The Pope of Physics: Enrico Fermi and the Birth of the Atomic Age

Abstract

Family roots -- The Little Match (Il Piccolo Fiammifero) -- Leaning in: physics and Pisa -- Student days -- The young protégé -- The summer of 1924 -- Florence -- Quantum leaps -- Enrico and Laura -- The boys of Via Panisperna -- The Royal Academy -- Crossing the Atlantic -- Bombarding the neutron -- Decay -- The neutron comes to Rome -- The rise and fall of the boys -- Transitions -- Stockholm calls -- Fission -- News travels -- Chain reaction -- The race begins -- New Americans and the birth of the pile -- The sleeping giant -- Chicago bound -- Critical pile (CP-1) -- The day the atomic age was born -- The Manhattan project: a three-legged stool -- Signor Fermi becomes Mister Farmer -- Götterdämmerung -- The hill -- "No acceptable alternative" -- Aftershock -- Goodbye, Mr. Farmer -- Physicist with a capital 'F' -- The Fermi method -- The super -- Circling back -- Summer of '54 -- Farewell to the navigator.