Encyclopedia entry: Fermi, Enrico

Fermi, Enrico (1901–1954), nuclear physicist, Nobel laureate, and inventor of nuclear power .Born in Rome, Fermi obtained his doctorate at the Reale Scuole Normale Superiore in Pisa in 1922. After studies with Max Born in Göttingen, Germany, he returned to Italy, where in Florence he discovered Fermi‐Dirac statistics, a system for mathematically analyzing the behavior of subatomic particles. Appointed a full professor at Rome shortly thereafter, he formulated the theory of nuclear beta‐decay. In a series of experiments, he also found that slow neutrons were efficient agents of nuclear transformations and won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1938. With his Jewish ...

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