It happened on JULY 20

1822

J. Gregor Mendel was born in Hyncice (present-day Czech Republic). He was an Austrian-Czech botanist, meteorologist, and geneticist. An Augustinian monk, he was an avid enthusiast in the field of natural science as applied to agriculture. Through scientific experiments and observations of the hybridization of pea plants, he developed a theory that contained the foundation of classic genetics (Experiments in Plant Hybridization, 1865) but which did not elicit the interest of the scientific community of his time.
 

1937
Guglielmo Marconi died in Rome. He was a self-taught scientist who, using some research and instruments developed by Augusto Righi and Temistocle Calzecchi Onesti, created the first wireless radiotelegraph system. In December 1901, he transmitted the first transatlantic electromagnetic signal. In 1909, he won the Nobel Prize in Physics. He was also the first president of Italy’s National Research Council. Of a militant and entrepreneurial temperament, Marconi contributed to an awareness that scientific research should move toward global development instead of simply taking place in localized laboratory experiments.
1969
Neil Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the moon. Just afterward, the lunar module Eagle from the Apollo 11 space shuttle softly touched down on the moon’s surface. Edwin Aldrin climbed down from it, while the third astronaut, Michael Collins, rotated around the moon in the command module. The words transmitted by Armstrong to the whole world were, “That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

INTERS.org

On the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology


Readings on Quantum Mechanics: An Introduction, by Gabiele Coci

Matter and Light. The New Physics (1937), by Louis de Broglie

The Meaning of Beauty in Exact Natural Science (1970), by Werner Heisenberg

Quantum Mechanics (2002), by John Polkinghorne, from INTERS 

Faith and Quantum Theory (2007), by Stephen Barr

Quantum Mechanics. Philosophical and Theological Implications (2019), by Javier Sánchez Cañizares, from INTERS


Articles of Historical Interest

Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete? (1935), by A. Einstein, B. Podolski, N. Rosen

On the Einstein Podolsky Rosen Paradox (1964), by J.S. Bell

Experimental Realization of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-Bohm Gedankenexperiment: A New Violation of Bell's Inequalities (1982), by A. Aspect, P. Grangier and G. Roger

Moreover…

Pursuing Scientific Humanism. Letters Between Werner Heisenberg and Enrico Cantore, 1967-1976, a forthcoming book edited by Claudio Tagliapietra, INTERS staff

    

Interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Religion and Science

The Encyclopedia, published by the Centro di Documentazione Interdisciplinare di Scienza e Fede operating at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, provides new, scholarly articles in the rapidly growing international field of Religion and Science (ISSN: 2037-2329). INTERS is a free online encyclopedia.

Anthology and Documents

To emphasize and spread relevant documents within the scientific community, this section provides key materials concerning the dialogue among science, philosophy and theology.

   

Special Issues

We offer here a selection of comments and documents on special issues in Religion and Science, collected for anniversaries and/or for the relevance of the topics.