A number of other individuals read the book in part or in its entirety in various drafts and provided invaluable comments and corrections along the way: Joerg Baldauf, Cynthia and Marvin Blynn, Laurie Bruckmann, Camilla Calamandrei, Michael Cohn, Beth Hadley, Howard Jennings, George Minkoff, Rick Peterson, David Rudofsky, Raymond Rudofsky, and Melanie Shugart. Numerous other people were helpful and encouraging along the way. These include Rinaldo Baldini, Nelson Beebe, Patrizia Bigotti, Glenda Bingham, Luisa Bonolis, Justin Breaux, William Briscoe, Paula Bruni, Viola Buckenberger, Elisabetta Calusi, Antonio de Candia, Roberto Casabuoni, Tina Cordova, Gene Dannen, Evan Faye Earle, Joe Escamillo, Alexis Fama, Susan Fine, Julia Foster, John Fox, Colleen French, Henry Frisch, Brett and Carmel Fromson, Joe Gonzales, Karl Grandin, Susanne Grulich, Kevin Haggerty, Larry Haler, Megan Halsband, Matthew Hopkins, Laurie Innes, Karl-Heinz Kampert, Brian Keelean, John Khadem, Sanford Kingsley, Jasper and Rita Kirkby, Penny Kome, Louis Linfield, Daniel Linke, Jack and Lynne Lloyd, Kathryn Ma, John Marshall III, Daniel Meyer, Michela Minesso, Arnon Mishkin, Julie O’Neill, Borden Painter, Shanice Palmer, Sara Paretsky, AnnaLee Pauls, Christie Peterson, Giancarlo Righini, Sandra Romiti, Kevin Roark, Harry and Carol Saal, Tristan Scholl, Anthony Shugaar, Leon Sigal, Megan Smith, Alessandra Stanley, Andrew Szanton, Donna Thompson, Rachel Trent, David Torney, Anne Vargas, Patrick Waide, Andrew Weston-Hawkes, Fletcher Whitworth, Stan Wojcicki, Kristina Wolff, Hillary Dorsch Wong, Nathan Woods, Lila Yawn, and Rita Zanatta.
The Fermi family has been extremely supportive and helpful during the course of the project. In addition to Giorgio Capon and Sarah Fermi, mentioned above, I am grateful to Olivia Fermi, Rachel Fermi, and Gabriella Sacchetti. Olivia and Rachel have provided a wealth of materials relating to their family, including documents and photographs as well as precious memories. Robert Fuller, Giulio/Judd’s oldest and closest friend, also shared personal memories. Some of these discussions touched on delicate matters of family history; I hope I have reflected their perspectives with appropriate respect.
My agent, Michael Carlisle, believed in this project from the beginning and has been a long-time supporter. He and his wife, Sally, have become dear friends. He understands what an author puts into a book and has been a continuous source of wise counsel and support. I am so lucky to work with him and his team at Inkwell Management, including William Callahan, Michael Mungiello, and Hannah Schwartz.
At Basic Books, my editor T. J. Kelleher shepherded this book from the start, with patience, wisdom, insight, and enthusiasm. His team, including Hélène Barthélemy, Sandra Beris, Betsy DeJesu, Kait Howard, Carrie Napolitano, Christina Palaia, and Kelsey Odorczyk, has been extremely helpful.
My family deserves special thanks. My mother, Marilyn, inadvertently kicked this project off with the fortuitous discovery of a batch of my father’s papers in 2013 and was unwavering in her enthusiasm and encouragement, as were my sisters, Diana and Betty. My son, Alex, inherited his grandfather’s gift in the lab, recognized by his high school when they awarded him the Jack Steinberger Prize for scientific research. Susan’s brother, David Rudofsky, outdid himself in proofreading and fact-checking the galleys. Susan and I are both indebted to him. My father-in-law, Raymond Rudofsky, took great joy in the project every step of the way. He was particularly supportive of the decision that Susan and I made to step away from our business in late 2015 so I could devote myself full-time to the project. I am indebted to him for his staunch support and enthusiasm in ways I cannot enumerate.
My father, Melvin, passed away in 2006. Many were the moments when I wanted to consult with him on some complicated aspect of modern physics, as I did when he was alive. He had Fermi’s gift for lucid explanation and enjoyed teaching as much as he did research. He would have loved to see this project. I have been guided throughout by his memory and his inspiration. Dad, I miss you every day.
Finally, this book would simply not have been possible without the support of my research assistant, archival photographer, logistics consultant, travel agent, editorial adviser, relentless proofreader, confidante, therapist, cheerleader, and wife. Her name is Susan, and this book is dedicated to her, with infinite love, affection, and gratitude.
David N. Schwartz holds a PhD in political science from MIT. He is the author of two books, including NATO’S Nuclear Dilemmas, and has worked at the State Department Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs, the Brookings Institution, and Goldman Sachs. He lives in New York with his wife, Susan. His father, Melvin Schwartz, shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1988. For more information visit www.davidnschwartz.com.
ALSO BY DAVID N. SCHWARTZ
NATO’s Nuclear Dilemmas
Ballistic Missile Defense
(co-edited with Ashton B. Carter)
Praise for The Last Man Who Knew Everything
“David Schwartz has written a highly readable account of an undervalued figure in the making of the atomic age—one that puts Enrico Fermi in the proper historical context.”—Gregg Herken, author of Brotherhood of the Bomb
“In this compelling and well-researched biography, Schwartz reveals both triumph and tragedy in the life and work of Enrico Fermi, one of the greatest and hitherto most enigmatic scientists of the twentieth century.”—Frank Close, professor of physics, Oxford, and author of Neutrino and Half-Life
“Enrico Fermi was a singular figure of modern science, and Schwartz has written a singular biography. His book is unusually adept and nuanced in its appreciation and explanation of both the scientific and humanistic aspects of its subject. It is also a joy to read, as Schwartz has a beautiful authorial voice that is perfectly appropriate for his subject matter: appreciative and sympathetic, without falling into the hyperbolic or uncritical. It is a rare book that will please both the experts and the novices, but I think this is such a rare book.”—Alex Wellerstein, assistant professor, Stevens Institute of Technology, and author of Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog
“Enrico Fermi was part of a great brain drain pre–World War II from Axis nations, when ideology overwhelmed the search for truth and even self-interest.… Despite what you might think from the title, The Last Man Who Knew Everything, this amazing book by Schwartz is brimming with anecdotes in which Enrico Fermi is not the smartest guy in the room. He is focused on family, colleagues, and meaning. Schwartz really puts us intimately at the table for the historic atomic revolution. This humanization of geniuses and forging public engagement in complex science is crucial today as we become ever more dependent on technological leadership. As fresh and riveting a biography as any you will find.”—George Church, author of Regenesis
“A lucid writer who has done his homework, Schwartz… delivers a thoroughly enjoyable, impressively researched account.… Never a media darling like Einstein or Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi (1901–1954) is now barely known to the public, but few scientists would deny that he was among the most brilliant physicists of his century.… A rewarding, expert biography of a giant of the golden age of physics.”—Kirkus
CREDITS
The plural term “quotations” refers to permissions obtained to use several quotes throughout the book; the singular “quotation” refers to only one used in the book. Listed here in order of publication name or author’s last name.
Quotations by Samuel Allison, Emilio Segrè, and Herbert Anderson in Physics Today 8, 1, 9 (1955) reproduced with the permission of the American Institute of Physics.
Quotation from Luis Alvarez, Adventures of a Physicist (New York: Basic Books, 1987), reproduced with permission of Walter Alvarez.
Quotations from American Institute of Physics (AIP), “Oral History Interviews: Franco Rasetti and Enrico Persico,” interviewed by Thomas S. Kuhn, April 8, 1963; “Oral History Interviews: George Uhlenbeck—Session III,” April 5, 1962; “Oral History Interviews: Herbert Lawrence Anderson—Session II,” interviewed by Lillian Hoddeson and Alison Kerr, January 13, 1981; and “Oral History Interviews: I. I. Rabi—Session II,” interviewed by Stephen White, February 21, 1
980, reproduced with permission of the American Institute of Physics.
Quotation from Bernice Brode, Los Alamos Tales (Los Alamos, NM: Los Alamos Historical Society, 1997) reproduced with permission of the Los Alamos Historical Society.
Quotations from the Santa Fe New Mexican and private letters by Hans Bethe reproduced with permission of the estate of Hans Bethe.
Quotations from Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, “The Pursuit of Science,” Minerva 22, nos. 3/4 (September 1984): 410–420 reproduced with permission of Springer Science and Business Media.
Quotation from Max Dresden, letter in “Heisenberg, Goudsmit, and the German ‘A-Bomb,’” Physics Today 44, no. 5 (May 1991) reproduced with permission of Physics Today.
Quotations from Enrico Fermi: The Collected Papers (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962 and 1965) reproduced with permission of the University of Chicago Press.
Quotations from Laura Fermi, Atoms in the Family (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954) reproduced with permission of the University of Chicago Press.
Quotation from Leona Marshall Libby, The Uranium People (New York: Crane, Russak/Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1979) reproduced with permission of John Marshall III.
Quotations from “Memorial Symposium Held in Honor of Enrico Fermi at the Washington Meeting of the American Physical Society, April 29, 1955,” Reviews of Modern Physics 25, no. 3 (July 1955) reproduced with permission of Reviews of Modern Physics.
Quotations from Emilio Segrè, Enrico Fermi, Physicist (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970) reproduced with permission of the Estate of Emilio Segrè.
Quotation from Spencer R. Weart and Gertrude Weiss Szilard, eds., Leo Szilard, His Version of the Facts (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1978) reproduced with permission of Estate of Leo Szilard.
Quotation from Emilio Segrè, A Mind Always in Motion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994) reproduced with permission of the Estate of Emilio Segrè.
Quotations from Eugene Wigner, Symmetries and Reflections (Woodbridge, CT: Ox Bow Press, 1979) reproduced with permission of the Ox Bow Press.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Anyone who attempts to write a biography of Enrico Fermi immediately discovers that he is stepping into some very big shoes. Laura Fermi knew her husband better than anyone else, and her memoir, Atoms in the Family, published the year Fermi died, cannot be improved upon as a portrait of a marriage. It is an engaging, colorful account, but the reader immediately knows that it will be relatively light on the science. For example, the famous paper on beta radiation is discussed in a single, off-hand sentence. In addition, some of the historical incidents—for example, the goldfish pond episode on the weekend of the discovery of slow neutrons—are more difficult to corroborate than they should be.
The other set of shoes that any biographer must fill are those of Emilio Segrè, whose 1970 book, Enrico Fermi: Physicist, has remained the classic account for more than four decades. Segrè knew Fermi well during a particularly active phase in Fermi’s scientific life, and thus writes with an appropriate level of authority. There are, however, several factors that argue for a more up-to-date treatment of Fermi’s life. One is that Segrè’s book is a bit intimidating for the general reader who may not know what the Zeeman effect is or may not understand Wigner/Jordan creation and destruction operators. Another is that—as I have tried to argue—Fermi’s legacy has grown considerably since Segrè published his work. A third is that new facts of some relevance have emerged since 1970. One clear example is the 1972 revelation of Werner Heisenberg that Fermi tried to persuade him to move to the United States in the summer of 1939, just prior to the war. There are many others.
But still the task of coming up with something new to say, above and beyond what his wife and one of his closest students had to offer, is daunting. Yet the time seems to be right, as several other recent authors have also recognized.
Archival material on Enrico Fermi is scattered among several important libraries. The archives at the University of Chicago’s Regenstein Library are truly a thing of beauty. In over sixty boxes one finds an enormous quantity of material, with particular focus on the US portion of Fermi’s career. The archive is exquisitely preserved and organized. The other great archive is that held in the Domus Galilaeana in Pisa, Italy, where Edoardo Amaldi deposited everything that existed at the University of Rome directly relating to Fermi in 1955, after Fermi’s passing. Other archives of relevance include archives at the physics department of the University of Rome; archives at the Scuola Normale Superiore and the University of Pisa, related to his student years; archives at the Villa Corsini, home to all the archives of the Accademia dei Lincei and the Reale Accademia d’Italia; and the Italian national archives. There is also important material held by the Los Alamos Historical Society, the archives of the American Institute of Physics, the US National Archives, and various other university collections, most notably the Bancroft Library at Berkeley and the Butler Library at Columbia.
In 1986, Richard Rhodes wrote his Pulitzer Prize–winning history of the Manhattan Project, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, which remains the classic treatment of an important period in Fermi’s career. Richard Hewlett and Oscar Anderson wrote an accessible history of the US atomic program, which despite occasional flaws remains a useful source. The US Army also published an official history, by Vincent Jones, as part of its fine series of histories of the US Army in World War II.
Another extraordinary resource is the declassified official report of the Manhattan Engineering District, declassified in the late 1970s and available at https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan_district.jsp. It is highly technical and is not written with the role of individual participants particularly in mind. In the volumes on the X-10 and the B reactors, Fermi’s name is not mentioned, although he clearly had an important role in the design, construction, and operation of both. Another resource, published in 1994, is the journal that Berkeley chemist Glenn T. Seaborg kept from 1939–1946, during which time he played a central role in the Manhattan Project, most notably as the person whose team discovered plutonium and who developed the techniques for separating the metal out of reactor by-products. These journals contain, to my knowledge, the only records of deliberations at the Technical Committee of the Met Lab, where so many important technical decisions were made.
Then, of course, there are the dozens of memoirs written by those who knew Fermi at various points in their lives. Like all memoir material, they are primary in the sense that they are not interpretations of someone else’s work, but they must always be regarded with caution. Memories are sometimes unreliable, and almost everyone who came into contact with Fermi had an incentive to portray their relationship with him in the best possible light. Some of the memoirs date from the fifties and sixties; others are collected in volumes celebrating his centenary. The portraits they paint are fairly consistent, which helps the biographer enormously. I found the 2004 volume edited by James Cronin, Fermi Remembered, to be particularly helpful, but the reader will find others, listed in the bibliography below.
There is, of course, a vast number of publications in the Italian language. I have listed them here along with the sources I have used in English; for a reader with a passing knowledge of the Italian language and a good Italian-English dictionary, these sources are extremely useful. I have also benefited greatly from the translation app offered by Google.
Fermi himself would have been amused to discover a continued interest in the events of his dramatic, but all-too-brief, life. One imagines him pointing to The Collected Papers, insisting that these two volumes constitute his real biography. The Collected Papers, in spite of an occasional editorial lapse, is a remarkable tribute prepared by the students and colleagues who knew him best. The commentary on the important papers, written by people like Segrè, Rasetti, Persico, Anderson, and Libby, among others, allows the reader to place the papers in historical and scientific context. The beautiful two-volume set reflects Fermi’s enormous productivity well
into the 1950s. The first volume, of course, is largely in the Italian language, but the most important papers of that era—the statistics paper and the beta decay paper, for example—can be found on the Internet.
I have written that Fermi left no diaries, but that is not quite accurate. His diaries are his handwritten notebooks, which exist in the archives at the Domus Galilaeana and the Regenstein Library. Every morning he jotted down his thoughts on physics, covering virtually every aspect of physics he could think of, and this fact tells us as much about his personal life as almost anything else. I am particularly excited that the Domus Galilaeana has scanned all the Fermi notebooks in their archives, and will make them available online in due course. This will make an enormous amount of archival material available to scholars worldwide.
What follows is a list of books and articles that I have found helpful in the writing of this book. Some have been more central than others, but all of them have added some particular aspect of the overall portrait I have tried to paint.
ABBREVIATIONS
CPF I/CPF II Edoardo Amaldi, Herbert L. Anderson, Enrico Persico, Franco Rasetti, Emilio Segrè, Cyril S. Smith, Albert Wattenberg, eds. Enrico Fermi: The Collected Papers. Chicago and Rome: University of Chicago Press and Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. Two Volumes: Volume I, 1962. Volume II, 1965.
EFDG Enrico Fermi Archives, Domus Galilaeana, Via Santa Maria 26, 56126 Pisa, Italy.
EFREG The Enrico Fermi Collection. The Special Collections Research Center, Regenstein Library, University of Chicago, 1100 E. 57th Street, Chicago, IL 60637.
INSREG The University of Chicago. Institute for Nuclear Studies. Cyclotron. Records, 1946–1952. The Special Collections Research Center, Regenstein Library, The University of Chicago, 1100 E. 57 Street, Chicago, IL 60637
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