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CBPF Archive<\/span><\/a> Some of the most prominent founders of CBPF (from left<\/em>): Jayme Tiomno, Elisa Frota-Pess\u00f4a, Jos\u00e9 Leite Lopes, Leopoldo Nachbin, Francisco de Oliveira Castro, Herv\u00e1sio de Carvalho, and Cesar Lattes (seated<\/em>)CBPF Archive<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n In Rio, then the capital of Brazil, the situation was very different. The Physics Department at FNFi, linked to the University of Brazil (now the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro \u2013 UFRJ), had no more than 10 students. \u201cIt took tenacity to study physics in Rio,\u201d says historian Ana Maria Ribeiro de Andrade, a retired researcher at the Museum of Astronomy and Related Sciences (MAST). Career prospects as a professor were less than promising, and Brazilian industry had little demand for scientific research.<\/p>\n But physicist Jos\u00e9 Leite Lopes (1918\u20132006) of FNFi was encouraged by the quality of research that the Wataghin group had produced at USP. He had worked at USP in 1943, where he met Wataghin and became friends with two other young physicists: M\u00e1rio Schenberg (1914\u20131990) and Cesar Lattes (1924\u20132005). The following year, Leite Lopes went to Princeton for doctoral studies. Upon returning to Rio, he began campaigning among professors, politicians, military officials and business leaders to establish an institution fully dedicated to scientific research, providing an intellectual environment similar to one Wataghin had created in S\u00e3o Paulo.<\/p>\n \u201cLeite Lopes tried from many angles to break into the University of Brazil\u2019s bureaucratic structure and open the way for the creation of a physics research center in Rio,\u201d says historian of science Antonio Augusto Passos Videira, an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy at Rio de Janeiro State University (UERJ), and a member of CBPF. Most professors were opposed to the notion of a dedicated research institution. \u201cThe new system seemed less attractive because it meant professors would need to spend time both lecturing and in research, preventing them from pursuing other professional interests outside the university,\u201d explains Ribeiro de Andrade.<\/p>\n CBPF Archive<\/span><\/a> An outside view of the accelerator where Lattes and Eugene Gardner identified artificially created pi mesons in 1948. The feat received worldwide media acclaimCBPF Archive<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n In another attempt to introduce physics research at FNFi, Leite Lopes invited Lattes to transfer to the University of Brazil. In 1947, 23-year-old Lattes already enjoyed international recognition as a scientist<\/a>. He made headlines at the University of Bristol when in May that year he successfully identified pi mesons\u2014subatomic particles that had been predicted in 1935 by Japanese physicist Hideki Yukawa (1907\u20131981). The discovery was made after Lattes exposed photographic plates to cosmic rays atop Mount Chacaltaya, in Bolivia, to detect highly charged particles.<\/p>\n A year later Lattes transferred from Bristol to the University of California, Berkeley, to work on the 184-Inch Synchrocyclotron, the most powerful particle accelerator at the time. \u201cHis goal was to find pi mesons among the particles produced by accelerator collisions,\u201d says Videira. \u201cLattes and Eugene Gardner [1913\u20131950] found the pi meson two weeks after the Brazilian arrived.\u201d It was the first time that scientists had produced a particle in a laboratory setting that until then was only known to occur in cosmic radiation.<\/p>\n The experiments garnered extensive coverage in the Brazilian and international media. Leite Lopes saw this as an opportunity, and proceeded to pull a complex set of strings in a renewed attempt to create the physics center in Rio. He first approached Nelson Lins de Barros (1920\u20131966), who worked at the Brazilian consulate in Berkeley and was the brother of ambassador Jo\u00e3o Alberto Lins de Barros (1897\u20131955), an influential politician. Nelson had become friends with Lattes when in the United States and introduced him to his brother, who was enthusiastic about his work and the possibility of using nuclear energy in Brazil.<\/p>\n CBPF Archive<\/span><\/a> Lattes and Eugene GardnerCBPF Archive<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n The coming together of Leite Lopes, Lattes, and Jo\u00e3o Alberto finally culminated in the foundation of CBPF on January 15, 1949. Euvaldo Lodi, chairman of the National Confederation of Industry (CNI), and Jo\u00e3o Alberto provided funding for the project during its first months of operation. The center was initially located in rented office space on Avenida Presidente Vargas. Months later it was transferred to a building in Cinel\u00e2ndia, a district also in downtown Rio.<\/p>\n Lattes resigned from USP and became scientific director of the new institution. Over time, the facilities grew inadequate for the experimental research being conducted at the center.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was agreed that CBPF would be moved to a newly constructed building on the campus of the University of Brazil near Morro da Urca, on the south side of Rio,\u201d says Videira. The building was finished near the end of 1950. Soon after, Leite Lopes and physicist Jayme Tiomno (1920\u20132011) returned to CBPF from abroad to work on research in theoretical physics.<\/p>\n CBPF Archive<\/span><\/a> Lattes (right to left<\/em>) with physicist Andrea Wataghin (Gleb Wataghin\u2019s son) and Spanish meteorologist Ismael Escobar at Chacaltaya in the early 1950sCBPF Archive<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n The theoretical physics group was later joined by Austrian physicist Guido Beck (1903\u20131988). On another front, physicist Roberto Salmeron developed Geiger-M\u00fcller tubes to measure radiation by counting the pulses generated by the interaction of particles. Elisa Frota-Pess\u00f4a (1921\u20132018), who headed the Laboratory of Nuclear Emulsions until 1964<\/a>, authored CBPF\u2019s first scientific article, published in 1950.<\/p>\n But research at the center was not limited to physics alone. Leopoldo Nachbin (1922\u20131993) also studied mathematics there. The quality of research at CBPF soon began to attract notable visitors, such as American physicist Richard Feynman (1918\u20131988), out of Cornell University. French physicist C\u00e9cile DeWitt-Morette (1922\u20132017) of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton also lectured on elementary particles at the center.<\/p>\n CBPF has served as a launchpad for some of the most ambitious scientific projects undertaken in Brazil. One such project was the construction of a laboratory of cosmic physics atop Mount Chacaltaya, where Lattes had previously detected the pi meson.<\/p>\n