How Fermi Became Fermi David N Schwartz Fermi
How Fermi Became Fermi David N. Schwartz Fermi National Accelerator Lab December 13, 2017
How we usually think of him
Or perhaps like this
How I think of him There’s a story behind that orange line on the right of the image…. .
Circles and lines
KEY DATES � � � � 1901 – Born in Rome 1922 – Graduate University 1925 – Statistics 1926 – Professor at University of Rome 1933 – Theory of Beta Decay 1934 – Slow neutrons 1938 – Nobel Prize 1939 – Professor at Columbia 1942 – Move to Chicago 1942 – CP-1 1943 – 45 – Manhattan Project 1946 – Back to Chicago 1954 – Death from cancer age 53
A Study In Contrasts
Fermi as a Theorist • Fermi used ideas from one area to solve problems in other seemingly unrelated areas • Pauli’s exclusion principle applied to electron orbitals. Fermi applied it to atoms in a monatomic gas - Fermi Dirac Statistics. • Dirac’s quantum field applied to electrodynamics. Fermi applied it to beta decay.
Fermi as an Experimentalist • Rough and ready, little interest in elegance • Hands on, played a central part in every experiment. • “Never make something more accurate than it needs to be. ” • Neutron experiments, CP-1 • Pion experiments, cyclotron trolley
How Fermi Became Fermi �Nature – what he was born with �Nurture – what he was given �Circumstance – the accidents of his life
Nature �As a child his genius was recognized �The story of Reye’s Projective Geometry �The story of spinning tops �Poisson’s Mechanics �Chwolson’s Treatise �Not fast – contrast with von Neumann - BUT �Thoroughness and ferocious curiosity
Nurture Amidei’s curriculum Trig, Analytical Geometry, Calc Poisson’s Two Volume Mechanique Impact of other mentors Puccianti, Ehrenfest, Born, Corbino Impact of colleagues – the need to teach
Circumstance � “If Fermi had been born a few years earlier, one could well imagine him discovering Rutherford’s atomic nucleus, and then developing Bohr’s theory of the hydrogen atom. If this sounds like hyperbole, anything about Fermi is likely to sound like hyperbole. ” �CP Snow
Circumstance • Rise of fascism in Fermi’s early years • Quantum problems of 1923 – 1925 • Failure to observe fission 1934 • Szilard’s presence at Columbia 1939 • Fermi born in 1850? • Fermi born in 2000?
Did He Really Say This?
He really did say: �“Emilio, I am getting rusty and old. I cannot follow the highbrow theory developed by Oppenheimer’s pupils anymore. I went to their seminar and was depressed by my inability to understand them. Only the last sentence cheered me up; it was, ‘and this is Fermi’s theory of beta decay. ’”
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