Enrico Fermi
Enrico Fermi
Science
Featured Today
Science
Ludovic Halévy Lit.West
François Mauriac Lit.West
Robert Koch Science
Zygmunt Krasiński Lit.West
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Lit.West
an Italian (later naturalized American) physicist and the creator of the world's first nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1.
Born
29 September 1901 Rome, Kingdom of Italy
Died
28 November 1954 (aged 53) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Known for
Demonstrating first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction Fermion Fermi gas Fermi–Dirac statistics Fermi's golden rule Fermi paradox Fermi method Thomas–Fermi model Thomas–Fermi screening Fermi theory
Fields
Physics
Alma mater
Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa
Awards
Matteucci Medal (1926) Nobel Prize (1938) Hughes Medal (1942) Medal for Merit (1946) Franklin Medal (1947) ForMemRS (1950) Barnard Medal for Meritorious Service to Science (1950) Rumford Prize (1953) Max
Institutions
Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa University of Göttingen Leiden University University of Florence Sapienza University of Rome Columbia University University of Chicago
Spouse(s)
Laura Capon Fermi
Academic advisors
Luigi Puccianti Max Born Paul Ehrenfest
adultbasic
Italy
Children
2
Citizenship
Italian (1901–44) American (1944–54)
Doctoral students
Harold Agnew Edoardo Amaldi Owen Chamberlain Geoffrey Chew Mildred Dresselhaus Jerome Friedman Richard Garwin Marvin Goldberger Tsung-Dao Lee Ettore Majorana Arthur Rosenfeld Emilio Segrè Sam Treiman
era
1800+
Other notable students
Jack Steinberger Chen Ning Yang