Enrico Fermi was born in Rome on 29th September, 1901, the son of Alberto Fermi. He attended a local grammar school, and his early aptitude for mathematics and physics was recognized and encouraged by his father’s colleagues. In 1918, he won a fellowship of the Scuola
Normale Superiore of Pisa. He spent four years at the University of Pisa, gaining his doctor’s degree in physics in 1922.
Soon afterwards, in 1923, he was awarded a scholarship from the Italian Government and spent some months with Professor Max Born. With a Rockefeller Fellowship, in 1924, he moved to Leyden to work with P. Ehrenfest, and later that same year he returned to Italy to occupy for two years the post of Lecturer in Mathematical Physics and Mechanics at the University of Florence.
In 1926, Fermi discovered the statistical laws, now-a-days known as the ‘Fermi statistics’In 1927, Fermi was elected Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Rome (a post which he retained until 1938, when he—immediately after the receipt of the Nobel Prize— emigrated to America, primarily to escape Mussolini’s fascist dictatorship).
During the early years of his career in Rome he occupied himself with electrodynamic problems and with theoretical investigations on various spectroscopic phenomena. But a capital turning-point came when he directed his attention from the outer electrons towards the atomic nucleus itself. In 1934, he evolved the ß-decay theory, coalescing previous work on radiation theory with Pauli’s idea of the neutrino. Following the discovery by Curie and Joliot of artificial radioactivity (1934), he demonstrated that nuclear transformation occurs in almost every element subjected to neutron bombardment. This work resulted in the discovery of slow neutrons that same year, leading to the discovery of nuclear fission and the production of elements lying beyond what was until then the Periodic Table.
In 1938, Fermi was without doubt the greatest expert on neutrons, and he continued his work on this topic on his arrival in the United States, where he was soon appointed Professor of Physics at Columbia University, N.Y.
In 1944, Fermi became American citizen, and at the end of the war (1946) he accepted a professorship at the Institute for Nuclear Studies of the University of Chicago, a position which he held until his untimely death in 1954. There he turned his attention to high-energy physics, and led investigations into the pion-nucleon interaction.
During the last years of his life Fermi occupied himself with the problem of the mysterious origin of cosmic rays, thereby developing a theory, according to which a universal magnetic field—acting as a giant accelerator—would account for the fantastic energies present in the cosmic ray particles.
Professor Fermi was the author of numerous papers both in theoretical and experimental physics.
The Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to Fermi for his work on the artificial radioactivity produced by neutrons, and for nuclear reactions brought about by slow neutrons.
Fermi was member of several academies and learned societies in Italy and abroad. As lecturer he was always in great demand. He was the first recipient of a special award of $50,000—which now bears his name—for work on the atom.
Professor Fermi married Laura Capon in 1928. They had one son Giulio and one daughter Nella. His favourite pastimes were walking, mountaineering, and winter sports.
He died in Chicago on 28 November, 1954.
