https://doi.org/10.1140/epjh/s13129-025-00099-6
Oral History Interview
Interview With Nicola Cabibbo
1
Physics Department, Sapienza University, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00189, Rome, Italy
2
Lise Meitner Research Group, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Boltzmann Str. 22, 14195, Berlin, Germany
a
lbonolis@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de
Received:
3
February
2025
Accepted:
18
April
2025
Published online:
29
May
2025
After 25 years, this oral history interview with Nicola Cabibbo, recorded in July 2000, is being made available to an international audience. In the interview Cabibbo describes his early years as a student at the Sapienza University of Rome in the 1950s and his collaboration with Raoul Gatto in the pioneering work that launched 
physics in the early 1960s. The knowledge gained in those years through the systematic application of SU(3) symmetry to particle physics prepared the ground for his greatest achievement: the formulation of the mechanism responsible for quark mixing, which paved the way for the unification of the electromagnetic and weak interactions. Cabibbo’s significant influence on the revival of theoretical physics in Italy and his inspiring contribution to the development of a Roman school are also testified, together with his wide interests and lively curiosity which led him to promote the realization of a series of parallel supercomputers for numerical simulations of quantum field theory (the APE line). His extraordinary dedication, rigor and vision in promoting Italian scientific and technological development as President of the National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) and other scientific institutions form a relevant and meaningful part of the narrative, which also includes significant recollections of his role as President of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Prominently mentioned are: Guido Altarelli, Edoardo Amaldi, Gilberto Bernardini, Francesco Calogero, Marcello Conversi, Ugo Fano, Enrico Fermi, Bruno Ferretti, Raoul Gatto, Murray Gell-Mann, Makoto Kobayashi, Luciano Maiani, Guido Martinelli, Toshihide Maskawa, Giorgio Parisi, Roberto Petronzio, Giuliano Preparata, Giorgio Salvini, Massimo Testa, Bruno Touschek.
© The Author(s) 2025
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
