10/08/2023
Today is Enrico Fermi’s birthday! Credited for creating the first ever nuclear reactor, Fermi also won a Nobel Prize in Physics for his work related to the existence of radioactive elements and nuclear reactions and neutrons.
Born in 1901, Fermi completed a doctorate in physics in 1922 and soon thereafter discovered statistical laws related to particle physics, now known as ‘Fermi Statistics’. Later, in 1934, he demonstrated that nuclear transformation occurs in almost every element bombarded by neutrons, which eventually contributed to the discovery of nuclear fission and the production of elements beyond what was at that time included in the Period Table of Elements.
In 1938, shortly before fleeing Italy for America, Fermi won the Nobel Prize in Physics for the demonstration of the existence of new radioactive elements produced by neutron irradiation, and for his related discovery of nuclear reactions brought about by slow neutrons. This ultimately led to a series of experiments he directed in Chicago in 1942 involving the first ever controlled nuclear chain reaction at the Chicago Pile-1 reactor.
