Enrico Fermi
"Architect of the atomic age"
The New York Times: "Obituary", Nov. 29, 1954
The New York Times: "Obituary", Nov. 29, 1954
"Fermi was born in Rome on 29 September 1901. He was educated at the High School in Rome and later at the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa where he obtained a Doctorate in 1922. He later studied at Gottingen with Born and at Leiden with Ehrenfest. From 1924-26 he was Lecturer in Mathematical Physics at Florence. In 1927 he was elected to a Professorship of Theoretical Physics in Rome and in 1929 became one of the Founder Members of the Royal Academy of Italy." "In 1928 Dr. Fermi married Laura Capon. The couple had two children, Nella and Giulio." |
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exile to america
"...the limitations placed on the range and freedom of activity of the mind had become intolerable..."
- S K Allison, E Segre and H L Anderson
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists: "Enrico Fermi", Jan. 1955
"Dr. Fermi, unhappy in Mussolini's Italy, especially from the time the Italian dictator began promulgating anti-Semitic laws to please Hitler, took the opportunity to escape the Fascist-ridden land when he received the Nobel Prize in physics in the autumn of 1938. Leaving Italy with his wife and two young children to go to Stockholm, ostensibly for the purpose of receiving the prize, he told the Italian authorities he had accepted a temporary teaching post in an American University. He arrived in New York on Jan. 2, 1939, and quietly assumed a permanent post on the physics faculty at Columbia University."
The New York Times: "Obituary", Nov. 29, 1954