nium sample. It blocked the fission fragments that their instruments would have recorded otherwise. “If fission had come to light in the mid-1930’s, while the democracies still slept, Nazi Germany would have won a lead toward building an atomic bomb” (154). It had been a blessing in disguise. Fermi had made the most important discovery of his life. He unknowingly had split an atom but believed that he had discovered a new element.For the research Fermi had done, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 1938. “While in Sweden to receive his Nobel Prize, Fermi decided not to return to Facist Italy” (Albright 68). The Italian government had passed laws discriminating against Jews. He and many outstanding scientists, including Albert Einstein, immigrated to the United States to escape the anti-Semitic persecution in Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy – in Fermi’s case his wife, Laura. They moved to the United States to start a new life. “Because Hitler hounded Jewish scientists out of Europe, the Anglo-American atom bomb program was sparked by the discovery of fission in late 1938” (154). In 1939, Fermi was appointed professor of physics at Columbia University. While teaching there, he came to learn of a new theory developed by Lisa Meitner, a physicist from Germany. “Drawing from Fermi’s work and her own experiments, she came to believe that a neutron could split still more uranium atoms, releasing energy and more neutrons in the process” (Sonneborn 82). Fermi realized that if this chain reaction continued it would create an incredible explosion. Fermi went to work testing his theories with funds from the U.S. government. “It took years to stockpile enough uranium but finally in December 1942, Fermi was ready” (Struewer 73). Fermi oversaw the first controlled nuclear chain reaction at the University of Chicago. His expe...
