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Enrico Fermi was born into a family who had enough money to live comfortably. “Fermi was born in Rome on the 29th of September,1901, the son of Alberto Fermi, a Chief Inspector of the Ministry of Communications, and Ida de Gattis” (Mawson 12). Although he had a comfortable life, he also had his share of problems and tragedies. As a child, Fermi was small and unattractive. He was often lonely and found comfort in the company of his older brother. Fermi did not study physics until he was a teenager. Tragedy had struck his family. “He discovered physics at the age of 14, when left bereft by the death of his cherished older brother, Guilo, during minor throat surgery…” (Rhodes 154). Fermi could not be consoled by religion like his family. The death of his brother left him even more quiet and lonely than before. Enrico Fermi then decided to devote his life to studying. “Physics may have offered more consolatory certitude than religion” (Poindexter 50). His early aptitude for physics and mathematics was recognized. After his brother’s death, the grieving boy browsed through bookstalls at Campo dei Fion in Rome. “He found two antique volumes of elementary physics and carried them home…” (154). Fermi read them and corrected some of the mathematics. When finished, he discovered something he had not noticed before. They were written in Latin. Due to Fermi’s excellent achievement in mathematics and physics, he was encouraged by many of his father’s colleagues. “He progressed so quickly, guided by an engineer, that his competition essay was judged worthy of a doctoral examination (10). His family had enough money to send him to college but he was still able to get scholarships for his academic achievement. He won a fellowship of the Scuola Normale Superiore in 1918. “He spent four years at the University of Pisa, gaining his doctoral degree in physics in 1922…”(12). He was even teaching his teachers there by 1920. While still an undergraduate, Fermi worked out his first theory of permanent value to physics. He also attended the Universities of Rome, Leiden and Gottingen. “His only setback was a period of post doctoral study in Germany in 1923 among such talents such as Wolfgang Pauli and Werner Heisenberg when his talents went unrecognized” (154). He preferred simplicity and concreteness rather than pretension and the philosophic German style. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the American theorist, later described Fermi as “not a philosopher” and unable to let things be foggy. He had a passion for clarity. After Fermi graduated, he went straight to work. He began teaching at different universities. “He taught at the University of Florence from 1924 to 1926 and at the University of Rome from 1927 to 1938” (Epstein 87). At the age of 25, he was appointed professor of theoretical physics at the University of Rome in 1927. He retained that post until 1938. “He quickly assembled a small group of first-class young talents for his self-appointed task of reviving Italian physics”(Siegfried F5). They judged him infallible and nicknamed him “the Pope.” In 1934, Fermi and his team nearly found nuclear fission, looking for radioactive transformations, in the course of experiments in which they systematically bombarded one element after another with the newly discovered neutron. They missed by the thickness of the sheet of foil, in which they wrapped their uranium 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 experiment proved that it was very possible to build an atomic bomb. “Fermi’s task however, was to create a controlled nuclear reaction; that is to split an atom without creating a deadly explosion” (Sonneborn 69). President Roosevelt was then convinced to appoint Fermi head of a research team of the secret project of developing an atomic bomb. “From that first small pile grew production reactors that bred plutonium for the first atom bombs” (154). After moving from Chicago to Los Alamos, New Mexico, Fermi was on hand for the first test of the brutal new weapon in July 1945” (154). Fermi argued against the development of the hydrogen bomb in 1949 when the project was debated. He called it “a weapon which in practical effect is almost one of genocide.” His council went unheeded and the U.S. – Soviet arms race that ensued put the world at mortal risk…” (154). The discovery of how to release nuclear energy had long term beneficial results – the development of an essentially unlimited new source of energy and forestalling, maybe permanently, of world-scale war. Fermi received a special award of $25,000 for his work on the atomic bomb from the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission in 1954. Later that year, Fermi prematurely died of stomach cancer. Of the many important discoveries that occurred during the 20th century, several have had far-reaching ramifications and altered the course of history. Those tremendous advances that were made in science had tremendous effects worldwide and laid the foundation for further scientific developments that were to come. Enrico Fermi’s contribution to the area of physics, which led to the development of the first atomic bomb, opened up the secret of the atom, unleashing its tremendous power. The world lost its innocence and entered the atomic age. There would be no turning back. Thesis: Without Enrico Fermi’s contributions, the atomic bomb may not have been developed or would have possibly been postponed. II. Fermi’s Early Life and Family 2. Fermi’s accomplishments while still an undergraduate. 2. Fermi’s accomplishments while a professor Bibliography: Word Count: 1310
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