Riccardo Giacconi

Giacconi in 2003

Born| (1931-10-06)6 October 1931

Genoa, Kingdom of Italy

Died| 9 December 2018(2018-12-09) (aged 87)

San Diego, California, U.S.

Nationality| Italian
American
Alma mater| University of Milan
Known for| Astrophysics
Awards| Elliott Cresson Medal (1980)
Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics (1981)
Wolf Prize in Physics (1987)
Nobel Prize in Physics (2002)
Scientific career
Fields| Physics
Institutions| Johns Hopkins University
Chandra X-ray Observatory

Riccardo Giacconi (/dʒəˈkoʊni/ jə-KOH-nee, it; October 6, 1931 – December 9, 2018) was an Italian-American Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist who laid down the foundations of X-ray astronomy. He was a professor at the Johns Hopkins University.

## Contents

* 1 Biography
* 2 Honors and awards
* 3 References
* 4 Further reading
* 5 External links

## Biography

Born in Genoa, Italy, Giacconi received his Laurea from the Physics Department of University of Milan before moving to the US to pursue a career in astrophysics research. In 1956, his Fulbright Fellowship led him to go to the United States to collaborate with physics professor R. W. Thompson at Indiana University.

Since cosmic X-ray radiation is absorbed by the Earth's atmosphere, space-based telescopes are needed for X-ray astronomy. Applying himself to this problem, Giacconi worked on the instrumentation for X-ray astronomy; from rocket-borne detectors in the late 1950s and early 1960s, to Uhuru, the first orbiting X-ray astronomy satellite, in the 1970s. Giacconi's pioneering research continued in 1978 with the Einstein Observatory, the first fully imaging X-ray telescope put into space, and later with the Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was launched in 1999 and is still in operation.

Harvey Tananbaum, Riccardo Giacconi, Martin C. Weisskopf (Chandra Project Scientist) and Claude R. Canizares (PI for one of Chandra's instruments)

Giacconi applied his expertise to other fields of astronomy, becoming the first permanent director (1981-1993) of the Space Telescope Science Institute (the science operations center for the Hubble Space Telescope). This was followed by Director General of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) from 1993 to 1999, overseeing the construction of the Very Large Telescope, then President of Associated Universities, Inc. (1999-2004) managing the early years of the ALMA array.

Giacconi was awarded a share of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2002 "for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, which have led to the discovery of cosmic X-ray sources".[1] The other shares of the Prize in that year were awarded to Masatoshi Koshiba and Raymond Davis, Jr. for neutrino astronomy.

Giacconi held the positions of professor of physics and astronomy (1982–1997) and research professor (from 1998 to his death in 2018) at Johns Hopkins University, and was a university professor. During the 2000s he was principal investigator for the major Chandra Deep Field-South project with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. Giacconi died on December 9, 2018.[2][3][4]

## Honors and awards

* Helen B. Warner Prize for Astronomy (1966)
* Member of the National Academy of Sciences (1971)[5]
* Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1971)[6]
* Bruce Medal (1981)[7]
* Henry Norris Russell Lectureship (1981)
* Heineman Prize (1981)
* Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1982)
* Wolf Prize in Physics (1987)
* Member of the American Philosophical Society (2001)[8]
* Nobel Prize in Physics (2002)
* National Medal of Science (2003)
* Asteroid 3371 Giacconi

## References

1. ↑ Nobel prize citation
2. ↑ Overbye, Dennis (2018-12-13). "Riccardo Giacconi, 87, Explorer of the Universe Through X-Rays, Dies". The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/13/science/riccardo-giacconi-dead.html.
3. ↑ [1] Script error: The function "in_lang" does not exist.
4. ↑ "Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist Riccardo Giacconi dies at 87". 2018-12-12. https://hub.jhu.edu/2018/12/12/riccardo-giacconi-obituary/.
5. ↑ "Riccardo Giacconi". http://www.nasonline.org/member-directory/deceased-members/55383.html.
6. ↑ "Riccardo Giacconi" (in en). https://www.amacad.org/person/riccardo-giacconi.
7. ↑ "Bruce Medal page". http://www.phys-astro.sonoma.edu/brucemedalists/Giacconi/index.html.
8. ↑ "APS Member History". https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Riccardo+Giacconi&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced.

## Further reading

* Rosati, Piero (25 January 2019). "Retrospective: Riccardo Giacconi (1931-2018)" (in en). Science 363 (6425): 349. doi:10.1126/science.aaw5309. PMID 30679362.
* Fabbiano, Giuseppina (22 January 2019). "Obituary: Riccardo Giacconi (1931-2018)" (in EN). Nature 565 (7740): 430. doi:10.1038/d41586-019-00216-8.

## External links

* Miss nobel-id as parameter  including the Nobel Lecture December 8, 2002 The Dawn of X-Ray Astronomy

* v
* t
* e

Laureates of the Wolf Prize in Physics

1970s|

* Chien-Shiung Wu (1978)
* George Uhlenbeck / Giuseppe Occhialini (1979)

1980s|

* Michael Fisher / Leo Kadanoff / Kenneth G. Wilson (1980)
* Freeman Dyson / Gerardus 't Hooft / Victor Weisskopf (1981)
* Leon M. Lederman / Martin Lewis Perl (1982)
* Erwin Hahn / Peter Hirsch / Theodore Maiman (1983–84)
* Conyers Herring / Philippe Nozières (1984–85)
* Mitchell Feigenbaum / Albert J. Libchaber (1986)
* Herbert Friedman / Bruno Rossi / Riccardo Giacconi (1987)
* Roger Penrose / Stephen Hawking (1988)

1990s|

* Pierre-Gilles de Gennes / David J. Thouless (1990)
* Maurice Goldhaber / Valentine Telegdi (1991)
* Joseph H. Taylor Jr. (1992)
* Benoît Mandelbrot (1993)
* Vitaly Ginzburg / Yoichiro Nambu (1994–95)
* John Wheeler (1996–97)
* Yakir Aharonov / Michael Berry (1998)
* Dan Shechtman (1999)

2000s|

* Raymond Davis Jr. / Masatoshi Koshiba (2000)
* Bertrand Halperin / Anthony Leggett (2002–03)
* Robert Brout / François Englert / Peter Higgs (2004)
* Daniel Kleppner (2005)
* Albert Fert / Peter Grünberg (2006–07)

2010s|

* John F. Clauser / Alain Aspect / Anton Zeilinger (2010)
* Maximilian Haider / Harald Rose / Knut Urban (2011)
* Jacob Bekenstein (2012)
* Peter Zoller / Juan Ignacio Cirac (2013)
* James D. Bjorken / Robert P. Kirshner (2015)
* Yoseph Imry (2016)
* Michel Mayor / Didier Queloz (2017)
* Charles H. Bennett / Gilles Brassard (2018)

2020s|

* Rafi Bistritzer / Pablo Jarillo-Herrero / Allan H. MacDonald (2020)

* Agriculture
* Arts
* Chemistry
* Mathematics
* Medicine
* Physics

* v
* t
* e

Laureates of the Nobel Prize in Physics

1901–1925|

* 1901: Röntgen
* 1902: Lorentz / Zeeman
* 1903: Becquerel / P. Curie / M. Curie
* 1904: Rayleigh
* 1905: Lenard
* 1906: J. J. Thomson
* 1907: Michelson
* 1908: Lippmann
* 1909: Marconi / Braun
* 1910: Van der Waals
* 1911: Wien
* 1912: Dalén
* 1913: Kamerlingh Onnes
* 1914: Laue
* 1915: W. L. Bragg / W. H. Bragg
* 1916
* 1917: Barkla
* 1918: Planck
* 1919: Stark
* 1920: Guillaume
* 1921: Einstein
* 1922: N. Bohr
* 1923: Millikan
* 1924: M. Siegbahn
* 1925: Franck / Hertz

1926–1950|

* 1926: Perrin
* 1927: Compton / C. Wilson
* 1928: O. Richardson
* 1929: De Broglie
* 1930: Raman
* 1931
* 1932: Heisenberg
* 1933: Schrödinger / Dirac
* 1934
* 1935: Chadwick
* 1936: Hess / C. D. Anderson
* 1937: Davisson / G. P. Thomson
* 1938: Fermi
* 1939: Lawrence
* 1940
* 1941
* 1942
* 1943: Stern
* 1944: Rabi
* 1945: Pauli
* 1946: Bridgman
* 1947: Appleton
* 1948: Blackett
* 1949: Yukawa
* 1950: Powell

1951–1975|

* 1951: Cockcroft / Walton
* 1952: Bloch / Purcell
* 1953: Zernike
* 1954: Born / Bothe
* 1955: Lamb / Kusch
* 1956: Shockley / Bardeen / Brattain
* 1957: C. N. Yang / T. D. Lee
* 1958: Cherenkov / Frank / Tamm
* 1959: Segrè / Chamberlain
* 1960: Glaser
* 1961: Hofstadter / Mössbauer
* 1962: Landau
* 1963: Wigner / Goeppert Mayer / Jensen
* 1964: Townes / Basov / Prokhorov
* 1965: Tomonaga / Schwinger / Feynman
* 1966: Kastler
* 1967: Bethe
* 1968: Alvarez
* 1969: Gell-Mann
* 1970: Alfvén / Néel
* 1971: Gabor
* 1972: Bardeen / Cooper / Schrieffer
* 1973: Esaki / Giaever / Josephson
* 1974: Ryle / Hewish
* 1975: A. Bohr / Mottelson / Rainwater

1976–2000|

* 1976: Richter / Ting
* 1977: P. W. Anderson / Mott / Van Vleck
* 1978: Kapitsa / Penzias / R. Wilson
* 1979: Glashow / Salam / Weinberg
* 1980: Cronin / Fitch
* 1981: Bloembergen / Schawlow / K. Siegbahn
* 1982: K. Wilson
* 1983: Chandrasekhar / Fowler
* 1984: Rubbia / Van der Meer
* 1985: von Klitzing
* 1986: Ruska / Binnig / Rohrer
* 1987: Bednorz / Müller
* 1988: Lederman / Schwartz / Steinberger
* 1989: Ramsey / Dehmelt / Paul
* 1990: Friedman / Kendall / R. Taylor
* 1991: de Gennes
* 1992: Charpak
* 1993: Hulse / J. Taylor
* 1994: Brockhouse / Shull
* 1995: Perl / Reines
* 1996: D. Lee / Osheroff / R. Richardson
* 1997: Chu / Cohen-Tannoudji / Phillips
* 1998: Laughlin / Störmer / Tsui
* 1999: 't Hooft / Veltman
* 2000: Alferov / Kroemer / Kilby

2001–
present|

* 2001: Cornell / Ketterle / Wieman
* 2002: Davis / Koshiba / Giacconi
* 2003: Abrikosov / Ginzburg / Leggett
* 2004: Gross / Politzer / Wilczek
* 2005: Glauber / Hall / Hänsch
* 2006: Mather / Smoot
* 2007: Fert / Grünberg
* 2008: Nambu / Kobayashi / Maskawa
* 2009: Kao / Boyle / Smith
* 2010: Geim / Novoselov
* 2011: Perlmutter / Riess / Schmidt
* 2012: Wineland / Haroche
* 2013: Englert / Higgs
* 2014: Akasaki / Amano / Nakamura
* 2015: Kajita / McDonald
* 2016: Thouless / Haldane / Kosterlitz
* 2017: Weiss / Barish / Thorne
* 2018: Ashkin / Mourou / Strickland
* 2019: Peebles / Mayor / Queloz

* v
* t
* e

2002 Nobel Prize laureates

Chemistry|

* John Bennett Fenn (United States)
* Koichi Tanaka (Japan)
* Kurt Wüthrich (Switzerland)

Literature|

* Imre Kertész (Hungary)

Peace|

* Jimmy Carter (United States)

Physics|

* Raymond Davis Jr. (United States)
* Masatoshi Koshiba (Japan)
* Riccardo Giacconi (Italy, United States)

Physiology or Medicine|

* Sydney Brenner (United Kingdom)
* H. Robert Horvitz (United States)
* John E. Sulston (United Kingdom)

Economic Sciences|

* Daniel Kahneman (Israel)
* Vernon L. Smith (United States)

Nobel Prize recipients
1990

2000

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