WORLD WORLDWIDE ITALY News Journal Update - (en) Italy, UCADI, #175 - What's new - In memory of Angelo Baracca (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 On July 25th comrade Angelo Baracca finished his journey. ---- Always

engaged in political battles against nuclear power and for a University
at the service of workers, I like to remember his role in the 70s at the
Physics Institute of Florence, when he taught Statistical Mechanics and
I was a student. ---- In those years, the universities were shaken by an
incessant political activity; the Institute of Physics initially a
little less, either due to its location on the hill of Arcetri - distant
from the other Departments, or due to the widespread feeling among
students that scientific research into the forces of nature was and
should be disconnected from the organization of human society.
However, student assemblies began to be called if only in an attempt to
mitigate the climate of "ethnic selection" that permeated the Institute,
aimed at identifying the small fraction of future physicists worthy of
the name.
Angelo entered the student movement as an "external" collaborator, but
in reality acting as a mentor, providing useful elements to stimulate an
awareness of the wider role of science.
Thus was born the Political Committee of Physics (CPF), a structure
unlike the many collectives that arose spontaneously in the various
Italian universities; dissimilar primarily for the "multi-ethnic"
composition characterized by the coexistence of many souls: from members
of the FIGC, Lotta Continua, Proletarian Democracy, MLS (workers
movement for socialism - not the US soccer league), to anarchist and
even autonomous communists.
This collaboration between different visions of the world was made
possible by the way of working of the CPF, which set itself clear and
concrete objectives, rather than becoming fossilized in a priori
ideological debates.
The most striking result was undoubtedly the establishment of a course
on environmental harmfulness (understood mainly as harmfulness in the
workplace), a theme particularly dear to Angelo who contributed in an
essential way, helping to establish contacts with factory councils in
the area Florentine (the Nuovo Pignone among others) and national
movements such as Medicina Democratica.
The laboratory was officially recognized by the degree course. It was
based on the measurement of physical quantities such as the noise level,
in various work environments (typically factories in the Florence area);
an activity entirely consistent with the teachings of the degree course
in physics.
Aside from the laboratory, the establishment of study groups was another
initiative in which Angelo Baracca acted as a "levatore". The energy
issue was one of the cornerstones: the oil crisis of the 1970s had
stimulated a worldwide debate on energy consumption and methods of
production, with nuclear energy often sold as THE solution. Around
Angelo Baracca gathered a group of students (mainly of physics) who
analyzed in detail all the aspects of the question, from safety, to
effective costs and the realism of the various perspectives, to conclude
the unsustainability of nuclear energy (from fission ).
The work concluded with the drafting of a book, "I nucleodollars"
published by Crescita politica, with a preface by Angelo Baracca, which
then represented the reference text of many anti-nuclearist movements
throughout Italy.
Finally, I like to mention a more personal consequence of the activity
of those years in which I was still a student uncertain about what to
study: the many discussions with Angelo Baracca and with my fellow
students led us to the conviction that the relevant challenges in the
physics were moving from the subatomic world (a subject that we believed
was coming to an end) towards an area that is now defined as complex
systems.
In practice, it was then that my interest in a topic that was then
considered marginal, although I was not yet fully aware of it, was born.
After that experience Angelo continued to be present in the struggles of
the exploited with perseverance, dedication, availability and
solidarity, putting his intelligence and direct action at the service of
social struggles without sparing himself for life.

Antonio Politi and the entire editorial staff

http://www.ucadi.org/2023/08/18/cosa-ce-di-nuovo-in-ricordo-di-angelo-baracca/
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