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* {{cite book |last=Snow |first=C. P. |author-link=C. P. Snow |year=1981 |title=The Physicists: A Generation that Changed the World |publisher=Little Brown |location=Boston |isbn=978-1-84232-436-3 |oclc=7722354}}
* {{cite book |last=Snow |first=C. P. |author-link=C. P. Snow |year=1981 |title=The Physicists: A Generation that Changed the World |publisher=Little Brown |location=Boston |isbn=978-1-84232-436-3 |oclc=7722354}}
* {{cite book |last=Von Baeyer |first=H. C. |title=The Fermi Solution: Essays on Science |url=https://archive.org/details/fermisolutioness0000vonb |url-access=registration |location=New York |publisher=Random House |year=1993 |isbn=978-0-679-40031-8 |oclc=27266040}}
* {{cite book |last=Von Baeyer |first=H. C. |title=The Fermi Solution: Essays on Science |url=https://archive.org/details/fermisolutioness0000vonb |url-access=registration |location=New York |publisher=Random House |year=1993 |isbn=978-0-679-40031-8 |oclc=27266040}}
* {{cite book|last=Wolfram|first=Stephen|title=A New Kind of Science|publisher=Wolfram Media, Inc.|year=2002|page=[https://www.wolframscience.com/nks/notes-9-3--history-of-thermodynamics/ 1019]|isbn=1-57955-008-8|url=https://www.wolframscience.com/nks/}}
* {{cite book|last=Wolfram|first=Stephen|title=A New Kind of Science|publisher=Wolfram Media, Inc.|year=2002|pages=[https://www.wolframscience.com/nks/notes-3-12--history-of-experimental-mathematics/ 899], [https://www.wolframscience.com/nks/notes-2-3--close-approaches-to-core-discoveries/ 879], [https://www.wolframscience.com/nks/notes-9-3--history-of-thermodynamics/ 1020],[https://www.wolframscience.com/nks/notes-9-3--history-of-thermodynamics/ 1019]|isbn=1-57955-008-8|url=https://www.wolframscience.com/nks/}}
{{refend}}
{{refend}}


Revision as of 17:54, 19 February 2021

"Fermi" redirects here. For other uses, see Fermi (disambiguation).

Enrico Fermi
Born(1901-09-29)29 September 1901
Rome, Kingdom of Italy
Died28 November 1954(1954-11-28) (aged 53)
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
CitizenshipItalian (1901–44)
American (1944–54)
Alma materScuola Normale Superiore of Pisa
Known for
Spouse
Laura Capon Fermi
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsPhysics
Institutions
Academic advisors
Doctoral students
Other notable students
Signature

Enrico Fermi (Italian:

transuranium elements. With his colleagues, Fermi filed several patents related to the use of nuclear power, all of which were taken over by the US government. He made significant contributions to the development of statistical mechanics, quantum theory, and nuclear and particle physics
.

Fermi's first major contribution involved the field of

Fermi age equation to describe this. After bombarding thorium and uranium with slow neutrons, he concluded that he had created new elements. Although he was awarded the Nobel Prize for this discovery, the new elements were later revealed to be nuclear fission products
.

Fermi left Italy in 1938 to escape new

thermonuclear "Super" bomb. He was present at the Trinity test on 16 July 1945, where he used his Fermi method
to estimate the bomb's yield.

After the war, Fermi served under

elements named after them. Fermi tutored or directly influenced no fewer than 8 young researchers who went on to win Nobel Prizes.[3][4]

Early life

Fermi was born in Rome at Via Gaeta 19.
Plaque at Fermi's birthplace

Enrico Fermi was born in Rome, Italy, on 29 September 1901. He was the third child of Alberto Fermi, a division head in the Ministry of Railways, and Ida de Gattis, an elementary school teacher.

Roman Catholic in accordance with his grandparents' wishes, his family was not particularly religious; Enrico was an agnostic throughout his adult life. As a young boy, he shared the same interests as his brother Giulio, building electric motors and playing with electrical and mechanical toys.[8] Giulio died during an operation on a throat abscess in 1915[9] and Maria died in an airplane crash near Milan in 1959.[10]

At a local market Fermi found a physics book, the 900-page Elementorum physicae mathematicae. Written in Latin by

Earth's gravity.[14] A colleague of Fermi's father gave him books on physics and mathematics which he assimilated quickly.[15]

Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa

Enrico Fermi as a student in Pisa

Fermi graduated from high school in July 1918, and at Amidei's urging applied to the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. Having lost one son, his parents only reluctantly allowed him to live in the school's lodgings for four years.[16][17] Fermi took first place in the difficult entrance exam, which included an essay on the theme of "Specific characteristics of Sounds"; the 17-year-old Fermi chose to use Fourier analysis to derive and solve the partial differential equation for a vibrating rod, and after interviewing Fermi the examiner declared he would become an outstanding physicist.[16][18]

At the Scuola Normale Superiore Fermi played pranks with fellow student Franco Rasetti; the two became close friends and collaborators. Fermi was advised by Luigi Puccianti, director of the physics laboratory, who said there was little he could teach Fermi and often asked Fermi to teach him something instead. Fermi's knowledge of quantum physics was such that Puccianti asked him to organize seminars on the topic.[19] During this time Fermi learned tensor calculus, a technique key to general relativity.[20] Fermi initially chose mathematics as his major, but soon switched to physics. He remained largely self-taught, studying general relativity, quantum mechanics, and atomic physics.[21]

In September 1920, Fermi was admitted to the Physics department. Since there were only three students in the department—Fermi, Rasetti, and Nello Carrara—Puccianti let them freely use the laboratory for whatever purposes they chose. Fermi decided that they should research X-ray crystallography, and the three worked to produce a Laue photograph—an X-ray photograph of a crystal.[22] During 1921, his third year at the university, Fermi published his first scientific works in the Italian journal Nuovo Cimento. The first was entitled "On the dynamics of a rigid system of electrical charges in translational motion" (Sulla dinamica di un sistema rigido di cariche elettriche in moto traslatorio). A sign of things to come was that the mass was expressed as a tensor—a mathematical construct commonly used to describe something moving and changing in three-dimensional space. In classical mechanics, mass is a scalar quantity, but in relativity, it changes with velocity. The second paper was "On the electrostatics of a uniform gravitational field of electromagnetic charges and on the weight of electromagnetic charges" (Sull'elettrostatica di un campo gravitazionale uniforme e sul peso delle masse elettromagnetiche). Using general relativity, Fermi showed that a charge has a weight equal to U/c2, where U was the electrostatic energy of the system, and c is the speed of light.[21]

The first paper seemed to point out a contradiction between the electrodynamic theory and the relativistic one concerning the calculation of the electromagnetic masses, as the former predicted a value of 4/3 U/c2. Fermi addressed this the next year in a paper "Concerning a contradiction between

Principle of Equivalence, and introduced the so-called "Fermi coordinates". He proved that on a world line close to the timeline, space behaves as if it were a Euclidean space.[24][25]

A light cone is a three-dimensional surface of all possible light rays arriving at and departing from a point in spacetime. Here, it is depicted with one spatial dimension suppressed. The timeline is the vertical axis.

Fermi submitted his thesis, "A theorem on probability and some of its applications" (Un teorema di calcolo delle probabilità ed alcune sue applicazioni), to the Scuola Normale Superiore in July 1922, and received his laurea at the unusually young age of 20. The thesis was on X-ray diffraction images. Theoretical physics was not yet considered a discipline in Italy, and the only thesis that would have been accepted was experimental physics. For this reason, Italian physicists were slow in embracing the new ideas like relativity coming from Germany. Since Fermi was quite at home in the lab doing experimental work, this did not pose insurmountable problems for him.[25]

While writing the appendix for the Italian edition of the book Fundamentals of Einstein Relativity by

nuclear potential energy to be exploited. "It does not seem possible, at least in the near future", he wrote, "to find a way to release these dreadful amounts of energy—which is all to the good because the first effect of an explosion of such a dreadful amount of energy would be to smash into smithereens the physicist who had the misfortune to find a way to do it."[25]

In 1924 Fermi was initiated into the

Masonic Lodge "Adriano Lemmi" of the Grand Orient of Italy.[26]

Fermi spent a semester studying under

solid state physics.[27] While giving lectures on the new quantum mechanics based on the remarkable accuracy of predictions of the Schrödinger equation, Fermi would often say, "It has no business to fit so well!"[28]

After

identical particles that obey the exclusion principle. This was independently developed soon after by the British physicist Paul Dirac, who also showed how it was related to the Bose–Einstein statistics. Accordingly, it is now known as Fermi–Dirac statistics.[29] After Dirac, particles that obey the exclusion principle are today called "fermions", while those that do not are called "bosons".[30]

Professor in Rome

Fermi and his research group (the Via Panisperna boys) in the courtyard of Rome University's Physics Institute in Via Panisperna, circa 1934. From left to right: Oscar D'Agostino, Emilio Segrè, Edoardo Amaldi, Franco Rasetti and Fermi

Professorships in Italy were granted by competition (concorso) for a vacant chair, the applicants being rated on their publications by a committee of professors. Fermi applied for a chair of mathematical physics at the University of Cagliari on Sardinia, but was narrowly passed over in favor of Giovanni Giorgi.[31] In 1926, at the age of 24, he applied for a professorship at the Sapienza University of Rome. This was a new chair, one of the first three in theoretical physics in Italy, that had been created by the Minister of Education at the urging of Professor Orso Mario Corbino, who was the University's professor of experimental physics, the Director of the Institute of Physics, and a member of Benito Mussolini's cabinet. Corbino, who also chaired the selection committee, hoped that the new chair would raise the standard and reputation of physics in Italy.[32] The committee chose Fermi ahead of Enrico Persico and Aldo Pontremoli,[33] and Corbino helped Fermi recruit his team, which was soon joined by notable students such as Edoardo Amaldi, Bruno Pontecorvo, Ettore Majorana and Emilio Segrè, and by Franco Rasetti, whom Fermi had appointed as his assistant.[34] They soon nicknamed the "Via Panisperna boys" after the street where the Institute of Physics was located.[35]

Fermi married

National Socialism. These laws threatened Laura, who was Jewish, and put many of Fermi's research assistants out of work.[38][39][40][41][42]

During their time in Rome, Fermi and his group made important contributions to many practical and theoretical aspects of physics. In 1928, he published his Introduction to Atomic Physics (Introduzione alla fisica atomica), which provided Italian university students with an up-to-date and accessible text. Fermi also conducted public lectures and wrote popular articles for scientists and teachers in order to spread knowledge of the new physics as widely as possible.[43] Part of his teaching method was to gather his colleagues and graduate students together at the end of the day and go over a problem, often from his own research.[43][44] A sign of success was that foreign students now began to come to Italy. The most notable of these was the German physicist Hans Bethe,[45] who came to Rome as a Rockefeller Foundation fellow, and collaborated with Fermi on a 1932 paper "On the Interaction between Two Electrons" (German: Über die Wechselwirkung von Zwei Elektronen).[43]

At this time, physicists were puzzled by

fundamental forces of nature. The neutrino was detected after his death, and his interaction theory showed why it was so difficult to detect. When he submitted his paper to the British journal Nature, that journal's editor turned it down because it contained speculations which were "too remote from physical reality to be of interest to readers".[47] Thus Fermi saw the theory published in Italian and German before it was published in English.[34]

In the introduction to the 1968 English translation, physicist Fred L. Wilson noted that:

Fermi's theory, aside from bolstering Pauli's proposal of the neutrino, has a special significance in the history of modern physics. One must remember that only the naturally occurring β emitters were known at the time the theory was proposed. Later when positron decay was discovered, the process was easily incorporated within Fermi's original framework. On the basis of his theory, the capture of an orbital electron by a nucleus was predicted and eventually observed. With time, experimental data accumulated significantly. Although peculiarities have been observed many times in β decay, Fermi's theory always has been equal to the challenge.
The consequences of the Fermi theory are vast. For example, β spectroscopy was established as a powerful tool for the study of nuclear structure. But perhaps the most influential aspect of this work of Fermi is that his particular form of the β interaction established a pattern that has been appropriate for the study of other types of interactions. It was the first successful theory of the creation and annihilation of material particles. Previously, only photons had been known to be created and destroyed.[48]

In January 1934,

Gian-Carlo Wick had provided a theoretical explanation using Fermi's theory of beta decay. Fermi decided to switch to experimental physics, using the neutron, which James Chadwick had discovered in 1932.[51] In March 1934, Fermi wanted to see if he could induce radioactivity with Rasetti's polonium-beryllium neutron source. Neutrons had no electric charge, and so would not be deflected by the positively charged nucleus. This meant that they needed much less energy to penetrate the nucleus than charged particles, and so would not require a particle accelerator, which the Via Panisperna boys did not have.[52][53]

Enrico Fermi between Franco Rasetti (left) and Emilio Segrè in academic dress

Fermi had the idea to resort to replacing the polonium-beryllium neutron source with a radon-beryllium one, which he created by filling a glass bulb with beryllium powder, evacuating the air, and then adding 50 mCi of radon gas, supplied by Giulio Cesare Trabacchi.[54][55] This created a much stronger neutron source, the effectiveness of which declined with the 3.8-day half-life of radon. He knew that this source would also emit gamma rays, but, on the basis of his theory, he believed that this would not affect the results of the experiment. He started by bombarding platinum, an element with a high atomic number that was readily available, without success. He turned to aluminium, which emitted an alpha particle and produced sodium, which then decayed into magnesium by beta particle emission. He tried lead, without success, and then fluorine in the form of calcium fluoride, which emitted an alpha particle and produced nitrogen, decaying into oxygen by beta particle emission. In all, he induced radioactivity in 22 different elements.[56] Fermi rapidly reported the discovery of neutron-induced radioactivity in the Italian journal La Ricerca Scientifica on 25 March 1934.[55][57][58]

The natural radioactivity of

ausonium.[59][53] The chemist Ida Noddack suggesting that some of the experiments could have produced lighter elements than lead rather than new, heavier elements. Her suggestion was not taken seriously at the time because her team had not carried out any experiments with uranium or built the theoretical basis for this possibility. At that time, fission was thought to be improbable if not impossible on theoretical grounds. While physicists expected elements with higher atomic numbers to form from neutron bombardment of lighter elements, nobody expected neutrons to have enough energy to split a heavier atom into two light element fragments in the manner that Noddack suggested.[60][59]

Beta decay. A neutron decays into a proton, and an electron is emitted. In order for the total energy in the system to remain the same, Pauli and Fermi postulated that a neutrino () was also emitted.

The Via Panisperna boys also noticed some unexplained effects. The experiment seemed to work better on a wooden table than a marble tabletop. Fermi remembered that Joliot-Curie and Chadwick had noted that

Fermi age equation.[61][53]

In 1938 Fermi received the Nobel Prize in Physics at the age of 37 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".[63] After Fermi received the prize in Stockholm, he did not return home to Italy but rather continued to New York City with his family in December 1938, where they applied for permanent residency. The decision to move to America and become U.S. citizens was due primarily to the racial laws in Italy.[38]

Manhattan Project

Fermi arrived in New York City on 2 January 1939.

Otto Frisch correctly interpreted as the result of nuclear fission. Frisch confirmed this experimentally on 13 January 1939.[68][69] The news of Meitner and Frisch's interpretation of Hahn and Strassmann's discovery crossed the Atlantic with Niels Bohr, who was to lecture at Princeton University. Isidor Isaac Rabi and Willis Lamb, two Columbia University physicists working at Princeton, found out about it and carried it back to Columbia. Rabi said he told Enrico Fermi, but Fermi later gave the credit to Lamb:[70]

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.[71]

Noddack was proven right after all. Fermi had dismissed the possibility of fission on the basis of his calculations, but he had not taken into account the

fission products. He added a footnote to this effect to his Nobel Prize acceptance speech.[70][72]

Diagram of Chicago Pile-1, the first nuclear reactor to achieve a self-sustaining chain reaction. Designed by Fermi, it consisted of uranium and uranium oxide in a cubic lattice embedded in graphite.

The scientists at Columbia decided that they should try to detect the energy released in the nuclear fission of uranium when bombarded by neutrons. On 25 January 1939, in the basement of

Carnegie Institution of Washington. There, the news on nuclear fission was spread even further, fostering many more experimental demonstrations.[74]

French scientists

Eldorado Gold Mines Limited, allowing Fermi and Anderson to conduct experiments with fission on a much larger scale.[78] Fermi and Szilárd collaborated on a design of a device to achieve a self-sustaining nuclear reaction—a nuclear reactor. Owing to the rate of absorption of neutrons by the hydrogen in water, it was unlikely that a self-sustaining reaction could be achieved with natural uranium and water as a neutron moderator. Fermi suggested, based on his work with neutrons, that the reaction could be achieved with uranium oxide blocks and graphite as a moderator instead of water. This would reduce the neutron capture rate, and in theory make a self-sustaining chain reaction possible. Szilárd came up with a workable design: a pile of uranium oxide blocks interspersed with graphite bricks.[79] Szilárd, Anderson, and Fermi published a paper on "Neutron Production in Uranium".[78] But their work habits and personalities were different, and Fermi had trouble working with Szilárd.[80]

Fermi was among the first to warn military leaders about the potential impact of nuclear energy, giving a lecture on the subject at the

Advisory Committee on Uranium to investigate the matter.[82]

Fermi's ID photo from Los Alamos

The Advisory Committee on Uranium provided money for Fermi to buy graphite,[83] and he built a pile of graphite bricks on the seventh floor of the Pupin Hall laboratory.[84] By August 1941, he had six tons of uranium oxide and thirty tons of graphite, which he used to build a still larger pile in Schermerhorn Hall at Columbia.[85]

The S-1 Section of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, as the Advisory Committee on Uranium was now known, met on 18 December 1941, with the U.S. now engaged in World War II, making its work urgent. Most of the effort sponsored by the committee had been directed at producing enriched uranium, but Committee member Arthur Compton determined that a feasible alternative was plutonium, which could be mass-produced in nuclear reactors by the end of 1944.[86] He decided to concentrate the plutonium work at the University of Chicago. Fermi reluctantly moved, and his team became part of the new Metallurgical Laboratory there.[87]

The possible results of a self-sustaining nuclear reaction were unknown, so it seemed inadvisable to build the first nuclear reactor on the University of Chicago campus in the middle of the city. Compton found a location in the Argonne Woods Forest Preserve, about 20 miles (32 km) from Chicago. Stone & Webster was contracted to develop the site, but the work was halted by an industrial dispute. Fermi then persuaded Compton that he could build the reactor in the squash court under the stands of the University of Chicago's Stagg Field. Construction of the pile began on 6 November 1942, and Chicago Pile-1 went critical on 2 December.[88] The shape of the pile was intended to be roughly spherical, but as work proceeded Fermi calculated that criticality could be achieved without finishing the entire pile as planned.[89]

This experiment was a landmark in the quest for energy, and it was typical of Fermi's approach. Every step was carefully planned, every calculation was meticulously done.[88] When the first self-sustained nuclear chain reaction was achieved, Compton made a coded phone call to James B. Conant, the chairman of the National Defense Research Committee.

I picked up the phone and called Conant. He was reached at the President's office at Harvard University. "Jim," I said, "you'll be interested to know that the Italian navigator has just landed in the new world." Then, half apologetically, because I had led the S-l Committee to believe that it would be another week or more before the pile could be completed, I added, "the earth was not as large as he had estimated, and he arrived at the new world sooner than he had expected."

"Is that so," was Conant's excited response. "Were the natives friendly?"

"Everyone landed safe and happy."[90]

Ernest O. Lawrence, Fermi, and Isidor Isaac Rabi

To continue the research where it would not pose a public health hazard, the reactor was disassembled and moved to the Argonne Woods site. There Fermi directed experiments on nuclear reactions, reveling in the opportunities provided by the reactor's abundant production of free neutrons.[91] The laboratory soon branched out from physics and engineering into using the reactor for biological and medical research. Initially, Argonne was run by Fermi as part of the University of Chicago, but it became a separate entity with Fermi as its director in May 1944.[92]

When the air-cooled X-10 Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge went critical on 4 November 1943, Fermi was on hand just in case something went wrong. The technicians woke him early so that he could see it happen.[93] Getting X-10 operational was another milestone in the plutonium project. It provided data on reactor design, training for DuPont staff in reactor operation, and produced the first small quantities of reactor-bred plutonium.[94] Fermi became an American citizen in July 1944, the earliest date the law allowed.[95]

In September 1944, Fermi inserted the first uranium fuel slug into the B Reactor at the Hanford Site, the production reactor designed to breed plutonium in large quantities. Like X-10, it had been designed by Fermi's team at the Metallurgical Laboratory and built by DuPont, but it was much larger and was water-cooled. Over the next few days, 838 tubes were loaded, and the reactor went critical. Shortly after midnight on 27 September, the operators began to withdraw the control rods to initiate production. At first, all appeared to be well, but around 03:00, the power level started to drop and by 06:30 the reactor had shut down completely. The Army and DuPont turned to Fermi's team for answers. The cooling water was investigated to see if there was a leak or contamination. The next day the reactor suddenly started up again, only to shut down once more a few hours later. The problem was traced to neutron poisoning from xenon-135, a fission product with a half-life of 9.2 hours. DuPont had deviated from the Metallurgical Laboratory's original design in which the reactor had 1,500 tubes arranged in a circle, and had added 504 tubes to fill in the corners. The scientists had originally considered this over-engineering a waste of time and money, but Fermi realized that if all 2,004 tubes were loaded, the reactor could reach the required power level and efficiently produce plutonium.[96][97]

The FERMIAC, an analog computer invented by Fermi to study neutron transport

In mid-1944,

Trinity test on 16 July 1945 and conducted an experiment to estimate the bomb's yield by dropping strips of paper into the blast wave. He paced off the distance they were blown by the explosion, and calculated the yield as ten kilotons of TNT; the actual yield was about 18.6 kilotons.[100]

Along with Oppenheimer, Compton, and Ernest Lawrence, Fermi was part of the scientific panel that advised the Interim Committee on target selection. The panel agreed with the committee that atomic bombs would be used without warning against an industrial target.[101] Like others at the Los Alamos Laboratory, Fermi found out about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki from the public address system in the technical area. Fermi did not believe that atomic bombs would deter nations from starting wars, nor did he think that the time was ripe for world government. He therefore did not join the Association of Los Alamos Scientists.[102]

Postwar work

Fermi became the Charles H. Swift Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of Chicago on 1 July 1945,

Maria Mayer, helping her develop insights into spin–orbit coupling that would lead to her receiving the Nobel Prize.[108]

The Manhattan Project was replaced by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) on 1 January 1947.[109] Fermi served on the AEC General Advisory Committee, an influential scientific committee chaired by Robert Oppenheimer.[110] He also liked to spend a few weeks of each year at the Los Alamos National Laboratory,[111] where he collaborated with Nicholas Metropolis,[112] and with John von Neumann on Rayleigh–Taylor instability, the science of what occurs at the border between two fluids of different densities.[113]

Laura and Enrico Fermi at the Institute for Nuclear Studies, Los Alamos, 1954

After the detonation of the first Soviet

Oppenheimer security hearing in 1954 that resulted in denial of Oppenheimer's security clearance.[116] Later in the 1950s, when electronic computers became available, Fermi began to investigate the ergodic properties of nonlinear systems of springs, especially recurrence phenomena related to solitons.[117]

In his later years, Fermi continued teaching at the University of Chicago, where he was a founder of what later became the

Chen Ning Yang, he speculated that pions might actually be composite particles.[122] The idea was elaborated by Shoichi Sakata. It has since been supplanted by the quark model, in which the pion is made up of quarks, which completed Fermi's model, and vindicated his approach.[123]

Fermi wrote a paper "On the Origin of

Cosmic Radiation" in which he proposed that cosmic rays arose through material being accelerated by magnetic fields in interstellar space, which led to a difference of opinion with Teller.[121] Fermi examined the issues surrounding magnetic fields in the arms of a spiral galaxy.[124] He mused about what is now referred to as the "Fermi paradox": the contradiction between the presumed probability of the existence of extraterrestrial life and the fact that contact has not been made.[125]

Fermi's grave in Chicago

Toward the end of his life, Fermi questioned his faith in society at large to make wise choices about nuclear technology. He said:

Some of you may ask, what is the good of working so hard merely to collect a few facts which will bring no pleasure except to a few long-haired professors who love to collect such things and will be of no use to anybody because only few specialists at best will be able to understand them? In answer to such question[s] I may venture a fairly safe prediction.

History of science and technology has consistently taught us that scientific advances in basic understanding have sooner or later led to technical and industrial applications that have revolutionized our way of life. It seems to me improbable that this effort to get at the structure of matter should be an exception to this rule. What is less certain, and what we all fervently hope, is that man will soon grow sufficiently adult to make good use of the powers that he acquires over nature.[126]

Death

Fermi underwent what was called an "exploratory" operation in Billings Memorial Hospital in October 1954, after which he returned home. Fifty days later he died of inoperable

Samuel K. Allison, Emilio Segrè, and Herbert L. Anderson spoke to mourn the loss of one of the world's "most brilliant and productive physicists."[127] His body was interred at Oak Woods Cemetery.[128]

Impact and legacy

Legacy

As a person, Fermi seemed simplicity itself. He was extraordinarily vigorous and loved games and sport. On such occasions his ambitious nature became apparent. He played tennis with considerable ferocity and when climbing mountains acted rather as a guide. One might have called him a benevolent dictator. I remember once at the top of a mountain Fermi got up and said: "Well, it is two minutes to two, let's all leave at two o'clock"; and of course, everybody got up faithfully and obediently. This leadership and self-assurance gave Fermi the name of "The Pope" whose pronouncements were infallible in physics. He once said: "I can calculate anything in physics within a factor 2 on a few sheets; to get the numerical factor in front of the formula right may well take a physicist a year to calculate, but I am not interested in that." His leadership could go so far that it was a danger to the independence of the person working with him. I recollect once, at a party at his house when my wife cut the bread, Fermi came along and said he had a different philosophy on bread-cutting and took the knife out of my wife's hand and proceeded with the job because he was convinced that his own method was superior. But all this did not offend at all, but rather charmed everybody into liking Fermi. He had very few interests outside physics and when he once heard me play on Teller's piano he confessed that his interest in music was restricted to simple tunes.

Egon Bretscher[129]

Fermi received numerous awards in recognition of his achievements, including the

Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence, known as the Temple of Italian Glories for its many graves of artists, scientists and prominent figures in Italian history, has a plaque commemorating Fermi.[131] In 1999, Time named Fermi on its list of the top 100 persons of the twentieth century.[132] Fermi was widely regarded as an unusual case of a 20th-century physicist who excelled both theoretically and experimentally. Chemist and novelist C. P. Snow wrote, "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".[133]

Fermi was known as an inspiring teacher and was noted for his attention to detail, simplicity, and careful preparation of his lectures.[134] Later, his lecture notes were transcribed into books.[135] His papers and notebooks are today in the University of Chicago.[136] Victor Weisskopf noted how Fermi "always managed to find the simplest and most direct approach, with the minimum of complication and sophistication."[137] 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 that would stump other people. Later on, his method of getting approximate and quick answers through back-of-the-envelope calculations became informally known as the "Fermi method", and is widely taught.[138]

Fermi was fond of pointing out that when Alessandro Volta was working in his laboratory, Volta had no idea where the study of electricity would lead.[139] Fermi is generally remembered for his work on nuclear power and nuclear weapons, especially the creation of the first nuclear reactor, and the development of the first atomic and hydrogen bombs. His scientific work has stood the test of time. This includes his theory of beta decay, his work with non-linear systems, his discovery of the effects of slow neutrons, his study of pion-nucleon collisions, and his Fermi–Dirac statistics. His speculation that a pion was not a fundamental particle pointed the way towards the study of quarks and leptons.[140]

Things named in Fermi's honor

The sign at Enrico Fermi Street in Rome
Memorial plaque in the Basilica Santa Croce, Florence. Italy
Main article: List of things named after Enrico Fermi

Many things bear Fermi's name. These include the

elements named after them.[147]

Since 1956, the United States Atomic Energy Commission has named its highest honor, the

Fermi Award, after him. Recipients of the award include well-known scientists like Otto Hahn, Robert Oppenheimer, Edward Teller and Hans Bethe.[148]

Publications

For a full list of his papers, see pages 75–78 in ref.[129]

Patents

Notes

  1. ^ "Enrico Fermi, architect of the nuclear age, dies". Autumn 1954. Archived from the original on 17 November 2015. Retrieved 2 November 2015.
  2. ^ a b "Enrico Fermi Dead at 53; Architect of Atomic Bomb". The New York Times. The New York Times. 29 November 1954. Archived from the original on 14 March 2019. Retrieved 21 January 2013.
  3. ^ J. J. Orear, Enrico Fermi: the Master Scientist, Cornell University Library, 2004. https://ecommons.cornell.edu/handle/1813/74
  4. ^ H. Zuckerman, Scientific Elite: Nobel Laureates in the United States, Routledge 1977
  5. ^ Segrè 1970, pp. 3–4, 8.
  6. ^ Amaldi 2001, p. 23.
  7. ^ Cooper 1999, p. 19.
  8. ^ Segrè 1970, pp. 5–6.
  9. ^ Fermi 1954, pp. 15–16.
  10. ^ "Maria Fermi Sacchetti (1899–1959)". www.OlgiateOlona26giugno1959.org (in Italian). Archived from the original on 30 August 2017. Retrieved 6 May 2017.
  11. ^ Segrè 1970, p. 7.
  12. ^ Bonolis 2001, p. 315.
  13. ^ Amaldi 2001, p. 24.
  14. ^ Segrè 1970, pp. 11–12.
  15. ^ Segrè 1970, pp. 8–10.
  16. ^ a b Segrè 1970, pp. 11–13.
  17. ^ Fermi 1954, pp. 20–21.
  18. ^ "Edizione Nazionale Mathematica Italiana – Giulio Pittarelli" (in Italian). Scuola Normale Superiore. Retrieved 6 May 2017.
  19. ^ Segrè 1970, pp. 15–18.
  20. ^ Bonolis 2001, p. 320.
  21. ^ a b Bonolis 2001, pp. 317–319.
  22. ^ Segrè 1970, p. 20.
  23. ^ "Über einen Widerspruch zwischen der elektrodynamischen und relativistischen Theorie der elektromagnetischen Masse". Physikalische Zeitschrift (in German). 23: 340–344. Retrieved 17 January 2013.
  24. ^ Bertotti 2001, p. 115.
  25. ^ a b c Bonolis 2001, p. 321.
  26. ^ "Enrico Fermi L'Uomo, lo Scienziato e il Massone" (in Italian). Archived from the original on 20 March 2016. Retrieved 4 March 2015.
  27. ^ Bonolis 2001, pp. 321–324.
  28. ^ Hey & Walters 2003, p. 61.
  29. ^ Bonolis 2001, pp. 329–330.
  30. ^ Cooper 1999, p. 31.
  31. ^ Fermi 1954, pp. 37–38.
  32. ^ Segrè 1970, p. 45.
  33. ^ Fermi 1954, p. 38.
  34. ^ a b Alison 1957, p. 127.
  35. ^ "Enrico Fermi e i ragazzi di via Panisperna" (in Italian). University of Rome. Retrieved 20 January 2013.
  36. ^ Segrè 1970, p. 61.
  37. ^ Cooper 1999, pp. 38–39.
  38. ^ a b Alison 1957, p. 130.
  39. ^ "About Enrico Fermi". University of Chicago. Retrieved 20 January 2013.
  40. ^ Mieli, Paolo (2 October 2001). "Così Fermi scoprì la natura vessatoria del fascismo". Corriere della Sera (in Italian). Archived from the original on 19 October 2013. Retrieved 20 January 2013.
  41. ^ Direzione generale per gli archivi (2005). "Reale accademia d'Italia:inventario dell'archivio" (PDF) (in Italian). Rome: Ministero per i beni culturali e ambientali. p. xxxix. Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 September 2012. Retrieved 20 January 2013.
  42. ^ "A Legal Examination of Mussolini's Race Laws". Printed Matter. Centro Primo Levi. Retrieved 7 August 2015.
  43. ^ a b c Bonolis 2001, pp. 333–335.
  44. ^ Amaldi 2001, p. 38.
  45. ^ Fermi 1954, p. 217.
  46. ^ Amaldi 2001, pp. 50–51.
  47. ^ a b Bonolis 2001, p. 346.
  48. ^
    doi:10.1119/1.1974382
    . Retrieved 20 January 2013.
  49. ^ Joliot-Curie, Irène; Joliot, Frédéric (15 January 1934). "Un nouveau type de radioactivité" [A new type of radioactivity]. Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaires des Séances de l'Académie des Sciences (in French). 198 (January–June 1934): 254–256.
  50. S2CID 4096977
    .
  51. ^ Amaldi 2001a, pp. 152–153.
  52. ^ Bonolis 2001, pp. 347–351.
  53. ^ a b c d Amaldi 2001a, pp. 153–156.
  54. ^ Segrè 1970, p. 73.
  55. ^
    S2CID 119489980
    .
  56. S2CID 120707438
    .
  57. ^ Fermi, Enrico (25 March 1934). "Radioattività indotta da bombardamento di neutroni". La Ricerca Scientifica (in Italian). 1 (5): 283.
  58. doi:10.1098/rspa.1934.0168
    .
  59. ^ a b Bonolis 2001, pp. 347–349.
  60. ^ a b Amaldi 2001a, pp. 161–162.
  61. ^ a b Bonolis 2001, pp. 347–352.
  62. ^ "A Few Good Moderators: The Numbers". The Energy From Thorium Foundation. 13 February 2007. Retrieved 24 September 2013.
  63. ^ Cooper 1999, p. 51.
  64. ^ Cooper 1999, p. 52.
  65. ^ Persico 2001, p. 40.
  66. ^ Bonolis 2001, p. 352.
  67. S2CID 5920336
    .
  68. S2CID 4076376. Archived from the original
    on 23 January 2009.
  69. S2CID 4113262
    .
  70. ^ a b Rhodes 1986, p. 267.
  71. ^ Segrè 1970, pp. 222–223.
  72. ^ a b Enrico Fermi on Nobelprize.org Edit this at Wikidata including the Nobel Lecture, 12 December 1938 Artificial Radioactivity Produced by Neutron Bombardment
  73. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.55.511.2
    .
  74. ^ Rhodes 1986, pp. 269–270.
  75. S2CID 4089039
    .
  76. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.55.797.2
    .
  77. doi:10.1080/00963402.1973.11455466
    .
  78. ^
    doi:10.1103/PhysRev.56.284
    .
  79. ^ Salvetti 2001, pp. 186–188.
  80. ^ Bonolis 2001, pp. 356–357.
  81. ^ Salvetti 2001, p. 185.
  82. ^ Salvetti 2001, pp. 188–189.
  83. ^ Rhodes 1986, pp. 314–317.
  84. ^ Salvetti 2001, p. 190.
  85. ^ Salvetti 2001, p. 195.
  86. ^ Salvetti 2001, pp. 194–196.
  87. ^ Rhodes 1986, pp. 399–400.
  88. ^ a b Salvetti 2001, pp. 198–202.
  89. JSTOR 3301034
    .
  90. ^ Compton 1956, p. 144.
  91. ^ Bonolis 2001, p. 366.
  92. ^ Hewlett & Anderson 1962, p. 207.
  93. ^ Hewlett & Anderson 1962, pp. 208–211.
  94. ^ Jones 1985, p. 205.
  95. ^ Segrè 1970, p. 104.
  96. ^ Hewlett & Anderson 1962, pp. 304–307.
  97. ^ Jones 1985, pp. 220–223.
  98. ^ Bonolis 2001, pp. 368–369.
  99. ^ Hawkins 1961, p. 213.
  100. ^ Rhodes 1986, pp. 674–677.
  101. ^ Jones 1985, pp. 531–532.
  102. ^ Fermi 1954, pp. 244–245.
  103. ^ Segrè 1970, p. 157.
  104. ^ Segrè 1970, p. 167.
  105. ^ "Enrico Fermi" on NASOnline.org
  106. ^ Holl, Hewlett & Harris 1997, pp. xix–xx.
  107. ^ Segrè 1970, p. 171.
  108. ^ Segrè 1970, p. 172.
  109. ^ Hewlett & Anderson 1962, p. 643.
  110. ^ Hewlett & Anderson 1962, p. 648.
  111. ^ Segrè 1970, p. 175.
  112. ^ a b Segrè 1970, p. 179.
  113. ^ Bonolis 2001, p. 381.
  114. ^ Hewlett & Duncan 1969, pp. 380–385.
  115. ^ Hewlett & Duncan 1969, pp. 527–530.
  116. ^ Cooper 1999, pp. 102–103.
  117. ^ Wolfram 2002, p. 1014.
  118. ^ Enrico Fermi at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  119. ^ "Jack Steinberger – Biographical". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 15 August 2013.
  120. ^ Cornish, Audie (24 November 2014). "'Queen Of Carbon' Among Medal Of Freedom Honorees". All Things Considered. NPR. Retrieved 30 September 2018.
  121. ^ a b Bonolis 2001, pp. 374–379.
  122. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.76.1739
    .
  123. ^ Jacob & Maiani 2001, pp. 254–258.
  124. ^ Bonolis 2001, p. 386.
  125. ^ Jones 1985a, pp. 1–3.
  126. ^ Fermi 2004, p. 142.
  127. doi:10.1063/1.3061909
    .
  128. ^ Hucke & Bielski 1999, pp. 147, 150.
  129. ^
    JSTOR 769243
    .
  130. ^ Alison 1957, pp. 135–136.
  131. ^ "Enrico Fermi in Santa Croce, Florence". gotterdammerung.org. Retrieved 10 May 2015.
  132. ^ "Time 100 Persons of the Century". Time. 6 June 1999. Retrieved 2 March 2013.
  133. ^ Snow 1981, p. 79.
  134. ^ Ricci 2001, pp. 297–302.
  135. ^ Ricci 2001, p. 286.
  136. ^ "Enrico Fermi Collection". University of Chicago. Retrieved 22 January 2013.
  137. ^ Salvini 2001, p. 5.
  138. ^ Von Baeyer 1993, pp. 3–8.
  139. ^ Fermi 1954, p. 242.
  140. ^ Salvini 2001, p. 17.
  141. ^ "About Fermilab – History". Fermilab. Retrieved 21 January 2013.
  142. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
    . Retrieved 21 January 2013.
  143. ^ "Nuclear Power in Italy". World Nuclear Association. Retrieved 21 January 2013.
  144. CNEA. November 2004. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on 14 May 2013. Retrieved 21 January 2013.
  145. ^ Seaborg 1978, p. 2.
  146. ^ Hoff 1978, pp. 39–48.
  147. ^ Kevin A. Boudreaux. "Derivations of the Names and Symbols of the Elements". Angelo State University.
  148. ^ "The Enrico Fermi Award". United States Department of Energy. Retrieved 25 August 2010.

References

External links
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Enrico_Fermi&oldid=1007738678"