Atoms in the family : my life with Enrico Fermi

310 Pages·1954·30.921 MB·English

by  Laura Fermi

ATOMS
IN
IILY
$4.00
2d printing
If one man can be selected as being
most responsible for the coming of
the Atomic Age, that man is Enrico
Fermi.
His wife Laura here writes of the
great scientist and of their life to-
gether. She also explainswith great
skill and simplicity some ofthe bas-
ic facts behind the atom bomb and
the crisis of our time.
Enrico Fermi, winner of the No-
bel Prize and the Congressional
Medal for Merit, was the leader
of the research team that brought
about the first self-sustaining chain
man-made, the great ex-
reaction,
perimental step that ledto the atom
bomb. Mrs. Fermi in these pages
allows the reader to share the ad-
ventures of her life in Italy, the
process of Americanization, the war
secrecy, the achievements and the
back-breaking labor of one of the
most remarkable episodes in his-
tory.
She describes physicists in ac-
—
who happened
tion even those
to share the mo—st dreadful secret
known to man in a humorous,
teasingmood. Einstein, Bohr,Urey,
(Continued on back flap)

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wim
WHWi
HI; Life With ENRICO FESMI
By LAURA FERMI
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
Second printing, before publication
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 37
Cambridge University Press, London, N.W. 1, England
The University of Toronto Press, Toronto 5, Canada
Copyright 1954 by The University of Chicago. All rights re-
served. Copyright 1954 under the International Copyright
Union. Published 1954. Second printing 1954. Composed and
printed by The University of Chicago Press,
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations vii
PART ITALY
I:
1. First Encounters 3
2. The Times before We Met 12
—
3. The Times before We Met Continued 22
4. Birth of a School 33
5. Bebe Peugeot 49
6. Early Married Years 55
7. Mr. North and the Academies 69
8. A Summer in Ann Arbor 76
9. Work 83
10. South American Interlude 94
11. An Accidental Discovery 97
12. How Not To Raise Children 105
13. November 10, 1938 115
14. Departure 125
PART AMERICA
II:
15. The Process of Americanization 139
16. Some Shapes of Things To Come 154
17. An Enemy Alien Works for Uncle Sam 162
18. Of Secrecy and the Pile 176
19. Success 190
20. Site Y 200
21. A Bodyguard and a Few Friends 212
V
contents
22. Life on the Mesa 226
23. The War Ends ^^^
2^"
24. Exit Pontecorvo
25. A New Toy: The Giant Cyclotron 258
267
Acknowledgments
VI
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING
PACE
GiuLio, Enrico (Aged Four),AND MariaFermi 22
Enrico Fermi at Sixteen 23
Emilio Segre, Enrico Persico,AND Enrico Fermi (1927) 23
, . .
Before the Wedding 38
Atthe Wedding (1928) 39
Fermi and Black Sheep 54
Fermi and Bestiolina Nella 54
The Bebe Peugeot 54
The "Cardinal" (Rasetti), the "Pope" (Fermi), and the
"Basilisk" (Segre) 55
The Old Physics Building in Rome 55
CoRBiNo's "Boys" in 1934 70
Members of the RoyalAcademyof Italy 71
Skiingin theAlps: Fermiand Persico Are ReadyTo Start 118
.
Fermi Keeps Himself and His Ski Poles in Good Shape 118
. . .
Ann Arbor, 1930: The Dutch Group and Fermi 119
On the Way Back from South America: Fermi and Ottorino
Respighi (1934) 119
Atthe Nobel Ceremony 134
King Gustavus V of Sweden Presents the Nobel Prize to
Fermi 135
The Einstein Letter, August 2, 1939 198
The First Atomic Pile under Construction in the Squash
Court 199
Policy-making in Los Alamos 214
vii
atoms in the family
Niels Bohron SawyerHill 214
Los Alamos: A House IN "Bathtub Row" 215
After the War the Old Green Houses Were Painted White
AND THE Streets Were Given Names 215
....
General Groves Pins the Medal of Merit on Fermi 242
Edward Teller and Fermi 242
The Institutes for Basic Research 242
The Old West Stands 243
About 1930: A Laboratory in the Physics Building in Rome 243
.
Twenty Years Later: The Giant Cyclotron in Chicago 243
. . .
Fermi's Streetcar 262
John Marshall and Herbert Anderson Look at the Cyclo-
tron Shield 262
A Lecture 262
Research 262
The Fermis and Son Giulio in Washington State, 1947 . . . 263
Time Goes By 1953 263
. . .
VIM