Enrico Fermi, an Italian-American physicist, received his doctorate from the University of Pisa in 1922 and did postdoctorate work in Germany under Max Born. He returned to Italy in 1924 and became a professor of physics at the University of Rome in 1926. He received the Nobel Prize for physics in 1938 for his work dealing with the production of transuranic radioactive elements (those more massive than uranium) by neutron bombardment.
Fermi first became interested in physics at the age of 14 after reading an old physics book in Latin. He had an excellent scholastic record and was able to recite Dante's Divine Comedy and much of Aristotle from memory. His great ability to solve problems in theoretical physics and his skill for simplifying very complex situations made him somewhat of an oracle. He was also a gifted experimentalist and teacher. During one of his early lecture trips to the United States, a car that he had purchased became disabled and he pulled into a nearby gas station. After Fermi repaired the car with ease, the station owner immediately offered him a job.
Fermi and his family immigrated to the United States and he became a naturalized citizen in 1944. Once in America, he accepted a position at Columbia University and later became a professor at the University of Chicago. After the Manhattan Project was established, (the project that designed and constructed the atomic bomb during World War II), Fermi was commissioned to design and build a structure (called an atomic pile) in which a self-sustained chain reaction might occur. The structure, built in the squash court of the University of Chicago, contained uranium in combination with graphite blocks to slow the neutrons to thermal speeds. Cadmium rods inserted in the pile were used to absorb neutrons and control the reaction rate. History was made at 3:45 P.M. on December 2, 1942, as the cadmium rods were slowly withdrawn and a self-sustained chain reaction was observed. Fermi's earthshaking achievement of the world's first nuclear reactor marked the beginning of the atomic age.
Fermi died of cancer in 1954 at the age of 53. One year later, the 100th element was discovered and named fermium in his honor.