Enrico Fermi

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Fermi, Enrico (1901-54), Italian-American physicist and Nobel laureate, known for achieving the first controlled nuclear
centers for theoretical physics in Europe. In 1926 he became professor of theoretical physics at the University of Rome.
There he developed a new kind of statistics for explaining the behavior of electrons. He also developed a theory of beta
decay and, from 1934 on, investigated the production of artificial radioactivity by bombarding elements with neutrons.
For the latter work he was awarded the 1938 Nobel Prize in physics. Rather than return to the political harassment of
Fascist Italy (Fermi's wife was Jewish), Fermi and his family immigrated to the United States, where he became professor
of physics at Columbia University. By this time Fermi was keenly aware of the significance of his experimental work in the
effort to produce atomic energy. He created the first controlled nuclear fission chain reaction in December 1942 at the
University of Chicago and worked for the rest of World War II (1939-1945) at Los Alamos, New Mexico, on the atomic bomb
(see NUCLEAR ENERGY; NUCLEAR WEAPONS). Later, he opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb on ethical grounds.
After the war, in 1946, Fermi became a professor of physics and the director of the new Institute of Nuclear Studies at the
University of Chicago. As in his days at Rome, students from all over the world came to Chicago to study with him. His career
was cut short by his untimely death from Cancer on November 28, 1954, in Chicago. The Enrico Fermi Award honoring his memory
is given annually to the individual who has contributed most to the development, use, or control of atomic energy.

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Stanley Goldberg