The disappearance of a nuclear
physicist:
Ettore Majorana
born 1906 in Catania
disappeared March 26, 1938
Amand Faessler, Tuebingen
Ettore Majorana
La Scomparsa di Majorana
Amand Faessler: Ettore Majorana
Father, two sisters
and Ettore Majorana
Amand Faessler: Ettore Majorana
Ettore Majorana 5. 8. 1906 – 26. 3. 1938
Mathematical „Wunderkind“ from Catania
During visits of friends in the
family Ettore three to four years
old war sitting under the table
and multiplyed two three digit
number or calculated the
square root from such
numbers.
Amand Faessler: Ettore Majorana
Ettore Majorana 5. 8. 1906 – 26. 3. 1938
1923 – 1928
studies ingeneering in
Rome.
1929 - 1930
does his Ph. D. with Enrico
Fermi in Rome about
Theoretical Physics:
„Quantum theory of the
radioactive Nucleus“.
Amand Faessler: Ettore Majorana
Ettore Majorana
Enrico Fermi
With Fermi Majorana
often did calculations
in competition:
Majorana in his head,
the back to Fermi and
Fermi with slide rule
and paper. Normally
Majorana did win.
Amand Faessler: Ettore Majorana
Ettore Majorana
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At the beginning of 1932 the neutron was detected:
Majorana realizes that now one is able to build up
the nuclei from protons and neutrons
consitently.
Fermi urges him to publish the idea or at least to go
in summer to the Paris conference and report about
it. Majorana refuses.
Heisenberg publishes first that protons and neutrons
can built the nuclei and introduces isospin.
Amand Faessler: Ettore Majorana
Ettore Majorana
1928 – 1938
Scientific Work:
Contributions to Quantum Mechanics and
Nuclear Physics
1933 Fellowship from the consiglio Nazionale delle
Richerche to go to Heisenberg in Leipzig from
January 20. till August.
Publishes in Zeitschrift für Physik an article in
german with the title: „Über die Kerntheorie“
Amand Faessler: Ettore Majorana
Ettore Majorana 20.January till
August 1933 in Leipzig
Werner Heisenberg
in Leipzig
32 years old
Plays with him chess and
discusses about the nucleus and
the nucleon-nucleon interaction.
They like each other.
Amand Faessler: Ettore Majorana
Ettore Majorana
Amand Faessler: Ettore Majorana
Ettore Majorana
1. page of an article in
‚Zeitschrift für Physik 82‘
Amand Faessler: Ettore Majorana
1933 -1937: Ettore Majorana
lives secluded in Rome
1933 – 1937
lived practically alone in an appartment of the
Majorana family in Rome, curtains closed and
only his physics friends send him somtimes a
hair cutter. He publishes no paper.
1937
competition for three theoretical chairs
(Chairman of committee: Enriquo Fermi )
short list:
1. Gian Carlo Wick (Palermo => Turino, +1992)
2. Giulio Racah (Pisa => Israel)
3. Giovanni Gentile (junior; Cagliari/Sardinia) son of
Giovanni Gentile senior, former minister of education
and royal senator from Castelamare/Sicily
Ettore Majorana
Surprising application for a chairs by Ettore Majorana:
„Chiara fama“
(due to the undoubtable good reputation)
→ Naples
For the competition has has to write an scientific article:
„La Teorica simmetrica dell‘ electrone e del positrone“
Positron = antiparticle of the electron and neutrino can
be antineutrino: Majorana Neutrino
Amand Faessler: Ettore Majorana
Ettore Majorana
in Naples Oct. 37
Script of the Lecture 25.1.XVI
Copy from Aldo Covello
25. Januar 1938 in Napels
26. März 1938 disappeared
without a trace
Ship:
Napels→ Palermo → Napels ??
Amand Faessler: Ettore Majorana
The traceless Disappearance of
Ettore Majorana
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On March 25. Majorana draws from the bank all the
money he has earned in Naples from October 1937
to February 1938 and which he did not touch before.
The money was never found.
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(The nephew of Ettore: „A Majorana must not work
for his living.“)
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On March 25. 1938 at 22.30 h he boards the mail
ship to Palermo and sleeps in a three person cabin.
Amand Faessler: Ettore Majorana
Letter on March 25, 1938
Dear Carelli, I have made a decision which was
unavoidable. In it is not the smallest grain of egoism,
but I am aware of the problems which my surprising
disappearance is for you and the students. I also ask
you to forgive me that I disappoint your trust, your
sensire friendship and the sympathy which you
extended to me in the last months.
I am asking you to bring me also to those in their
memory, whom I got to know and to estimate in your
Institute, especially Sciutti. Also I will keep them
in my memory, at least till 11 o‘clock this evening and
perhaps also later.
Farwell Letter to his Family
from 25. April 1938
I have only one wish, that you do not dress in
black. But if you want to follow customs,
you can wear a sign of sorrow but not longer
than three days.
Later on remember me in your heart, if you can
and forgive me.
Amand Faessler: Ettore Majorana
Letter from Palermo on the stationary letter
paper of the Hotel „Sole“ to the director
Carelli of the Theoretical Institute in Naples.
Amand Faessler: Ettore Majorana
Letter from March 26, 1938-XVI on the
stationary of the hotel „Sole“ in Palermo
Dear Carelli, hopefully you have received the
telegram and my letter at the same time. The
sea has refused me and I will return
tomorrow into the hotel „Bologna“. Perhaps
I travel together with this letter. But I have
the intension to give up teaching. Please, do
not assume that I am a girl from a play of
Ibsen, the case is different. For all details,
I will be available to you.
Amand Faessler: Ettore Majorana
Return from Palermo to Naples ?
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The return ticket again for a three person cabin was
given on the departure of the ship on the evening of
March 26th. in Palermo to the company.
(by Majorana ???)
A cabin fellow, Prof. Strazzieri reports, that two
additional persons were on return in the cabin:
Majorana ? and an english man Carlo Price, who
seemed to be uneducated and spoke sicilian dialect.
He has seen the person (supposedly Majorana) still
at 5 h in the morning on March 27th. in his bed.
Amand Faessler: Ettore Majorana
Return to Palermo on March 27th. ?
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Letter of Prof. Strazzieri to the brother of
Majorana: „If the third man was your brother,
he could not have killed himself before the
arrival in Palermo.“
A nurse, who did know him, reports, that she
has seen him before lunch on March 27th. in
a narrow street in Naples in his blue coat.
Amand Faessler: Ettore Majorana
Investigations of the Police
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On April 16. 1938 letter of Giovanni Gentile,
professor of philosophy, former minister of education and culture,
royal senatore (Senato del Regno) to the President of the Italian Police
Bocchini to receive the brother of Ettore. (April 18. 1938)
Erasmo Recami found three consecutive remarks written across the
Majorana potfolio of the police department in Rome:
Violett (Police President): Report urgently
Green: Informe the police, that His Excellency (Police
President) wants, that the invetigations are intensified.
Blue (office of police president): Atti (Back to the
documents) April 23. 1938.
Amand Faessler: Ettore Majorana
Musolini and „Il Caso Majorana“.
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Mussolini on petition of the mother and of
Fermi looks in to the Majorana portfolio of the
police:
Additional note of Musolini on the first page:
„I want, that he is found“.
Below a note of the police president: „The
deads are found, the living can disappear.“
Amand Faessler: Ettore Majorana
Rumors go around:
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A beggar at a street corner in Marsalla is
helping scholars with their mathematics.
A prior of a monastery in Naples reports, that
a man looking like Ettore asked before March
26. 1938, if he could join the monastery.
(Majorana sees, that his work leads to the
atomic bomb.)
Someone sees an entry into a hotel book in
Buenos Aires with the name of Majorana.
Amand Faessler: Ettore Majorana
In the Monastery San Giovanni degli
Erimiti in Palermo ?
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Leonardo Sciascia in „The Disappearance of Ettore
Majorana (La Scomparsa di Majorana)“ (Italian
Bestseller with more than 600 000 sold copies.):
At the end of the novel a friend of Sciascia goes with a
monk to the cemetary of the monastery San Giovanni
degli Erimiti in Palermo with 30 little hills of soil and
crosses without names. The monk: „A famous scientist
lived in the monastery and is here buried.“
The monk: „Ho dato risposta a tutti i vostri quesiti ?“.
Sciascia‘s friend says: „Si“.
ENDE
Amand Faessler: Ettore Majorana