1901-1954

American Physicist

Enrico Fermi discovered a way to induce artificial radiation in heavy elements by shooting neutrons into their atomic nuclei. Using this technique he produced the first transuranium elements; that is, heavy elements that appear after uranium in the periodic table. For these accomplishments, Fermi was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1938. He was also instrumental in the design and construction of the world's first nuclear reactor at the University of Chicago. December 2, 1942, when a self-sustaining chain reaction was first achieved there, is often considered to be the beginning of the Atomic Age.

Fermi was born on September 29, 1901, in Rome, the son of railroad employee Alberto Fermi and his wife, Ida de Gattis. A precocious student, Fermi had decided to become a physicist before he had graduated from high school. He received his doctorate in physics at the University of Pisa in 1922. After...