From Galileo to Nanotechnologies

The symposium title “From Galileo to Galileo” brings to mind problems that Galileo had with the Catholic Church in advancing science in a society not yet acquainted with the scientific method. The title also brings to mind the location in Pisa, Italy, where Galileo worked and looked at the stars and where the leaning Tower of Pisa is located. It also happens to be the same place where a famous historical school in physics is located. I remember this location as a place where I went more than 50 years ago to find the famous high school entrance exams taken by Enrico Fermi when he was a teenager. In this entrance exam which is on exhibit at this same location we see Fermi solution to the exam problem. In solving this exam problem, he wrote a solution suitable for publication in a journal, which was an education of the teachers by the student. I met the same Enrico Fermi, who was educated in the same physical location where Galileo had worked, when I was a graduate student at the University of Chicago. Enrico Fermi taught students the importance of a broad education and the integration of all fields of science, which is something he learned in Pisa following the tradition of Galileo. This training helped me make an easy transition from condensed matter and low-temperature physics which I studied and taught in my early career to nanoscience and nanotechnology where I have worked since the early 1970s. Starting with the theme of size scales which takes us from the size of a galaxy to a carbon nanotube, we will explore some of the questions we are now trying to answer with the study of materials at the nanoscale.