Atoms in the Family: My Life with Enrico Fermi
Atoms in the Family: My Life with Enrico Fermi is a firsthand account of Nobel Prize winning scientist Enrico Fermi.
Combining intellectual biography and social history, Laura Fermi traces her husband Enrico Fermi’s career from his childhood, when he taught himself physics, through his rise in the Italian university system concurrent with the rise of fascism, to his receipt of the Nobel Prize in 1938, which offered a perfect opportunity to flee the country without arousing official suspicion, and his odyssey to the United States.
The Fermi’s emigration to the United States in the 1930’s was part of the widespread movement of scientists from Europe to the New World that was so important to the development of the atomic bomb at Los Alamos. This highly readable and narrative account of the life of scientist Enrico Fermi will help you better understand the world and the times in which he lived and worked.
- About the author: Laura Capon Fermi was an Italian and naturalized-American writer and political activist. She was the wife of Nobel Prize physicist Enrico Fermi.
