Olinto De Pretto

Olinto De Pretto was an Italian industrialist and geologist from Schio, Vicenza. There are claims that De Pretto may have been the first person to derive the energymassequivalence , generally attributed to Albert Einstein. He suggested that radioactive decay of uranium and thorium was an example of mass transforming into energy.

Olinto De Pretto was born on April 26, 1857 in Schio in what is now the province of Vicenza in northern Italy. Olinto was the sixth of seven children . His mother was Angelica Boschetti . His father, Pietro De Pretto , was an architect whose hobbies included astronomy and geology, two studies Olinto would later take up.

Source: Wikipedia