Enrico Fermi

Enrico Fermi was born in Rome on September 29, 1901. He is best known for his contributions to nuclear physics and the development quantum theory.

In 1934, while professor of physics at the University of Rome, Fermi began experiments where he bombarded a variety of elements with neutrons. He discovered that slow moving neutrons were especially effective in producing radioactive atoms. Not realizing he had split the atom, Fermi announced what he thought were elements beyond uranium. He won the 1938 Nobel Prize for physics for his work on nuclear processes. Also in 1938 two German physicists, Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch performed a similar experiment where they split a uranium atom. They named the process of splitting atoms "nuclear fission."

In 1938 Fermi was forced to flee Italy to escape the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini. He was one of a large group of intellectuals who fled other countries of Europe due to the rise of National Socialism (the Nazi Party) in Germany and Fascism in Italy. Fermi settled in the United States, and became professor of physics at Columbia University in 1939. He moved to the University of Chicago in 1942 where he developed the first atomic pile, and produced the first nuclear chain reaction. During World War II he became part of the team that developed the atomic bomb at Los Alamos, New Mexico. After the war he pioneered research on high energy particles.