Farewell to the researcher Aldo Menzione

From Il Tirreno - Pisa, Dec. 24, 2012

Editor's note: The following is a translation by Fermilab scientist Luciano Ristori of an article that appeared in the Italian-language newspaper Il Tirreno - Pisa, published with permission. You can read more about former Fermilab user Menzione and his work in this Physics Today article by Giorgio Bellettini and Henry Frisch.

The scientific community is in grief. Aldo Menzione, internationally renowned and esteemed scientist, suddenly passed away on Dec. 23.

Menzione was born in Massa, Italy, in 1943 and received his degree in physics in Pisa.

He was always involved in advanced research in laboratories around the world. He was involved in the Framm experiment (1973-1980) at CERN to measure the lifetime of the charm quark and the Clue experiment to find a new technique to detect showers produced by cosmic rays in the atmosphere through Cherenkov light. Beginning in 1980 he was involved the CDF experiment in Fermilab (Chicago), which led, thanks to Aldo Menzione's fundamental contribution, to the design and construction of the first silicon tracker, which made possible the 1995 discovery of the top quark and opened new ways for the physics of very high-energy hadronic collisions.

A few years ago this work earned him the Panofsky prize, a prestigious international award, "for his leading role in the establishment and use of precision silicon tracking detectors at hadron colliders, enabling broad advances in knowledge of the top quark, b hadrons, and charm hadrons," as the prize citation notes.

Aldo Menzione always worked at the most advanced frontier of experimental high-energy physics and recently, in particular, in the search of the elusive Higgs boson, recently discovered thanks to the high energy of the CERN accelerator.

The commitment of his whole life was research, his family and friends say, and it took different shapes, rich with creativity and imagination, exploring the different aspects of science and its applications, including his latest initiative related to possible measures to prevent the erosion of seashores.

Menzione, family and friends also say, lived a life rich with accomplishments, love, family and friends. Everybody will miss him.

Menzione leaves behind his wife Donata, his daughter Maddalena and son Nicola, his grandchildren Anna, Livia, Clarissa and Zeno, and his brothers Ezio, a renowned lawyer, and Andrea, a historian.

Translation: Luciano Ristori, Fermilab

Read the original article (in Italian)