费米

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Fermi, Enrico

义大利出生的美籍理论物理学家。毕业於比萨大学。1926年任罗马大学理论物理学教授,开始从事研究工作(後来由狄拉克发展完备),後来提出着名的费米-狄拉克统计法。他发展β衰变的一种理论,可透过弱核力应用到其他的核反应,但这个理论一直到1957年以前还未完善,当时发现弱核力不能保持宇称。费米设想出诱发人工放射性的方法,因此获1938年诺贝尔物理学奖。他趁赴瑞典受奖的机会永离法西斯主义的义大利,而直赴美国,他在哥伦比亚大学任教,不久成为实践核子物理学理论的主要工程师之一。他参与曼哈顿计画,在发展原子弹方面扮演重要的角色,1942年负责生产可控制的自持链式核反应的工作。1946年获得美国国会勳章。美国原子能委员会还专门设立了费米奖金,1954年他荣获了首次颁发的费米奖。为纪念费米的不平凡成就,原子序数为100的元素被命名为镄(fermium)。

1901~1954年

Fermi, Enrico

Italian-U.S. physicist. As a professor at the University of rome, he began the work, later fully developed by P. A. M. Dirac, that led to Fermi-Dirac statistics. He developed a theory of beta decay that applies to other reactions through the weak force, which was not improved until 1957, when the weak force was found not to conserve parity. He discovered neutron-induced radioactivity, for which he was awarded a 1938 Nobel Prize. After receiving the award in Sweden, he never returned to fascist Italy but instead moved directly to the U.S., where he joined the faculty of Columbia University and soon became one of the chief architects of practical nuclear physics. A member of the Manhattan Project, he was an important figure in the development of the atomic bomb; in 1942 he directed the first controlled nuclear chain reaction. He received the Congressional Medal of Merit in 1946. In 1954 he became the first recipient of the U.S. Dept. of Energy's Enrico Fermi Award. Element number 100, fermium, was named in his honor.