Rossetti, Francesco
ROSSETTI, FRANCESCO
(b. Trento, Italy, 14 September 1833; d. Padua, Italy, 20 April 1885)
physics.
Rossetti studied physics at the University of Vienna, where he obtained his doctorate. At the age of twenty-four he went to Venice, to teach physics and mathematics at the Liceo Santa Caterina. Some years later he went to Paris, where he worked in Regnault’s laboratory. When he returned to Italy, he was appointed to the chair of physics at the University of Padua, where he remained until his death.
Rossetti was interested in astrophysics, but his main work concerned electrical piles and electrical generators. His studies on the temperatures of an electric arc led him to shift his interest to the temperature of the sun. In this respect he was a pioneer in the use of a thermocouple to measure the solar constant. Rossetti concluded that the solar temperature had to be about 10,238° K.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Rossetti published 43 scientific papers in the Atti dell’Istituto veneto …, Atti dell’Accademia dei Lincei, Nuovo cimento, and Journal de physique. His work on the temperature of the sun, which was awarded a special prize by the Accademia dei Lincei, was also published in Philosophical Magazine, 5th ser., 8 (1879).
Guglielmo Righini