Enrico Fermi

Physicist · Italian-American 🇮🇹🇺🇸 · 1901–1954

Achieved the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in 1942 under the stands of Stagg Field, Chicago. The "architect of the nuclear age".

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Manhattan ProjectEra

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1Nobel Prizes

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1901Born

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1954Died

01 Biography

Enrico Fermi was born in Rome in 1901 and showed exceptional mathematical ability from childhood. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1938 for his work on induced radioactivity, using the ceremony as an opportunity to emigrate to the United States rather than return to Mussolini's Italy. At the University of Chicago in December 1942, he led the team that achieved CP-1 - the world's first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction, beneath the stands of Stagg Field. His coded message: "The Italian navigator has just landed in the New World." He joined the Manhattan Project and was crucial to developing the first atomic bomb. He died of stomach cancer in 1954, aged 53.

02 Key Achievements

→Achieved first nuclear chain reaction (CP-1, 1942)

→Nobel Prize in Physics (1938)

→Developed Fermi-Dirac statistics

→Key figure in Manhattan Project

→Theorised neutrino existence

→Created first nuclear reactor

03 Notable Quote

"There are two possible outcomes: If the result confirms the hypothesis, then you've made a measurement. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you've made a discovery."
- Enrico Fermi

04 Legacy

Fermium (element 100) is named in his honour. The Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois bears his name. His chain reaction experiment directly enabled both nuclear power and nuclear weapons.