Word: fermi
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Like most physicists, Fermi regretted that atomic energy, so far, has been used largely for military purposes. He died just as the world was on the verge of seeing the faint beginnings of the peacetime good that it can bring...
Calmly and cautiously, Fermi gave the necessary orders. Inch by inch, a neutron-absorbing control rod was drawn out of the reactor. The instruments watching its behavior began to click louder. Fermi would not be rushed. At 11:35 a.m. he casually remarked, "Let's go to lunch," and the reactor was shut down...
Back from a long, unhurried lunch, Fermi reassembled his crew. The control rods were drawn out. The instruments clamored louder; the curve of the reaction climbed toward the critical level. At 3:25 p.m. the pile "went critical," i.e., a self-sustained chain reaction started. Its mass was still silent and motionless, but the physicists knew that a new kind of fire was burning inside...
Faint Beginnings. Fermi fled from Mussolini's tyranny and reached the U.S. n time to become a key man in the atom-bomb project. Many honors came to Fermi, but they did not make him less be-oved by his colleagues and students. His ife after the squash-court event was omething of an anticlimax (it could not lave been otherwise), but it was happy and productive. He had a zest for life (skiing, swimming, mountain climbing) as ell as for knowledge...
Died. Enrico Fermi, 53, world-famed Italian-born nuclear physicist who supervised the building of the first successful nuclear reactor; of cancer; in Chicago (see SCIENCE...