Abstract
Galileo’s investigation of nature, based on a deep interplay between “sensible experiences” and “certain proofs,” has been a foundational passage in the history of modern science. The empirical and the rational aspects of the scientific investigation correspond to two different figures of researchers: the experimentalist and the theorist. Enrico Fermi belonged to the last generation of scientists in which the two attitudes could coexist. Nowadays, the higher mathematics needed in theoretical research and the more and more sophisticated instrumentation used in experiments require an extreme specialization and cannot be mastered by the same person.
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Notes
- 1.
E. Segrè, Enrico Fermi Physicist, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1970, p. 5. Translator’s note: this book was first published in English and then in Italian. As a rule we quote from the English edition, and only seldom we translate from the Italian edition, when it is more complete. Unless otherwise stated, notes refer to the English edition.
- 2.
L. Fermi, Atoms in the Family, my Life with Enrico Fermi, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1961.
- 3.
The first meeting between Persico and Fermi is recounted in E. Persico, Souvenir de Enrico Fermi, Scientia 90 (1955), p. 316.
- 4.
L.G. Paldy, A Master Teacher, The Physics Teacher 8 (1969), p. 39.
- 5.
E. Segrè, op. cit., p. 8.
- 6.
Th. Reye, Geometria di posizione [Position geometry], Tipografia Emiliana, Venezia 1884 (transl. from Die Geometrie der Lage, Baumgartner, Leipzig 1866).
- 7.
Trattato di trigonometria piana e sferica [A treatise on plane and spherical trigonometry], translated from Traité de trigonometrie, Mallet-Bachelier, Paris 1857.
- 8.
Chwolson’s treatise has nine volumes and basically includes all the physics that was known at the time, including the new revolutionary theories due to Einstein, Planck, Poincaré, Lorentz, and others.
- 9.
This is a (still functioning) Roman aqueduct built by the praetor Quintus Marcius Rex in 144 B.C.
- 10.
E. Segrè, op. cit., p. 13.
- 11.
Franco Rasetti, close collaborator and a friend of Fermi’s, went on cultivating his many interests in science, and became a recognized expert in entomology, paleontology, botanics, and embryology.
- 12.
Letter dated 30 January 1920, in Segrè, op. cit., p. 194.
- 13.
F. Rasetti, Introduzione alla formazione di immagini mediante raggi Röntgen [Introduction to imaging by means of Röntgen rays], CPF I, p. 56.
- 14.
- 15.
Fermi [3].
- 16.
Letter dated 30 May 1920, in Segrè, op. cit., p. 227.
- 17.
Fermi’s habilitation thesis was entitled “Un teorema di calcolo delle probabilità e alcune sue applicazioni” [A theorem in probability and some applications], CPF I, p. 196. Giovanni Polvani introduces this work with an interesting comment: “Fermi, in addition to his degree in physics, in the same year obtained his habilitation from Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, with a thesis which treated the life of asteroids with probabilistic techniques, and was divided in two parts; the first was theoretical, and contained the proof of a theorem in probability theory, which was applied to the study of asteroids in the second part. During the defense of the thesis some mathematicians raised some objections about the solution of a certain equation. It is possible that that criticism is the reason why, contrary to the custom of publishing the habilitation theses in the journal Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Fermi’s thesis, while procuring him the full marks cum laude, was not published” (G. Polvani, in CPF I, p. 227).
- 18.
See E. Segrè, op. cit., p. 32.
- 19.
The reasons of this relative failure are not easily understood. In the third chapter we shall formulate a hypothesis. For the moment we only record Laura Fermi’s comment (op. cit., p. 40–41): “Still he could never shed the feeling that he was a foreigner and did not belong in the group of men around Professor Born. Born himself was kind and hospitable. But he did not guess that the young man from Rome, for all his apparent self-reliance, was the very moment going through that stage of life which most young people cannot avoid. Fermi was groping in uncertainty and seeking reassurance. He was hoping for a pat on the back from Professor Max Born.” Nevertheless, according to what Bruno Pontecorvo wrote in his Enrico Fermi (Studio Tesi, Pordenone 1933), Max Born had a very high opinion of Enrico Fermi.
- 20.
The work that drew the attention of Ehrenfest — a theoretical physicist of great value and recognized prestige, especially in the area of statistical physics — was Fermi [13a].
- 21.
Fermi’s stays in Göttingen and Leiden are reconstructed with much detail in F. Cordella, A. De Gregorio, and F. Sebastiani, Enrico Fermi, gli anni italiani [Enrico Fermi, his Italian years], Editori Riuniti, Roma 2001, pp. 117–125.
- 22.
Fermi [26].
- 23.
Fermi [28(1)].
- 24.
CPF I, p. 161.
- 25.
In the summer of 1925 Werner Heisenberg, Max Born, and Pascual Jordan lay the bases of matrix mechanics, which later Jordan will show to be equivalent to Schrödinger’s wave mechanics. We shall deal again with this topic in later chapters.
- 26.
Fermi indeed writes to Persico in a letter: “My feeling is that the progress during the last few years is not really substantial, in spite of the formal results in the zoology of spectral terms obtained by Heisenberg. According to my taste, they are going too far in giving up to understand things.”
- 27.
According to Pontecorvo: “In all works of Fermi, the mathematical apparatus is strictly adequate to the problem under study. He has always been alien to excessive formalism, but, if necessary, he was ready to make use of the most sophisticated techniques […] Concerning the relation between Fermi and mathematics, one should stress that during his years in Rome, he considered mathematics as a great science, which, however, was unable to reinvent itself. As he once said, “Today’s mathematics is no longer at the cutting edge of science, as it used to be in Gauss’ times; too often nowadays a mathematician or a mathematically oriented physicist invents a difficult problem and solves it, just to say “Look how smart I am!” (B. Pontecorvo, op. cit., pp. 31–33).
- 28.
“Libera docenza,” abolished in 1970, was a title, conferred after an examination, that allowed the holder to teach courses at a University. It was similar to Germany’s Privatdozent title.
- 29.
Giovanni Giorgi, a student of the famous mathematicians Eugenio Beltrami and Luigi Cremona, graduated from the Engineering School of Rome in 1893. His interests were disparate, as shown by the courses he gave in many different topics. He is remembered especially because of his proposal in 1901 of the system of measurement that bears his name, based on meter, mass-kilogram, and second, together with a fourth unit to be chosen among the electrotechnical practical units. For details about the awarding of the professorship in Cagliari, see E. Segrè, op. cit., p. 41.
- 30.
These are the minutes of the meeting of the committee, translated from E. Segrè, Enrico Fermi, fisico, Zanichelli, Bologna 1987, p. 44.
- 31.
In 1928 Aldo Pontremoli was entrusted with part of the scientific program of Umberto Nobile’s airship expedition to the North Pole. Pontremoli died on May 25 when the airship crashed on the pack.
- 32.
Fermi [40b].
- 33.
F. Rasetti, Enrico Fermi e la fisica in Italia, [Enrico Fermi and Italian physics], in C. Bernardini and L. Bonolis (eds.), Conoscere Fermi [Knowing Fermi], Compositori, Bologna 2001, p. 49.
- 34.
Ettore Majorana was a nephew of Quirino Majorana, a professor of experimental physics at the University of Bologna. He somehow played a marginal role in the group of Via Panisperna. He did not attend the meetings and, due to his character, worked in isolation. He was a highly gifted researcher; as Segrè says, “Ettore Majorana greatly surpassed his new companions, and in some respects — for instance, as a pure mathematician — he was superior even to Fermi.” (Segrè, op. cit., p. 51). For a reconstruction of Majorana’s figure see E. Recami, Il caso Majorana. Epistolario, documenti, testimonianze, Mondadori, Milano 1991; L. Bonolis, Majorana: il genio scomparso, Le Scienze, Milano 2002.
- 35.
Translated from E. Segrè, Enrico Fermi, fisico, p. 50.
- 36.
Fermi published several popular papers; he wanted to spread the basic ideas of the new physical theories. He mostly wrote in “Periodico di matematiche,” a journal managed by Federigo Enriques and mainly directed to high school teachers. Fermi in the summer 1927 also wrote the first Italian book about modern physics: Introduzione alla fisica atomica, published by Zanichelli in 1928. In the same year he started writing a 2-volume textbook for high schools, which, according to his wife, “[…] although no masterpiece — it was mediocre prose and complied with unimaginative government programs — still served its purpose of bringing economics return for many years.” (L. Fermi, op. cit., p. 62).
- 37.
This activity took place on late afternoons in Fermi’s office. It had mainly the form of informal meetings and casual conversations, often starting with a question by one of the students, and morphing into articulated lectures that appeared to have been carefully planned.
- 38.
Fermi [43].
- 39.
The “Reale Accademia d’Italia” was founded in 1929 on Benito Mussolini’s initiative, with the aim of obscuring the Accademia dei Lincei, some members of which were definitely anti-fascist. Fermi was appointed directly by Mussolini, most likely after Corbino’s suggestion; the latter was already a senator so he could not be appointed in the Academy. Until then Fermi had shown no particular support to fascism, but had rather kept a stance of political indifference.
- 40.
Fermi [67]. In 1955 Hans Bethe, during a symposium in Fermi’s honor, said: “Many of you probably, like myself, have learned their first field theory from Fermi’s wonderful article in the Reviews of Modern Physics of 1932. It is an example of simplicity in a difficult field which I think is unsurpassed.” H. Bethe, Memorial symposium in honor of E. Fermi at the Washington meeting of the American Physical Society, April 29, 1955, in Review of Modern Physics, 27 (1955), p. 249.
- 41.
O. M. Corbino, I nuovi compiti della fisica sperimentale [The new objectives of experimental physics], Atti della Società Italiana per il Progresso delle Scienze, 18 (1929), p. 127.
- 42.
Lisa Meitner was a researcher of undisputed prestige in the field of radioactivity. She formulated one of the most known models for the nuclei of radioactive elements and made important discoveries, also thanks to the collaboration with Otto Hahn. Otto Stern, who in 1921, together with Walther Gerlach, performed the celebrated “Stern-Gerlach experiment,” became the director of the Chemical-Physical Institute of the University of Hamburg in 1923; he created there an important research group on molecular beams.
- 43.
E. Rutherford, Ch. D. Ellis and J. Chadwick, Radiations for Radioactive Substances, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1930.
- 44.
F. Rasetti, in CPF I, p. XXXIV.
- 45.
E. Segrè, op. cit., p. 75.
- 46.
Fermi [76].
- 47.
Fermi [80b].
- 48.
Fermi [80a].
- 49.
Neutron-bombarding induced radioactivity.
- 50.
Fermi [84a].
- 51.
The Pope is also the bishop of Rome, but due to his many responsibilities, a “Cardinal Vicar” is appointed to help him with the spiritual administration of the diocese.
- 52.
“Congregatio de propaganda fide,” now called “Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples,” is the congregation of the Catholic Church responsible for missionary work and related activities.
- 53.
E. Amaldi, Commemorazione del socio Enrico Fermi, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, quaderno n. 35 (1955), in Bernardini and Bonolis, op. cit., p. 29.
- 54.
“Hesperia” was the ancient Greeks’ name for the lands west to Greece, in particular Italy. “Ausoni” was the name of a pre-Roman population of Southern Italy.
- 55.
O. M. Corbino, Risultati e prospettive della fisica moderna [Results and perspectives of modern physics], in Conferenze e discorsi, Pinci, Roma 1937, p. 64.
- 56.
I. Noddack, Über das Element 93, in Angewandte Chemie, 47 (1934), p. 653.
- 57.
There is no consensus on the date. Recent investigations seem to prove that it should be anticipated by a few days; see A. De Gregorio, Sulla scoperta della proprietà delle sostanze idrogenate di accrescere la radioattività indotta dai neutroni [On the discovery of the property of hydrogenated substances of increasing the neutron-induced radioactivity], Il Nuovo Saggiatore, 3 (2003), p. 41.
- 58.
E. Segrè, op. cit, p. 80.
- 59.
Ibid.
- 60.
B. Pontecorvo, op. cit., p. 82.
- 61.
According to Hadamard there are four stages in the mathematical invention: the first is the conscious consideration of the problem, the second is a period of unconscious incubation, the third is the moment of revelation, when the solution that has been unconsciously elaborated emerges in the conscious stratum of the mind, and the fourth is the final, conscious dedication to the problem.
- 62.
CPF II, p. 927.
- 63.
- 64.
- 65.
E. Amaldi, in CPF I, p. 810–811.
- 66.
CPF I, p. 811.
- 67.
The accelerator was eventually built in the spring of 1939, when Fermi was already in the United States.
- 68.
The story is told in detail in M. De Maria, Fermi: un fisico da via Panisperna all’America [Fermi: a physicist from Via Panisperna to America], Le Scienze, Milano 1999, p. 51–53.
- 69.
Ibid., p. 53.
- 70.
E. Segrè, op. cit., p. 95.
- 71.
L. Fermi, op. cit., p. 120.
- 72.
L. Fermi, op. cit., p. 139.
- 73.
R. Vergara Caffarelli, Enrico Fermi. Immagini e documenti [Enrico Fermi. Images and documents], La Limonaia, Pisa 2001, pp. 81–82.
- 74.
E. Amaldi, Da via Panisperna all’America [From Via Panisperna to America], Editori Riuniti, Roma 1997, p. 63.
- 75.
Nobel Lectures, Physics 1922–1941, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam 1965, p. 413.
- 76.
O. Hahn and F. Strassmann, Über die Entstehung von Radiumisotopen aus Uran durch Bestrahlen mit schnellen und verlangsamten Neutronen, in Naturwissenschaften 26 (1938), p. 755; Id., Über den Nachweis und das Verhalten der bei Bestrahlung des Urans mittels Neutronen entstehenden Erdalkalimetalle, Naturwissenschaften 27 (1939), p. 11.
- 77.
L. Meitner and O. R. Frisch, Disintegration of Uranium by neutrons: A new type of nuclear reaction, Nature 143 (1939), p. 239.
- 78.
L. Fermi, op. cit., p. 139.
- 79.
- 80.
Fermi [132].
- 81.
Russian-born Alexander Sachs, economist and biologist, was Lehman Corporation’s vice-president. A staunch supporter of Roosevelt, was his economic consultant in the 1932 presidential campaign.
- 82.
E. Segrè, op. cit., p. 121.
- 83.
A. Wattenberg, December 2, 1942: the event and the people, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 38 No. 10 (1982), pp. 30–32.
- 84.
H. DeWolf Smyth, Atomic Energy for Military Purposes, Princeton University Press, Princeton 1945.
- 85.
E. Amaldi, op. cit., p. 148.
- 86.
E. Segrè, op. cit., p. 140.
- 87.
E. Segrè, op. cit., p. 145.
- 88.
- 89.
- 90.
- 91.
- 92.
Physicist Frederick A. Lindemann, first Viscount Cherwell, was Winston Churchill’s scientific adviser.
- 93.
- 94.
- 95.
H.S. Truman, in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Harry S. Truman, Containing the Public Messages, Speeches and Statements of the President April 12 to December 31, 1945, Washington DC, p. 212. The complete text was also published in the New York Times, 10 August 1945, p. 12.
- 96.
E. Amaldi, Da via Panisperna all’America, op. cit., p. 158.
- 97.
J. R. Oppenheimer, Physics in the Contemporary World, Anthoensen Press, Portland ME 1947, p. 11.
- 98.
E. Segrè, op. cit., p. 159.
- 99.
E. Segrè, op. cit., p. 162.
- 100.
R. Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Penguin Books, London 1986.
- 101.
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist 32 no. 10 (1976), p. 58.
- 102.
Gabriele D’Annunzio (1863–1938) was one of the most celebrated Italian poets and writers in the early 20th century. He was a leading figure of the nationalistic fascist culture and was very well known, also for his military and patriotic deeds.
- 103.
G. D’Annunzio, La Nave, Fratelli Treves, Milano 1908. Third episode, p. 232.
- 104.
N. Metropolis, Numerical Solution of a Minimum Problem, (Introduction) in CPF II, p. 861.
- 105.
The paper was completed in 1955 after Fermi’s death and was published as a Los Alamos report (Fermi [266]).
- 106.
- 107.
E. Amaldi, op. cit., p. 166.
- 108.
A complete list can be found in C. N. Yang’s introduction to Are mesons elementary particles?, in CPF II, p. 674, and at the URL www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/crerar/fermi/fermidiss.html.
- 109.
G. Salvini, Enrico Fermi il maestro sperimentale e teorico del secolo ora trascorso. Alcuni ricordi personali [Enrico Fermi, the experimental and theoretical master of the century which is just over. Some personal recollections], in “Celebrazioni del centenario della nascita di Enrico Fermi,” Il Nuovo Saggiatore, 16 (2001), no. 5–6, p. 20.
- 110.
Fermi [240].
- 111.
Fermi [270].
- 112.
Introduction to Lectures on pions and nucleons, in CPF II, p. 1004.
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Bruzzaniti, G. (2016). The last Galilean. In: Enrico Fermi. Springer Biographies. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-3533-8_1
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