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Enrico FermiItalian and American physicist, brilliant scientist, Nobel Prize laureate in 1938, one of the 'fathers of the atomic bomb' and the man who built the first nuclear reactor.
Date of Birth: 29.09.1901
Country:  Italy |
Content:
Biography of Enrico Fermi
Enrico Fermi was an Italian and American physicist, a brilliant scientist, and the recipient of the Nobel Prize in 1938. He was one of the "fathers of the atomic bomb" and the person who built the first nuclear reactor. His work made an invaluable contribution to the development of theoretical and practical disciplines such as nuclear physics, elementary particle physics, quantum mechanics, and statistical mechanics. Fermi held several patents related to the use of atomic energy. Interestingly, despite the interest of the American government in his discoveries and experiments, primarily from a military point of view, Fermi himself firmly opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb after the explosion of the first Soviet atomic bomb in August 1949, both for technical and moral reasons.
Early Life
Enrico Fermi was born on September 29, 1901, in Rome, becoming the third child in the family. His father was the head of a division in the Ministry of Railways, and his mother was a primary school teacher. His sister Maria was two years older, and his brother Giulio was one year older. Fermi's mother sent him and his brother to a nurse's village, and he returned home only when he was two and a half years old. His family was not very religious, although they belonged to the Catholic Church, and all the children were baptized according to their grandfather's wishes. As he grew older, Enrico considered himself an agnostic. He was very close to his brother, and they grew up together, played together, and shared an interest in science. The Fermi brothers built electric motors and preferred to play with electrical and mechanical toys. When Enrico was 14 years old, Giulio died during a surgery on his inflamed throat conducted under anesthesia, and his death greatly affected the older brother, causing him to become withdrawn for a while. One of the books that sparked young Fermi's interest in physics was a 909-page volume titled "Elementorum physicae mathematicae," published in 1840 and found by him in a local marketplace. This monumental work, written in Latin, revealed the secrets of mathematics, classical mechanics, astronomy, optics, and acoustics to those who managed to navigate through the dead language. Fermi became friends with another science enthusiast, Enrico Persico, and together they worked on scientific projects such as constructing a gyroscope and measuring the Earth's magnetic field. Soon, Enrico's interest in physics caught the attention of one of his father's colleagues, Adolfo Amidei, who gave the boy several books on physics and mathematics. Fermi devoured them instantly and used them in his own research.
Education and Career
In July 1918, Enrico graduated from high school and, upon Amidei's advice, enrolled in the Higher Normal School in Pisa, which was arguably the most prestigious institution of higher education in Italy. Despite the loss of one son, his parents did not want to send Enrico so far from home, but eventually they had to agree. The school offered its students free tuition, accommodation, and a scholarship for purchasing textbooks, but the applicants had to pass extremely difficult exams, including writing essays. Enrico was given the topic of sound properties, and the professor who evaluated the works was amazed to conclude that the results of his entrance exams would have been sufficient for obtaining a doctoral degree. Fermi became the first on the list of new students at the school. However, even there, he remained largely self-taught because no educational institution at the time could provide him with the necessary knowledge in the theory of relativity, quantum mechanics, and atomic physics. After obtaining a degree in physics, Fermi went to Göttingen University to intern with Max Born, then taught in Leiden, and at the age of 24, he became a professor at the University of Florence, where he taught mathematical physics and theoretical mechanics. A year later, he took over a new department at the University of Rome, becoming one of the youngest professors in its history. In 1928, Fermi married his student Laura Capon, and they had two children.
Move to the United States and Later Years
Despite being a member of the fascist party, like many Italian scientists, in 1938, when Fermi and his family went to receive the Nobel Prize for proving the existence of new radioactive elements, he chose not to return to Italy. Instead, he moved to the United States because Laura was Jewish, and she was already in danger in her homeland. Fermi did not want to risk the safety of his wife and children. American universities eagerly sought the renowned physicist, and in the end, he first joined Columbia University and later moved to Chicago, where he made his most significant discoveries in recent years, including launching and constructing the world's first atomic reactor. Unfortunately, a terrible illness, stomach cancer, claimed the life of this talented scientist too soon, on November 26, 1954, at the age of only 53. By that time, Enrico Fermi, who had accomplished as much in his lifetime as entire research institutes sometimes do in a century, believed that he had done unbelievably little, at most completing only one-third of what he had planned.
