Enrico Fermi biography

Synopsis

Early Life

Enrico Fermi was born in Rome, Italy, on September, 29, 1901, the third child of Alberto and Ida de Gattis Fermi. Ida was a remarkable woman, trained as a teacher, highly intelligent and a major influence on her children's education.

Enrico Fermi's intense interest in physics was said to be the result of a family tragedy. When Enrico was 14, his beloved older brother, Giulio, died suddenly. Enrico was devastated. To console him, his parents encouraged his studies. He came across a couple of physics books written a half century earlier, and was totally enthralled. During his teens, he and friends conducted physics experiments for fun, including testing the density of Rome's water supply.

In 1918, Fermi won a scholarship to the prestigious Scuola Normale Superiore University in Pisa, Italy. His entry essay was so impressive that Fermi was quickly elevated to the doctoral program, and he graduated with honors in 1922. In 1923, he won a Rockefeller Fellowship and spent several months with renowned physicist professor Max Born in Gottingen, Germany.

Early Career in Physics

Soon, Enrico Fermi's physics career and personal life flourished. In 1928, he married Laura Capon, the daughter of a respected Jewish family in Rome. They had one son, Giulio, and a daughter named Nella. Professionally, Fermi was elected professor of theoretical physics at the University of Rome.

In 1934, Fermi began his most important work with the atom, discovering that nuclear transformation could occur in nearly every element. One of the elements' atoms he split was uranium. This work led to the discovery of slowing down neutrons, which led to nuclear fission and the production of new elements beyond the traditional Periodic Table.

In 1938, Fermi was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics "for his work with artificial radioactivity produced by neutrons, and for nuclear reactions brought about by slow neutrons." The honor was a life-saver for the Fermi family. Fascist Italy had just instituted anti-Jewish laws. The award ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden, gave the family the opportunity to travel out of Italy and escape to America.

Life in America

Situated safely in the United States, in 1939, Fermi was appointed professor of physics at New York's Columbia University. While there, Fermi discovered that if uranium neutrons were emitted into fissioning uranium, they could split other uranium atoms, setting off a chain reaction that would release enormous amounts of energy. His experiments led to the first controlled nuclear chain reaction in Chicago, on December 2, 1942, under Chicago's athletic stadium.