Ottaviano-Fabrizio Mossotti Scientist

Ottaviano-Fabrizio Mossotti (1791-1863) was an Italian physicist exiled from Italy for his liberal ideas. He later taught astronomy and physics at the University of Buenos Aires. His name is associated with a type of multiple-element lens correcting spherical aberration and coma, but not chromatic aberration. The Clausius-Mossotti formula is partly named after him. Mossotti was Chair of Experimental Physics in Buenos Aires (1827-1835) and taught numerous Argentinian physicians his views on dielectrics, thereby becoming influential on the Argentine-German neurobiological tradition as regards electricity inside brain tissue, and later (after 1906) on this tradition's models of stationary waves in the interference of neural activity for short-term memory. He returned to Italy, participated in military actions after his age of sixty, and was appointed as Senator. There Mossotti also was influential on Hendrik Lorentz's views on fundamental forces, as well as more than five hundred mathematician students.

Personal facts

Ottaviano-Fabrizio Mossotti
Birth dateApril 17, 1791
Birth place
Italy , Novara
Nationality
Italy
Date of deathMarch 20, 1863
Place of death
Italy , Pisa

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Scientist

doctoral advisor
Vincenzo Brunacci
doctoral student
Field of study
Mathematics
Physics

Ottaviano-Fabrizio Mossotti on Wikipedia

External resources

  1. http://www.lix.polytechnique.fr/~liberti/maths-history/mossotti/mossotti.html