(Died: 1957)
Interests: Gravity, Relativity
Quirino Majorana (1871-1957) was an outstanding Italian experimental physicist who investigated a wide range of phenomena during his long career as professor of physics at the Universities of Rome, Turin (1916-1921), and Bologna (1921-1934), Italy.
He performed a long series of very sensitive gravity shielding experiments from 1918 to 1922, which have never been reproduced. Marjorana's experiments determined that mercury or lead beneath a suspended lead sphere acted as a screen and slightly decreased the earth's gravitational pull. No attempts have been made to reproduce his results using the same experimental techniques. Other researchers have concluded from other data that if gravitational absorption does exist it must be at least five orders of magnitude smaller than Majorana's experiments suggest.
Critical of Albert Einstein's relativity theory, he tried to disprove Einstein's postulate on the constancy of the speed of light, but he failed and therefore his experiments confirmed Einstein's postulate. Majorana also confirmed Isaac Newton's law of universal gravitation to high precision.
His later work at Bologna was influenced by correspondence with his nephew Ettore Majorana (1906-1938), a great physicist in his own right. - Wikipedia
Articles:
- "On the Second Postulate of the Theory of Relativity: an Experimental Demonstration," Physical Review, S2, V11, pp. 411-420 (1918).
- "Experimental Demonstration of the Constancy of the Velocity of Light Emitted by a Moving Source," Philosophical Magazine, S6, V37, pp. 145-150 (1919).
- "On Gravitation: Theoretical and Experimental Researches," Philosophical Magazine, S6, V39, pp. 488-504 (1920).
- ?Sur l'absorption de la gravitation', Comptes Rendus de l'acad?mie des Sciences, v. 173, 1921, pp. 478-479.
- "Su di un fenomeno fotoelettrico constabile con gli audion," Rendiconti Accademia dei Lincei, V7, pp. 801-806 (1928).
- ?Quelques recherches sur l'absorption de la gravitation par la mati?re', Journal de Physique et le Radium, I, 1930, pp. 314-324.
- "Azione della luce su sottili lamine metalliche," La Ricerca Scientifica National Research Council, V1 (1935).
- "Agli albori dell'eletricit?. Galvani e la scienza moderna," Sapere, pp. 261-265 (Oct 1937).
- "Ulteriori ricerche sull'azione della luce su sottili lamine metallische," Il Nuovo Cimento, V15, pp. 573-593 (1938).
Articles about Majorana:
- Co?sson, R.; Mambriani, G.; Podini, P., "A new interpretation of Quirino Majorana's experiments on gravitation and a proposal for testing his results", Il Nuovo Cimento B, V117, N4, p. 469
- Dragoni, Giorgio; Maltese, Giulio; Atti, Luisa, "Quirino Majorana's Experiments on the Speed of Light and Gravitational Absorption", Physics in Perspective, Volume 9, Issue 3, pp. 281-304.
- Dragoni, Giorgio, "Quirino Majorana's Research on Gravitational Absorption: A Case Study in the Misinterpreted Experiment Tradition", Centaurus, Volume 39 Issue 2, pp. 141-187.
