ENRICO FERMI

The physics pioneer best known in the space world for his famous Fermi paradox

gifted teen, Fermi won a scholarship to the prestigious Scuola Normale Superiore University in Pisa with an entry essay so impressive it would have been commendable for a doctorate. Fermi was even asked by his teachers to organise his own seminars on quantum physics, as there was nothing they could teach him. Fermi’s skills meant he was largely self-taught, and he graduated with honours in 1922. He went on to win a Rockefeller fellowship, studying under renowned physicist

Max Born in Germany, where he also met Albert Einstein. Between 1926 and 1927, Fermi and English physicist Paul Dirac developed new statistics known as Fermi-Dirac statistics, concerned with subatomic particles that obey the Pauli exclusion principle. These particles, now known as fermions, were a monumental contribution to atomic and nuclear physics.

Continuing to impress and excel, Fermi was elected professor of theoretical physics at the University of Rome, gathering a team of talented students. It was at Rome that he began his most important work, beginning to look into the field of nuclear physics. In 1934 he discovered that nuclear transformation could occur in most elements. One of the atoms Fermi split was

Auranium; this led to the phenomenon of slowing down neutrons, which in turn led to the creation of new elements beyond the periodic table. Fermi was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1938 for his contributions to physics, using the prize money to escape with his family to America. Once safely in the United States, Fermi continued his work as professor of physics at Columbia University, where his experiments led to the first nuclear chain reaction. As World War II broke out, Fermi was employed as a major part of the team that developed the atomic bomb.

Fermi became a full American citizen in 1944, working with a variety of distinguished scientists such as James Cronin and Jack Steinberger.

While working in America he began to redirect his attention away from nuclear physics and towards high-energy particle physics. Fermi dedicated a lot of his time to studying the origin of cosmic rays, also investigating magnetic fields in the arms of a spiral galaxy. He also raised a question now known as the Fermi paradox: “Where is everybody?” This famously asks why no extraterrestrial civilizations have been found and no contact made. Sadly by 1954 Fermi was suffering with incurable stomach cancer, and he died in his sleep aged 53.