Enrico Fermi Biography
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Enrico Fermi (Rome, September 29, 1901 –
Chicago, November 28, 1954) was an Italian physicist most noted for his
work on beta decay, the development of the first nuclear reactor, and
for the development of quantum theory. Fermi won the 1938 Nobel Prize in
Physics for his work on induced radioactivity.
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Physics in Rome
Fermi's PhD advisor was Luigi Puccianti.
When he was only 24 years old, Fermi took a professorship in Rome (the
first for theoretical physics in Italy, created for him by professor
Orso Maria Corbino, director of the Institute of Physics). Corbino
helped Fermi in selecting his team, which soon was joined by notable
minds like Edoardo Amaldi, Bruno Pontecorvo, Franco Rasetti and Emilio
Segrč. For the theoretical studies only, Ettore Majorana also took part
in what was soon nicknamed "the Via Panisperna boys" (after the name of
the road in which the Institute had its labs).
The group went on with its now famous
experiments, but in 1933 Rasetti left Italy for Canada and the United
States, Pontecorvo went to France and Segrč left to teach in Palermo.
During their time in Rome, Fermi and his
group made important contributions to many practical and theoretical
aspects of physics. Some of these include Fermi-Dirac statistics, the
theory of beta decay, and the discovery of slow neutrons, which was to
prove pivotal for the working of nuclear reactors.
Nobel prize and the Manhattan Project
Fermi remained in Rome until 1938.
In 1938, Fermi won the Nobel Prize in
Physics for his "demonstrations of the existence of new radioactive
elements produced by neutron irradiation, and for his related discovery
of nuclear reactions brought about by slow neutrons".
After Fermi received the prize in
Stockholm, he, his wife Laura, and their children emigrated to New York.
By this time, the Fascist government in Italy had instituted
anti-Semitic laws, and Fermi's wife, Laura Capon, was Jewish. Soon after
his arrival in New York, Fermi began working at Columbia University.
At Columbia, Fermi verified the initial
nuclear fission experiment of Hahn and Fritz Strassman (with the help of
Booth and Dunning). Fermi then began studies that led to the
construction of the first nuclear pile.
Fermi recalled the beginning of the project
in a speech given in 1954 when he retired as President of the American
Physical Society:
"I remember very vividly the first month,
January, 1939, that I started working at the Pupin Laboratories because
things began happening very fast. In that period, Niels Bohr was on a
lecture engagement at the Princeton University and I remember one
afternoon Willis Lamb came back very excited and said that Bohr had
leaked out great news. The great news that had leaked out was the
discovery of fission and at least the outline of its interpretation.
Then, somewhat later that same month, there was a meeting in Washington
where the possible importance of the newly discovered phenomenon of
fission was first discussed in semi-jocular earnest as a possible source
of nuclear power."
After the famous letter signed by Albert
Einstein (transcribed by Leó Szilárd) to President Franklin D. Roosevelt
in 1939, the Navy awarded Columbia University the first Atomic Energy
funding of US$ 6,000. The money was used in studies which led to the
first nuclear reactor — Chicago Pile-1, a massive "pile" of graphite
bricks and uranium fuel which went critical on December 2, 1942, under
the squash court at the University of Chicago. This experiment was a
landmark in the quest for energy, and it was typical of Fermi's
brilliance. Every step had been carefully planned, every calculation
meticulously done by him. When man first achieved the first self
sustained nuclear chain reaction, a coded phone call was made to one of
the leaders of the Manhattan Project, James Conant: 'The Italian
navigator has landed in the new world... The natives were very
friendly'. The chain-reacting pile was important not only for its help
in assessing the properties of fission — needed for understanding the
internal workings of an atomic bomb — but because it would serve as a
pilot plant for the massive reactors which would be created in Hanford,
Washington, which would then be used to "breed" the plutonium needed for
the bombs used at the Trinity test and Nagasaki. Eventually Fermi and
Szilárd's reactor work was folded into the Manhattan Project.
He became a naturalized citizen of the
United States of America in 1944.
Post-war work
In Fermi's 1954 address to the APS he also
said, "Well, this brings us to Pearl Harbor. That is the time when I
left Columbia University, and after a few months of commuting between
Chicago and New York, eventually moved to Chicago to keep up the work
there, and from then on, with a few notable exceptions, the work at
Columbia was concentrated on the isotope separation phase of the atomic
energy project, initiated by Booth, Dunning and Urey about 1940".
Fermi was widely regarded as the only
physicist of the twentieth century who excelled both theoretically and
experimentally (Snow, 1981) (see link below in 'References'). The
well-known historian of physics, C. P. Snow, says about him, "If Fermi
had been born a few years earlier, one could well imagine him
discovering Rutherford's atomic nucleus, and then developing Bohr's
theory of the hydrogen atom. If this sounds like hyperbole, anything
about Fermi is likely to sound like hyperbole". Fermi's ability and
success stemmed as much from his appraisal of the art of the possible,
as from his innate skill and intelligence. He disliked complicated
theories, and while he had great mathematical ability, he would never
use it when the job could be done much more simply. He was famous for
getting quick and accurate answers to problems which would stump other
people. An instance of this was seen during the first atomic bomb test
in New Mexico on July 16, 1945. As the blast wave reached him, Fermi
dropped bits of paper. By measuring the distance they were blown, he
could compare to a previously computed table and thus estimate the bomb
energy yield. He estimated 10 kilotons of TNT, the measured result was
18.6. (Rhodes, page 674). Later on, this method of getting approximate
and quick answers through back of the envelope calculations became
informally known as the 'Fermi method'.
Fermi's most disarming trait was his great
modesty, and his ability to do any kind of work, whether creative or
routine. It was this quality that made him popular and liked among
people of all strata, from other Nobel Laureates to technicians. Henry
DeWolf Smyth, who was Chairman of the Princeton Physics department, had
once invited Fermi over to do some experiments with the Princeton
cyclotron. Walking into the lab one day, Smyth saw the distinguished
scientist helping a graduate student move a table, under another
student's directions. Another time, a Du Pont executive made a visit to
see him at Columbia. Not finding him either in his lab or his office,
the executive was surprised to find the Nobel Laureate in the machine
shop, cutting sheets of tin with a big pair of shears.
When he submitted his famous paper on beta
decay to the prestigious journal Nature, the journal's editor turned it
down because "it contained speculations which were too remote from
reality". Thus, Fermi saw the theory published in Italian and in German
before it was published in English.
He never forgot this experience of being
ahead of his time, and used to tell his protégés: "Never be first; try
to be second".
On November 28, 1954, Fermi died at the age
of 53 of stomach cancer in Chicago, Illinois and was interred there in
Oak Woods Cemetery. As Eugene Wigner wrote: "Ten days before Fermi had
passed away he told me, 'I hope it won't take long.' He had reconciled
himself perfectly to his fate".
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URL of Original Article:
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Date Article Copied:
March 17, 2006
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