by Gino Segrè
“She taught me … the beryllium foil and so on”: Rasetti (1982), p. 13.
“a worried, tired … in common”: LF (1954), p. 156.
“Your radium … leads to barium!”: Meitner, quoted in Sime (1996), p. 235.
“a drop of fluid … surface tension”: Bohr, vol. 9, p. 47.
“Oh what idiots … a paper about it?”: Frisch, p. 116.
“probably a scientist not discovering fission”: Allison, p. 129.
“for his … of heavy nuclei”: 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry citation.
20: NEWS TRAVELS
“gracious way of life”: Libby, p. 22.
“Enrico had often … raised objections”: LF (1954), p. 116.
“We have … of the Fermi family”: Ibid., p. 139.
“Bohr has gone crazy … uranium nucleus splits”: Blumberg (1976), p. 46.
“Young man … overwhelmed by all that”: Interview with Anderson, January 13, 1981, OHI.
“Simply because … to explain later”: Pais (1991), p. 45.
“Nothing like … else in the world”: Interview with Anderson, January 13, 1981, OHI.
“So Fermi … and work everything out”: Ibid.
“mumbled and … implications”: As quoted in Rhodes (1986), p. 271.
“LINEAR AMPLIFIER … INFORMATION POSTED”: Bohr, vol. 9, p. 551.
“I need not … you most heartily”: Ibid., p. 563.
“It was suggested … division of bacteria”: Ibid., p. 559.
“After this … some days before”: EFP1, p. 3.
“The phenomenon … of the order of 200 Mev”: EFP2, p. 2.
“merit was … interest of all physicists”: Bohr, vol. 9, p. 554.
“No great human concern left Bohr indifferent”: French, p. 226.
21: CHAIN REACTION
“A little bomb like that and it would all disappear”: Kevles (1979), p. 324.
“some German chemists … bombarded with neutrons,” “a lot of theoretical reasons … couldn’t really happen,” and “When I invited … the right conclusions”: Interview with Alvarez, February 15, 1967, OHI.
“I have often … rearm and go to war”: Weart (1980), p. 19.
“Ten percent is … that we may die from it”: Ibid., p. 54.
“Fermi thought … all the necessary precautions”: Ibid.
“can never be done unless you turn the United States into one huge factory”: Rhodes (1986), p. 294.
22: THE RACE BEGINS
“There’s a wop outside”: Rhodes, p. 295.
“between the end of … in natural uranium”: Weart, p. 115.
“Because cosmic rays … free and everywhere”: Rasetti (1982), p. 47.
“This is a big and free country … and begin again”: Fermi, quoted in Heisenberg (1971), p. 170.
“Where to?” … “Somewhere … the world is large”: LF (1954), p. 31.
“found it … behind such a project”: Heisenberg (1971), p. 193.
“Don’t you think it … he does not want to see”: Ibid., p. 170.
“Daran habe ich gar nicht gedacht” (“I hadn’t thought of that at all”): Clark, pp. 669ff.
“In the course of … bombs of a new type may thus be constructed”: As cited in Lanouette, p. 205.
“Alex, what you are after is to see that the Nazis don’t blow us up.” Sachs replied, “Precisely”: Lanouette, p. 210.
“it was very interesting … that budget could be cut”: Weart, p. 85.
23: NEW AMERICANS
“Among adult immigrants … toward Americanization”: ES, p. 104.
“more freedom … You can’t make me wash my hands. This is a free country”: Laura Fermi, quoted in Orear, p. 149.
“on the Palisades … the basement”: LF (1954), p. 145.
“his peasant blood was not aroused”: Ibid.
“We have noticed … when he’ll return”: Rome police to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, March 7, 1939. ACRF, Folder 16, box 4.
“Prof. Fermi … enemies of our Regime”: Maltese (2003), p. 76.
“You wouldn’t put … or would you?”: Weart, p. 143.
“always take place … if the size of the pile is large enough”: EFP1, p. 225.
“to dark corridors … experiment”: Ibid., p. 269.
“started looking … what was happening”: Ibid.
24: THE SLEEPING GIANT
“The government’s responsible … war program”: Compton (1956), p. 49.
“We estimated … after all, at least in principle!”: Peierls, pp. 154–55.
“inarticulate and unimpressive”: Oliphant, p. 17.
“I thought we were … for submarines”: Davis, p. 112.
“No one can … well as Enrico Fermi”: Compton, p. 11.
“simply and directly … chain-reacting sphere”: Ibid., p. 54.
“almost with tears … knew them so well”: Ibid., p. 55.
“felt like swimming in syrup”: Szanton, p. 205.
“Even by … so were sadly mistaken”: Weart, p. 147.
25: CHICAGO BOUND
“speaking with equal ease … American in both her habits and way of thinking”: Fermi to Amaldi, April 5, 1941, in Battimelli (1997), p. 130.
“he wished Hitler and Mussolini would win the war”: LF (1954), p. 173.
“His associates like him … is not recommended”: Lanouette, p. 223.
“was filthy with dirt … swindled by a slick sales talk”: EFP1, p. 206.
“doing physics by the telephone”: ES, p. 121.
“Perhaps the … of taxes and death”: Libby, p. 1.
“gaiety and informality … usually calm and mildly amused”: Leona Woods Marshall, quoted in EFP1, p. 328.
“I had been … I had difficulty just walking back”: Cronin, p. 185.
“Laura fed us supper after supper”: Libby, p. 7.
“the commitment of … quite a mess of machinery”: Rhodes (1986), p. 407.
“If you do the job right, it will win the war”: Groves, p. 4.
“I felt there … instead of as a promoted colonel”: Ibid.
26: CRITICAL PILE (CP-1)
“I have … strongly affected me”: Compton, p. 10.
“lack of interest in the physical world”: Libby, p. 24.
“fresh, clear and convincing … for the job at hand”: Herbert Anderson, quoted in EFP1, p. 216.
“run quick-like … many miles away”: EFP1, pp. 169–74.
“If people could … they’d know we are”: “The First Pile,” in http://www.atomicarchive.com, p. 1.
“These tough … negative commitment to work” and “The graphite machining … Back of the Yards kids”: Wattenberg (1982), p. 22.
“It was a privilege … him in those days”: Herbert Anderson, quoted in EFP1, p. 216.
“Will the reaction … self-sustaining … be thermally stable … be controllable?” EFP1, p. 263.
27: THE DAY THE ATOMIC AGE WAS BORN
“I’m hungry. Let’s go to lunch”: Wattenberg (1982), p. 31.
“Again and again … ‘The pile has gone critical’”: Anderson (1974), p. 42.
“alert, in as full … of the work”: Compton, p. 143.
“His eyes were aglow … the wheels of industry”: Ibid., p. 144.
“‘Jim,’ I said, ‘you’ll be interested to know that the Italian navigator … Everyone landed safe and happy’”: Ibid.
“What’s going on, Doctor, something happen in there?” Laurence, p. 71.
PART 4: THE ATOMIC CITY
For the history of the atom bomb, there is no substitute for the magisterial Richard Rhodes account, The Making of the Atomic Bomb. For a magnificent set of photographs and stories about the Manhattan Project, see Rachel Fermi and Esther Samra’s Picturing the Bomb.
28: THE MANHATTAN PROJECT: A THREE-LEGGED STOOL
“The chain reacting … then in a satisfactory way”: EFP1, p. 270.
“The story of … of human knowledge” and “It was the good fortune … of the
atomic age”: Edward R. Murrow, CBS Evening News, December 2, 1954. ACRF, Box 7, folder 1.
“He sank a Japanese admiral”: Libby, p. 129.
“anything was possible for Enrico”: Ibid.
“What thrilled … experimental tool”: Herbert Anderson, quoted in EFP2, p. 308.
“To operate a pile is just as easy … on a straight road”: EFP2, p. 548.
“the work he enjoyed most”: Herbert Anderson, quoted in EFP2, p. 352.
“My two great loves … can’t be combined”: Rhodes (1986), p. 451.
“If you go on … be a usable site”: Bird, p. 206.
29: SIGNOR FERMI BECOMES MISTER FARMER
“absolutely unscrupulous”: Bird, p. 213.
“We were faced … and living conditions”: Rhodes (1986), p. 450.
“The projected laboratory … a real, live, breathing Enrico Fermi”: Robert Wilson, p. 41.
“The object of the … nuclear fission”: Serber (1992), p. xi.
“I believe your people … want to make a bomb”: Rhodes (1986), p. 468.
“One evening … he would wait for him outside”: LF (1954), p. 212.
“By the time Baudino … straight-faced about this debt”: Libby, p. 162.
“My work clothes … concealed the bulge,” “because Zinn would … of the reactor building,” and “When he told me … practice midwifery”: Libby, p. 164.
“absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen”: http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/immigrationnaturalizatio/a/oathofcitizen.htm.
“I haven’t the faintest idea”: LF (1954), p. 201.
“While the Pope is not … and there it stops”: Ibid., p. 215.
“sent a card from Ferrara … competent sources in Washington”: Letter from Sandro Motel (married to Laura’s sister) to Fermi, November 15, 1944. ARCF, Box 10, folder 11.
“As you can imagine … worse than knowing him dead”: Battimelli (1997), pp. 148–49.
30: GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG
“How can you … your whole life?”: Bernstein (2001), p. 40.
“Though a brilliant … about numbers”: Ibid., p. 36.
“Enrico Fermi was our anchor man on such occasions”: Compton, p. 191.
“since this had … through by Fermi”: Herbert Anderson, quoted in EFP1, p. 428.
“It is quite certain … will arrive next week”: Ulam (1970), p. 162.
“I was ready to sell my soul”: Robert Wilson, quoted in Orear, p. 108.
“declined to take charge … calculations on the implosion”: Rhodes (1986), p. 543.
31: THE HILL
“totally absorbed, taking little notice of his family”: Libby, p. 27.
“It was typical … was going on around him”: LF (1954), p. 82.
“The rickety houses looked like … slum area; everywhere … garbage cans were overflowing”: Marshak, quoted in Jane Wilson (1997), p. 9.
“Through the … an old master”: LF (1954), p. 207.
“We managed … happy lives”: Jane Wilson (1997), p. 43.
“Lines were drawn … in the Laboratory”: Marshak, quoted in Jane Wilson, p. 9.
“danced with … instead of his feet”: Brode, quoted in Rhodes (1986), p. 564.
“Saturday nights … dances and parties”: J. Wilson, p. 112.
“You see … learn their tricks” and “I see, matching wits!”: Orear, p. 99.
“he was … unpretentious way could be so dominant”: Frisch, p. 167.
“never appeared … because he was so organized”: Ibid.
“I told Fermi … was quite a lesson for me”: Feynman, p. 132.
“Bohr immediately … task of peace that lay ahead”: Weisskopf, p. 144.
“Bohr talked … priest celebrating mass”: Ulam, p. 167.
“we hire girls … they’re cheaper”: Howes, p. 99.
“depressed, quarrelsome and gossipy” and “keep the women busy … proof of their usefulness”: Segrè, p. 190.
32: “NO ACCEPTABLE ALTERNATIVE”
“we all trusted him and saw him frequently”: LF (1954), p. 210.
“no more than … on atoms was involved”: Francis Sill Wickware, “The Manhattan Project,” Life, vol. 19 (August 20, 1945), p. 26.
“the development of new explosive … destructive power”: Truman, p. 10.
“the whole purpose … ceased to be”: Rotblat, quoted in Kelly, p. 280.
“not bothered … would be used”: Rotblat (1985), 18.
“without prior warning”: Rhodes (1986), p. 651.
“a man of great wisdom … to shorten this war”: Ibid., pp. 625–26.
“sensitized to … chemical weapons program”: Von Hippel, p. 41.
“We believe that … control of such weapons”: Kelly, p. 288.
“we can propose … direct military use”: Ibid., p. 291.
“With regard to … by the advent of atomic power”: Ibid., p. 290.
“after all … atomic explosion was not possible”: Groves, p. 297.
“so sleepy he went to … his strong aversion to being driven”: LF (1954), p. 238.
“governing factor … previously damaged by air raids”: Groves, pp. 267ff.
33: AFTERSHOCK
“I saw a bright blast … blew away all at once”: Michiko Kodoma on the bombing of Hiroshima, August 10, 2015, www.rifuture.org.
“The general impression is one of deadness … it is not so here”: Navy Captain William C. Bryson, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, December 1982, p. 35.
“The first the general public … identified with death and destruction”: Rotblat and Ikeda, p. 32.
“I don’t believe … whole thing”: Bernstein (2001), p. 116.
“it was dreadful of the Americans … it’s madness on their part”: Weiszäcker, quoted in Bernstein (2001), p. 117.
“One can’t say … ‘ending the war’”: Bernstein (2001), p. 117.
“I am thankful … to drop the uranium bomb”: Ibid., p. 125.
“the least abhorrent choice … a million casualties to American forces alone”: Article by Henry Stimson, Harper’s Magazine, February 1947, quoted in Kelly, p. 409.
“When the [atomic] bombs … grow up to adulthood after all”: Folsom, p. 310.
“Well at last you know … even on our enemy”: Kelly, p. 342.
“Children … with lids and spoons”: LF (1954), p. 240.
“It seemed rather ghoulish … even if they were ‘enemies’”: Frisch, p. 176.
“romantic”: Robert Wilson, p. 41.
“nervous wreck”: Bird, p. 317.
“among the praising … heard from several directions”: LF (1954), p. 240.
“But above all, there were the moral questions … there is no simple answer”: Laura Fermi, quoted in Badash, p. 89.
“All however are perplexed … Who alone can judge you morally”: Maria Fermi Sacchetti, quoted in LF (1954), p. 245.
“It seems … face severe judgment by history”: Maltese (2003), p. 172.
“There are few decisions … less cause for regret”: Ibid.
“the needs of national security” and “subject to … Espionage Act”: Smyth Report, p. v.
“Don’t be afraid of becoming … blow up too”: LF (1954), p. 237.
“should not end … remained a military secret”: Kelly, p. 285.
“directing and encouraging the use of atomic energy … peaceful and humanitarian ends”: President Truman, Special Message to Congress on Atomic Energy, October 3, 1945.
“any change … into this category”: Libby, p. 256.
“were duped … silent about the army’s bill”: Lanouette, p. 287.
“For me it was … to be relied upon”: Bird, p. 327.
“The struggles of our times … and he is no fighter”: Weart, p. 146.
“Whatever Nature … better than knowledge”: Enrico Fermi, quoted in LF (1954), p. 244.
“a labor of considerable scientific interest” and “having contributed to truncating a war … a certain satisfaction”: Letter of Fermi to Amaldi, August 28, 1945, in Battimelli (1997), pp. 158–60.
34: GOODBYE, MR. FARMER
“It had been one … periods of our lives”: LF (1954), p. 246.
“if Enrico … would profit by the exchange”: Compton, p. 203.
“At Los Alamos, where I had been working … probably help them too”: Wilson, quoted in U. Amaldi, p. 225.
“we all felt that … we had done our duty”: Bethe (1982), p. 45.
PART 5: HOME
As the reader has seen, Laura Fermi’s delightful and informative Atoms in the Family: My Life with Enrico Fermi has been a great source of material throughout the book. The background to the buildup of weapons and related issues is brilliantly recounted in Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin’s American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer.
35: PHYSICIST WITH A CAPITAL F
The Quick and the Dead: The Quick and the Dead, WMAQ radio, newspaper column (undated, unmarked) by Bill Irvin, Radio-Television News. ARCF, Box 1, folder 1.
“the most important … the birth of Jesus Christ”: Rhodes (1995), p. 279.
“Your scientific skill … as the agent of the American people”: Letter from Major General Groves to Fermi, September 28, 1945. ARCF, Box 4, folder 7.
“an ambassador of mathematical beauty”: Farmelo, p. 435.
“Fermi was the Pied Piper who brought them”: Cronin, p. 153.
“What would you like?… You name it”: Cronin, p. 169.
“as pleased … to upset his routine”: LF (1954), p. 258.
“The history of … an exception to this rule”: Cronin, p. 142.
“What is less … that he acquires over nature”: Ibid.
36: THE FERMI METHOD
“my first physics … right decision!”: Cronin, p. 237.
“If I am to be … because of your training”: Ibid., p. 187.
“Physics is to be … layer by layer”: EFP1, p. 239.
“They were … marks on my memory”: Cronin, p. 197.
“perfectly normal”: LF (1954), p. 227.
“with a minimum of complication and sophistication”: Victor Weisskopf, quoted in Bernardini (2001), p. 5.
“How thick can the … before it falls off?”: Cronin, p. 179.
“What is the number of sheep in Nevada?”: Libby, p. 16.
“How many piano … in the city of Chicago?”: Cronin, p. 179.