Margherita Hack Knight Grand Cross OMRI was an Italian astrophysicist and scientific disseminator know all about her in this article s like her Family, Birthday, Death, Books, Quotes and Biography
| Bio | |
| Name | Margherita Hack |
| Birthdate ( Age) | 12 June 1922 |
| Birthplace | Florence, Italy |
| Died | 29 June 2013 |
| Marital Status | Married |
| Husband/Partner | Aldo De Rosa (m. 1944–2013) |
| Children | NA |
| Profession | Italian astrophysicist |
| Parents | Roberto Hack, Maria Luisa Poggesi |
| Education | University of Florence (1945), University of Trieste |
| Books | Il mio infinito. Dio, la vita e l’universo nelle riflessioni di una scienziata atea Cataclysmic Variables and Related Objects Nebulae and Galaxies |
Margherita Hack Knight Grand Cross OMRI was an Italian astrophysicist and scientific disseminator. The asteroid 8558 Hack, discovered in 1995, was named in her honour.
Who was Margherita Hack ?
Born in Florence, Margherita Hack’s father Roberto Hack was a Florentine bookkeeper of Protestant Swiss origin. Her mother, Maria Luisa Poggesi, a Catholic from Tuscany, was a graduate of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze and a miniaturist at the Uffizi Gallery. Both parents left their religion to hitch the Italian Theosophical Society, that Roberto Hack was secretary for a time under the chairmanship of the countess Gamberini-Cavallini.
An athlete in her youth, Hack played basketball and competed in track and field during the National University Contests, called the Littoriali under Mussolini’s fascist regime, where she won the long jump and therefore the high jump events.She married Aldo De Rosa on 19 February 1944 within the church of San Leonardo in Arcetri; De Rosa had been one among her childhood playmates.
Caareer and Achivements
An athlete in her youth, Hack played basketball and competed in track and field during the National University Contests, called the Littoriali under Mussolini’s fascist regime, where she won the long jump and therefore the high jump events.She married Aldo De Rosa on 19 February 1944 within the church of San Leonardo in Arcetri; De Rosa had been one among her childhood playmates.
Hack attended the Liceo Classico “Galileo Galilei” in Florence, but the outbreak of war II prevented her from taking her exams. In 1945, she graduated in physics from the University of Florence with a test score of 101/110;[6] her thesis in astrophysics was on Cepheid variables, supported her studies within the Arcetri Observatory, then under the direction of Giorgio Abetti. Hack considered Abetti her model for a scientist, teacher, and research project centre administrator.
In Italy, Hack was known for her anti-religious views and her continual criticism of the Catholic Church and of its hierarchy and institutions.She was a vegetarian and wrote a book explaining this choice entitled Perché sono vegetariana (Why i’m A Vegetarian); she also wrote a book entitled La mia vita in bicicletta (My life on a bicycle).
Hack died on 29 June 2013 at 4:30 am at Cattinara Hospital in Trieste. She had been hospitalized for every week for heart problems, from which she had suffered for about two years.She had refused to possess operation .Hack’s husband, Aldo De Rosa, died on 26 September 2014, thanks to complications of the Alzheimer disease. They both rest within the cemetery of Sant’Anna in Trieste. Hack left her personal library, containing 24,000 books on astronomy, to the town of Trieste.On 12 June 2021, Google celebrated her with Google Doodle on her 99th birthday.
She was professor of astronomy at the University of Trieste from 1964 to the first of November 1992, when Hack was placed “out of role” for seniority. She has been the primary Italian woman to administrate the Trieste Astronomical Observatory from 1964 to 1987, bringing it to international fame.
Member of the foremost prestigious physics and astronomy associations,Margherita Hack was also director of the Astronomy Department at the University of Trieste from 1985 to 1991 and from 1994 to 1997. She was a member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (national member within the class of mathematical physics and natural sciences; second category: astronomy, geodesic, geophysics and applications; section A: astronomy and applications).She worked at many American and European observatories and was for while member of working groups of ESA and NASA. In Italy, with an intensive promotion work, she obtained the expansion of activity of the astronomical community with access to many satellites, reaching a notoriety of international levelHack was also known for her activities outside of science, especially within the social and political fields.She was an atheist and she or he didn’t believe any religion or sort of supernaturalism.Hack also believed that ethics doesn’t derive from religion, but from “principles of conscience” that allow anyone to possess a secular view of life, respectful of other people’s individuality and freedom.
Nuclear Research
Regarding the energy issue, Margherita Hack spoke against the development of atomic power stations in Italy, but in favour of the nuclear research, explaining that Italy wasn’t at that point ready to maintain nuclear reactors which Italy may be a scarcely reliable country.
