- Dec 20, 2021
- 4 min read

THE POPE OF PHYSICS

by Gino Segre and Bettina Hoerlin.

A book about much more than physics

Enrico Fermi was nicknamed the Pope by his group of collaborators/students in the Physics Department of the University of Rome in the mid-1930’s. These were known as “The Boys of Via Panisperna”. Under Fermi’s leadership, the Pope and his boys established Italy’s reputation in physics to the level of those of Germany, Denmark, France and England, reversing Italy’s decline in ideas and inventions since Galileo died in 1642, after having been arrested by the Catholic Inquisition and forced in recant certain of his scientific beliefs.

This biography, while centered around Fermi’s contributions to physics and the key role he played in the making of the atomic bomb, also contains much human drama as well as light- hearted humor. I certainly did not know that the first physics book Fermi read was in Latin, and that his first publication in an American journal, Reviews in Modern Physics in 1932, strongly influenced a whole generation of theoretical physicists, including Hans Bethe and Richard Feynman. Feynman later wrote, “Almost my entire knowledge of QED (quantum electrodynamics) came from a simple paper by Fermi.’ Although staying in Rome only for a short time, Bethe had recognized why Fermi was nicknamed the Pope among Italy’s young physicists.

The first self-sustaining controlled nuclear chain reaction was accomplished by Fermi’s group at the University of Chicago on Dec. 2, 1942, a key milestone in mankind’s harnessing of atomic energy. It was essential in the success of the Manhattan project. The chain reaction experiment was classified as top secret and the personnel involved were not allowed to talk about it, even to their spouses. It was interesting that at the party at Fermi’s house celebrating the success of the experiment, Laura Fermi did not know why her husband received so many congratulations from the guests.

Most accounts of the Manhattan project concentrated on what transpired in Los Alamos. The project was actually a three-legged stool, consisting of three sites. Site X, at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was to separate U-235 from the much more plentiful U-238 ore. Site W, chosen at Hanford, Washington, was to produce enough plutonium for a bomb made of Plutonium-239. How to make the materials produced at Site X and Site W and forge a weapon out of them was the third leg of the stool. This was the job of Site Y, chosen to be Los Alamos, New Mexico, which was responsible for the assembly and detonation of a bomb. The contributions of all three sites were essential, as the bomb dropped in Hiroshima was made of U235 and the one dropped in Nagasaki was made of Plutonium-239.

While there will be perpetual debate of whether the atomic bombs should be used against Japan, there was no debate about the horrific crimes committed against the Jews by the Nazis and fascists during World War II. The book told of Laura Fermi’s father, a retired Italian Admiral, perished in the gas chambers in Awschwitz. The mother of Emilio Segre, Fermi’s first graduate student and one of The Boys of Via Panisperna, also died in a rail car on the way to the gas chambers.

Turning from the tragic to the humorous. Not long after the Fermi’s immigrated to the U.S., young Guilio Fermi, told his parents: “You can’t make me wash my hands. This is a free country.”

Another amusing story. There appeared to be a baby boom in Los Alamos, resulting in the population doubling every ninety days. The project director, General Leslie Groves, ordered the associate director, Robert Oppenheimer, to see to it that fewer babies were born in order not to overwhelm the limited medical resources available. Not only had Oppenheimer refused to carry out the directive, but he and his wife, Kitty, had a baby girl, born in December 7, 1944.

After the war, Fermi returned to Rome and continued making contributions to physics. Unfortunately, his health deteriorated. While undergoing an exploratory operation in October 1954, widespread stomach cancer was found. Emilio Segre was able to visit him at his bedside. He found Fermi lying in his hospital bed, serene about his fate. He was “being fed artificially. In typical fashion he was measuring the flux of the nutrients by counting drops with a stopwatch. It seemed as if he were performing one of his usual physics experiments on an extraneous object.” To the very end, Fermi was busy calculating.

On November 3, Fermi went home. He died on November 28, 1954, at the relatively young age of 53.

Laura became a successful writer. Enrico lived long enough to see “Atoms in the Family” on the New York Times bestseller list. Her other books included “The Story of Atomic Energy”, and “Galileo and the Scientific Revolution”, and “Illustrious Immigrants: The intellectual Migration from Europe 1930-41”.

In conclusion, “The Pope of Physics” is an informative book on the Fermi family, the Manhattan project, atomic physics, recent world history, and some light-hearted moments amidst serious events

Fermi and his research group (the Via Pansperna boys) in the courtyard of Rome University’s Physics Institute in Via Pansperna, circa 1934. From left to Right Oscar D’Agostino, Emilio Segre, Edoardo Amaldi, Franco Rasetti and Fermi. (Source: Wikipedia)

Fermi the master teacher (Source: Wikipedia)

Enrico Fermi, Wolfgang Pauli and Werner Heisenberg on the Como Lake during the Volta Conference of September 1927. "The three had already produced a revolution in physics. Without understanding the Pauli Principle, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, and Fermi-Dirac statistics, the world would not have been able to produce semiconductors, transistors, computers, MRIs, lasers, and so many of the other inventions that shape our life. In a real sense we live in a world they created". (Source: Wikipedia)