The Last Man Who Knew Everything

by David N. Schwartz

  Word of Fermi’s illness made its way to official Washington. Soon his many friends were pushing a bill through Congress funding an AEC prize, awarded by the president, for Fermi’s contributions to nuclear science. It came with a check for $25,000. Fermi was notified of his prize on November 16, 1954, but was too ill to travel to receive it. (The check arrived after his death.) During a visit from Maria Mayer and Harold Urey’s wife Frieda, they discussed the prize. Frieda recalled later that Fermi was more proud of the publication of Laura’s Atoms in the Family than he was of having received this extraordinary recognition from the AEC. Mayer later recalled that he endured his illness “with the greatest grace imaginable.”

  By that time, the pain from the encroaching cancer was rapidly becoming intolerable and Laura, who maintained a stoicism equal to her husband’s, began to worry about the prospect of Enrico lingering in agony for many months, as the doctors originally suggested he would. She need not have worried. He lived only another two weeks. Enrico Fermi died at 2:30 a.m. on November 28, 1954, having suffered a heart attack in his sleep.

  TWO OF HIS FRIENDS, CHANDRASEKHAR AND ULAM, HAVE WRITTEN extensively of the comparison between the way Fermi approached death and the way Fermi’s great friend John von Neumann approached his own death from cancer a little over two years later, also at the age of fifty-three. Von Neumann found it impossible to accept that his brilliant mathematical mind would be snuffed out at death. Born a nonobservant Jew and having converted to the Catholic faith to please a fiancée who wanted to marry in the church, von Neumann turned to Catholicism as a source of comfort and solace, although it seems to have provided him neither.

  Fermi, in contrast, accepted with rare equanimity the fact that he would no longer exist, an acceptance in keeping with his generally realistic, perhaps even pessimistic, view of life. For Fermi, science completely replaced the function of religion and he died much as he had lived, without any obvious need for metaphysical or religious speculation on what happens after death. It was enough for Fermi to know that his life would end, that at that moment his unique, extraordinary mind would flicker out, but that his work would live on.

  A PRIVATE GRAVESIDE SERVICE FOR THE IMMEDIATE FAMILY TOOK place the next day at Oak Woods Cemetery, about a mile south of the campus. Surprisingly, a Lutheran chaplain attached to the University of Chicago Clinics by the name of Granger Westberg delivered a brief but moving prayer, including the following inspirational words:

  We thank Thee for him whom we this day hold in remembrance, who looking upon the face of nature and seeing order in its variety, law in its constancy, has sought to teach men to live upon earth with reverence toward life.

  We thank Thee for his courage as a lonely explorer into the realm of fact and his eagerness to share his insights in the fellowship wich [sic] advances all scientific discovery.

  We are grateful for his sense of responsibility for the products of his work, for his sensitivity to the whole meaning of what it was he was doing.

  A simple headstone marks the grave.

  The university organized a public memorial service for the following Friday, December 3, 1954, at Rockefeller Memorial Chapel on campus. Sam Allison presided and spoke of the institute’s debt to Fermi:

  Actually, the Institute is his Institute, for he was its outstanding source of intellectual stimulation. It was Enrico who attended every seminar and with incredible brilliance critically assayed every new idea or discovery. It was Enrico who arrived first in the morning and left last at night, filling each day with his outpouring of mental and physical energy.… We may have seen his physical energy before, or his basic balance, simplicity, and sincerity in life before, but who in his lifetime has ever seen such qualities combined in one individual?

  FIGURE 26.1. Fermi grave at Oak Woods Cemetery, Chicago. Photo by Susan Schwartz.

  To illustrate what he considered the archetypical Fermi moment, Allison recounted the story of how Fermi calculated the effect of high altitude on the accuracy of Arthur Compton’s watch. Emilio Segrè spoke next, giving a brief, but compelling account of the years in Rome, particularly the special time in 1934 when the boys of Via Panisperna worked on neutron bombardment. He concluded with some general comments about Fermi’s character:

  He had had all the honors a scientist can have, none excluded. He was part of great councils, and for a large number of scientists his word was final. I have not mentioned these facts because for him they were really unimportant. Nothing altered his simplicity, which did not arise from false modesty—indeed he knew quite well how much he was intellectually above other men—but from charity. Nothing altered his unceasing interest in Science and his will to work humbly and indefatigably on the study of nature. If he had foreseen the cruel destiny that was to deprive us of him so unexpectedly early, he could not have husbanded his time to give more than he gave.

  Anderson’s tribute extolled Fermi’s qualities as a teacher in addition to his abilities as a physicist. “His needs were few,” he noted. “Chalk, a blackboard, and an eager student or two were enough for a start. Teaching was an essential part of his method.” He described the deal Fermi would eagerly make—in exchange for the student correcting his English and teaching him his beloved Americanisms, Fermi would teach physics. He recounted Fermi’s approach to problem solving:

  To explore the mysteries of nature with Enrico Fermi was always a great adventure and a thrilling experience. He had a sure way of starting off in the right direction, of setting aside the irrelevancies, of seizing all the essentials and proceeding to the core of the matter. The whole process of wresting from nature her secrets was for Fermi an exciting sport which he entered into with supreme confidence and great zest.… He was the center of our Institute around whom all revolved and for whom we all tried to do something good enough to win his praise.

  It must have been difficult for these three men, who defined themselves professionally and personally almost entirely in terms of their relationship to Fermi, to stand up before the assembled crowd and speak coherently. Many in the audience shared this sense that their careers carried meaning largely because of their relationship with Fermi. In his sudden, unexpected passing, one sees how profound his impact was on those around him. For example, not long after his death his colleagues at Argonne put their recollections of him on record in a two-disc edition published as To Fermi with Love. One searches in vain for a similar tribute to any of the twentieth century’s other great physicists. The passions he inspired had a dark side, to be sure. In reading memoirs and reminiscences of those who worked with him, one sometimes gets the sense of jockeying for position, of a discreet (or sometimes not so discreet) competition for the unofficial title of “closest to Fermi.” Anderson, Allison, Segrè, Amaldi, Libby all laid claim to the Fermi legacy. Each was right, in his or her way, to do so.

  In each case, however, the relationship never rose above that of teacher-student, master-apprentice. Looking back over his entire career, Fermi had only a handful of peers, mainly the Europeans who created the field of modern physics in the 1920s and 1930s. It would be hard to argue he belongs in the same group as Einstein or Bohr, although he would certainly have made the case, without arrogance, but with a robust sense of his own capabilities. Born and Schrödinger were older, but they were peers, as were Heisenberg, Pauli, Wigner, Bethe, Dirac, Pauli, and perhaps Teller. Von Neumann certainly was, and Ulam, as well. These were the people against whom Fermi measured himself. Oppenheimer was not in this group, nor was Lawrence. One might argue that Rabi was, and perhaps Felix Bloch. Others, like Alvarez, Gell-Mann, and Feynman would make their mark on physics but were of the next generation.

  Hans Bethe, a friend since the early days in Rome, surely spoke for many in an emotional condolence letter to Laura written on November 30, 1954, shortly after he heard the news:

  Dear Laura,

  when [sic] I saw you on Friday I had no idea the end was so near. I heard it when arriving here Sunday morning.

  Rab
i has said it right: There is no one like Enrico, and there will not be another for a hundred years. He was so much to all of us. Already in the last few weeks, I thought often: this I would like to tell Enrico, and that I would like to ask his advice on. And then I remembered, that this will no longer be possible.

  Enrico has taught me more than anyone else. You have described it very well in your book. He taught me to separate a problem into its parts, to understand its essentials rather than to plow through and I know that Enrico was its father.

  No one could leave a greater hole among physicists than Enrico. But no one, also, would leave behind more friends who will carry on in his tradition, or at least try to do so. His was a short life, much too short for all of us, but it was also a very full life. To be one of the great physicists of all time, to have restarted physics in Italy and a great school in this country, and to be loved by everyone he knew—you cannot ask for more.

  Remember, Laura, that we are your friends. We cannot replace Enrico to you, but if you ever need anything, we shall be there. We hope that you will remain in the circle of physicists, and that we shall see you as often as before.

  As always,

  Yours,

  Hans

  BETHE WAS RIGHT. THOSE WHO KNEW AND LOVED FERMI, THOSE who studied under him, and those who worked alongside him did indeed carry on his work, in ways that no one, not even Fermi himself, could have predicted. He left a distinctive legacy, one that continues to unfold as we explore and clarify our understanding of nature and its innermost workings.

  * Wali, Chandra, 270. Yang later wrote that Fermi said he had only months left to live, and Leona Libby recounts that when he returned home, he told Laura to rent a hospital bed for him only through November. The doctors may well have told Fermi that he had six months, but clearly Fermi thought he knew better, and he did. Yang, CPF II, 674.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  FERMI’S LEGACY

  THE STORY OF ENRICO FERMI DOES NOT END WITH HIS DEATH. The Institute for Nuclear Science, though remaining an important center for physics research, changed in subtle but important ways, reflecting the loss of its most inspirational scholar. As a family man, a husband and a father, his influence has continued for generations. Fermi’s teaching had profound and lasting impact on everyone who came into contact with him and those who studied with him went on to distinguished careers shaped in important ways by their exposure to Fermi. His scientific work set the agenda for postwar physics for decades to come.

  FERMI’S DEATH HAD AN IMMEDIATE IMPACT ON THE INSTITUTE. HIS spirit had infused the place. His easy collegiality, the intensity of his passion for physics, his broad range of interest across the entire field, all defined the character of the institute and the work done there. Now Fermi would no longer walk the halls, asking people what they were up to and trying to help. Now colleagues looking for advice on how to approach a problem would no longer be able to stick their heads in his doorway and ask a quick question. Inevitably, the institution began to change.

  Sam Allison stayed, as did Herb Anderson and James Franck, and together they continued the work of the institute. The young Valentine Telegdi stayed on as well, eventually becoming the Enrico Fermi Professor at the university. However, important staff members drifted away—the Marshalls, Willard Libby, Harold Urey, the Mayers, and the younger ones, like Gell-Mann and Garwin. World-class physics continued to be pursued at the institute, now named for its most famous resident, but it was never the same. Indeed, no institution could have survived such a loss intact.

  THOUGH SHE BRAVELY HID IT FROM THOSE WHO VISITED DURING THE final days, Laura was shattered by her husband’s unexpected, painful death. His passing in the early morning hours of November 28, 1954, brought her relief that he was no longer suffering, but it was relief laced with sorrow. They had known each other since she was an adolescent, and their marriage, though not ideal, had been a twenty-six-year adventure. She was forty-seven years old, both children were out of the house, and she was still young enough to make a new life for herself. Although she never remarried, she certainly did make a new life, in a career she had already tried out—writing.

  FIGURE 27.1. Laura Fermi the writer. Courtesy of the University of Chicago Regenstein Library, Special Collections Research Center.

  The book she wrote in Rome in 1936 with Ginestra Amaldi must have whetted her appetite, because in 1953 she began work on a memoir of her marriage to Enrico. In the 1954 memoir Atoms in the Family, one immediately recognizes a distinctive voice, comfortable with the English language and slightly arch in her pithy and sometimes hilarious observations about the people she met during her marriage. She could not have known that the timing of the book’s release, in the last month of Enrico’s life, would be commercially providential. His illness is mentioned nowhere in the book, but his death helped sell it. She knew that Enrico was enormously proud of the book, and its reception encouraged her to write subsequent books on a variety of subjects: the peaceful uses of atomic energy (Atoms for the World, 1957, and The Story of Atomic Energy, 1961); the rise and fall of Benito Mussolini (Mussolini, 1961); Galileo’s contribution to world science (Galileo and the Scientific Revolution, 1961, with Gilberto Bernardini); and the influx of talented and important immigrants to the United States (Illustrious Immigrants, 1968). She even drafted an unpublished novel about the women of Los Alamos and was at work on a study of women in the Italian Renaissance when she passed away. She never claimed to be a scholar, but she was proud of her efforts writing popular history and science with a clear voice and strong insights.

  She eventually moved to an apartment by the lake, but she remained active in the Hyde Park community for many years, helping to establish the Cleaner Air Committee of Chicago, which fought the use of coal for heating that had led to dangerous levels of air pollution in the city. She also championed restrictions on the sale of handguns in Chicago through an organization called the Civic Disarmament Committee. Leona Libby recalls Laura’s involvement in an anti–nuclear power campaign in California, in support of her old friend Frieda Urey. Laura kept up with the circle of friends she made with Enrico and also took part in commemorations and tributes, far and wide. As a frail sixty-six-year-old, she attended the dedication of Fermilab in suburban Chicago in May 1974. It must have moved her that the largest physics lab in the country was named after her late husband.

  She traveled often to Italy to see her family and old friends, particularly the Amaldis. But she never returned permanently to her native land. She missed her homeland terribly and continued to find the “immense plains” of the United States too empty for her liking. She wondered, in 1954, if she would ever be “Americanized.” Yet Chicago was her new home and there she remained. There must have been something too compelling about the United States to leave it and return home. Perhaps it was the openness of the culture, the dynamism of the society, or even the fact that she had become herself a bit of a celebrity in her new land.

  At the age of seventy she succumbed to pulmonary congestion and died the day after Christmas in 1977. Buried like her husband in Chicago’s Oak Woods Cemetery, her gravestone bears the single word Writer inscribed below her name and the years of her life. She may not have chosen that epitaph herself—Nella coordinated everything relating to the burial—but it was almost certainly the way she wanted to be remembered, the role of which she was most proud.

  There is, however, one aspect of her burial that is somewhat unconventional. The issue dates back to when Enrico died in 1954. At that time the family chose a plot between two existing graves, with no room for Laura. It would have been easy enough to buy a double plot, as most married couples do. When Laura passed away, the family chose to inter her in a plot some three hundred yards from Enrico’s. The urge to jump to a conclusion that it reflects something dark about their marriage is strong, but perhaps should be resisted. More likely neither Laura nor Enrico thought very much at all about where they were to be buried, nor cared. Or perhaps having lived in Enric
o’s shadow during his life, in death she and her surviving family members wanted to emphasize Laura’s independent life.

  Enrico’s sister Maria outlived him, but not by much. She spent most of her life in the house built by her father in Via Monginevro, having been widowed early by the death of her husband, Renato Sacchetti, who died of influenza. She had three children—Gabriella, Giorgio, and Ida—and was in regular correspondence with Laura after Enrico’s death. She died in a plane crash on June 26, 1959, on her way to a conference on contemporary Italian literature to which Laura had invited her. She is buried in the cemetery in the village of Olgiate Olona, just northwest of Milan, where the aircraft went down—apparently according to wishes she had previously expressed to be buried where she died.

  When her father died, Nella was already in her early twenties, a recent graduate of the University of Chicago. She went on to marry and raise two children, Alice and Paul. She received a Master of Fine Arts degree and taught art for many years at the Lab School, which she had attended as a child. Intellectually curious, she also went on to earn a PhD in educational psychology with a thesis entitled “Baby Bust and Baby Boom: A Study of Family Size in a Group of University of Chicago Family Wives, 1900–1934.” In later years she pursued a certification in financial planning and made a new career in this field.