ATLAS e-News
23 February 2011
12 January 2009
Anna and Lucia di Ciaccio
Nationality: Italian
Lucia (left), and Anna (right)
Physics, as a discipline, isn’t short of references to symmetry and balance. The
tale of Anna and Lucia Di Ciaccio though is almost poetic in the way it weaves.
They are non-identical twins, and interviewing them is both slightly surreal and a
complete delight.
“We liked the same dresses, so it’s probably not surprising that we liked the same
subjects!” volunteers the more forthright Anna immediately, as a start to their story.
Indeed, they studied the same subjects all the way through school and university, and
even had to flip a coin when it came to writing their Masters theses: “The professor was
a really special teacher for us,” Anna explains. “He brought a lot of enthusiasm to his
work.” Lucia’s take on the situation is slightly different, to the surprise of her twin:
“Actually, it wasn’t the professor himself for me, it was the subject of the thesis.”
The coin that time went in Lucia’s favour, but in so doing, it paved the way for Anna’s
first contact with CERN – she came here to do a thesis on the UA1 experiment with
Carlo Rubbia.
Initially, the twins wanted to go into theoretical physics, but because of the lack of jobs,
they pursued experimental physics instead. Despite their identical career choices, the
ATLAS experiment is the first experiment that they have both worked on – Anna having
now been on board for 18 years, and Lucia for nine. “There are now so few high energy
experiments with colliders that we’ve somehow converged into the same one,” says
Anna, “although we’re on different projects.”
As they progressed through their educations, narrowing their focus first to science, and
eventually to experimental particle physics, Anna and Lucia didn’t really discuss their
decisions along the way. “OK, perhaps a little bit,” concedes Anna. “Sometimes we had
maybe an hour of discussion together.”
“It was natural to us to do things in an independent way,” adds Lucia. “You might
imagine that studying, we could have sat together and looked at the book together, but
we were always in two different rooms, with two different books, and working
independently. We didn’t consider working together as an option.”
This independence of character is perhaps the reason why neither would have a
problem working on competing experiments, although the situation hasn’t arisen for them
so far. “All the time from primary school to university, we were confronting each other,”
laughs Lucia, “so for us, competition was always part of the game.”
“Competition, you feel mainly from others – the ones who compare you,” adds Anna.
“But we were used to that.” Luckily, the achievements of each sister tended to average
out during their education, meaning that neither felt too much in the shadow of the other.
In fact, they found their competition to be healthy and encouraging, and from it grew a
different, fiercer, kind of independence: not caring about the judgement of other people.
Never really being alone in the world seems to have given the twins a confidence that
most other people lack.
The non-identical nature of their looks extends to their personalities. “We’re kind of
really…” begins Anna. “Complementary” Lucia finishes for her. “In a twin couple there is
always,” begins Anna again. “A leading person,” Lucia chimes in, “And my sister was
always leading, and I was always accepting. She decided on the unimportant things –
where we go on holidays, everyday life. When there were important things, it was
always me.”
Their different characters can also be inferred from the way that they paint, although
they have very little time for that hobby these days. “My sister, she’s more analytical –
she goes into tiny details when she paints,” explains Anna, “And instead I like to make
an overall summary.” These tendencies can also be seen in their individual physics
specialities: Lucia worked in the realm of e+e- physics, which produces clean events and
requires detailed, systematic treatment; Anna specialises in pp physics, for which, she
says, “you need more fantasy to be able to dig out the event.”
Over the last few years, Anna participated in the construction of the RPCs in the muon
system, and Lucia was involved in the building of the liquid argon electromagnetic
calorimeter. Now that their attentions have turned to the first physics that can be done
with the detector, “we’re somehow discussing the same things again,” says Anna. She
is leading the Roma2 group and is the deputy-chair of the ATLAS Speakers Committee
while Lucia is leading the LAPP group and the convenor of the Standard Model physics
group.
Outside of physics, Anna and Lucia speak a lot on the phone, from their respective
homes in Italy and France. “Too much,” laughs Anna.
“We speak more to each other than we do to our husbands,” smiles Lucia. “My husband
says if he wants to know what’s going on in my life, he has to listen in to a phonecall
with her!”
Both sisters are quick to play down the eerie symmetry evident in the fact that they have
both ended up married to German physicists. “It’s not surprising,” says Anna. “Only
another physicist can understand why you are so dedicated – why you work at
weekends and travel a lot.” But add in the detail that they each have one daughter (two
years different in age), and things get spookier.
“I feel that my daughter has the personality of my sister,” says Anna, “and her daughter
has the personality of me. Psychologically, I have a driving personality, so my husband
is more accepting. And my daughter is more like my husband.”
“I’m just the opposite,” counters Lucia. “My daughter is more forward somehow. You
marry and you get complementary. Our husbands complement us and so our
daughters.”
In spite of a declared complementary personality, their similar enthusiasm in talking
about physics and personal life tells that they are indeed twins!
Ceri PerkinsATLAS e-News
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