a welcome change. Here he worked on the execution of the VLT (Very Large Telescope) Project. VLT became a machine, which was not only used as a telescope but it also provided efficiency of operation and ability to use data. The success of VLT has given European optical ground based astronomy an edge to compete with the best of its kind worldwide. Towards the end of his tenure at the ESO he initiated a new cooperative with the United States and Canada to build a large submillimetre and millimetre wave array of antennas to be placed in the Atacama Desert in Northern Chile. When his tenure expired in 1999 he returned to the United States of America.

Current Position

He is currently the President of the Associated Universities Inc. in Washington. He is working with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory for the execution of the North American portion of the project ALMA (Atacama Large Millimetre Array). They are utilizing the same principles and methods they used for implementing Einstein, Hubble, VLT and Chandra. He is also Research Professor of Physics and Astronomy at John Hopkins University, Baltimore.

Honours

Giaconni has been the recipient of many international awards. In 1966 he won the Helen B. Warner Prize for Astronomy. In 1981 he won the Bruce Medal. In the same year he was also conferred the prestigious Henry Norris Russell Lectureship and the Heinemann Prize. In 1982 he received the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society. In 2002 he received the crowning glory of his achievements when he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Raymond Davis Jr. and Masatoshi Koshiba. In 2003 he received the National Medal of Science. Asteroid 3371 has been named after him.

Tackling the World’s Woes

Riccardo Giacconi was one of the top thirty thinkers who attended the May 18-19 conference in Petra Jordan in 2005. Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Nobel Peace Prize Winner Elie Wiesel hosted this conference. The Dalai Llama, former US president Bill Clinton, Richard Gere and many notable Nobel Laureates met at the ancient city of Petra, Jordan to look at ways and means to fix the world’s woes.

Giacconi has addressed many seminars and conferences and shared his immense knowledge with fellow colleagues and juniors. Among his many scientific accomplishments some of the more important ones are the detection of X rays outside our solar system and the detection of X ray sources that are considered to contain black holes. He also discovered background radiation of X ray light in the universe. He discovered the first X ray stars in the late sixties. He has indeed rightly been called the father of X ray astronomy.