Fermi, Laura

Fermi, Laura. 1954. Atoms in the Family. University of Chicago Press. 

Fermi, Laura. Atoms for the World United States Participation in the Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy. Chicago University of Chicago Press, 1957. 

Fermi s wife, Laura, was Jewish, and as Hitler s influence over Mussolini intensified, anti-Jewish laws were passed that made Laura s remaining in Italy precarious. Alter accepting his Nobel Prize in Stockholm, Fermi and his wife took a ship directly to the United States, where they would spend the rest of their lives. Enrico taught at Columbia University in New York City from 1939 to 1942, and at the University of Chicago from 1942 until his death in 1954. 

Rome. In 1928 Fermi married Laura Capon, and the couple had two children. 

Fermi went oflT to the University of Michigan s summer school in Ann Arbor, renewing an affiliation he had begun with Laura in the summer of... 

He liked America. He was attracted, Segrd notes with an ear for Fermi s priorities, by the well-equipped laboratories, the eagerness he sensed in the new generation of American physicists, and the cordial reception he enjoyed in academic circles. Mechanical proficiency and practical gadgets in America counterbalanced to an extent the beauty of Italy. American political life and political ideals were immeasurably superior to fascism. Fermi swam in Michigan s cool lakes and learned to enjoy American cooking. But the pressure of events in Italy was not yet sufficiently extreme, and Laura, Roman to her fine bones, was more than reluctant to leave the city of plane trees and classical ruins where she was bom. Nor was anti-Semitism yet an issue in Italy—Mussolini had even declared he did not propose to make it one. 

Laura Fermi woke to the telephone early on the morning of November 10. A call would be placed from Stockholm, the operator advised her. Professor Fermi could expect it that evening at six. 

In the meantime they invested surreptitiously in what Fermi called the refugee s trousseau. Laura s new coat was beaver and they distracted themselves on the day of the Stockholm call shopping for expensive watches. Diamonds, which had to be registered, they chose not to risk. 

Near six o clock the phone rang. It was Ginestra Amaldi wondering if they had heard. Everyone had gathered at the Amaldis to wait for the call, she reported. The Fermis turned on the six o clock news. Laura long remembered the news ... 

As the Drottningholm berthed, at 1 p.m. on January 16, Laura Fermi saw Bohr on an upper deck leaning on the railing searching the crowd. She... 

Neutrons diffusing through a tank of water it was all too vague. Except to alert Ross Gunn, the meeting came to nothing. Enrico himself... doubted the relevance of his predictions, says Laura Fermi. The Navy reported itself interested in maintaining contact representatives would undoubtedly visit the Columbia premises. Fermi smelled the condescension and cooled. 

Laura and Enrico Fermi and their two children had moved from a Manhattan apartment in the summer of 1939 across the George Washington Bridge and beyond the Palisades to the pleasant suburb of Leonia, New... 

Working against the clock to build weapons that might end a long and bloody war strained hfe at Los Alamos but also heightened it. I always pitied our Army doctors for their thankless job, comments Laura Fermi ... 

From the distance of the source and from the displacement of the air due to the shock wave, Segr6 explains, he could calculate the energy of the explosion. This Fermi had done in advance having prepared himself a table of numbers, so that he could tell immediately the energy liberated from this crude but simple measurement. He was so profoundly and totally absorbed in his bits of paper, adds Laura Fermi, that he was not aware of the tremendous noise. ... 

The war against the Jews spread to Italy and threatened Laura Fermi. The 1938 Nobel Prize offered the couple escape with financial security with their children Giulio and Nella they went on from Stockholm to New York. We have founded the American branch of the Fermi family, Fermi mocked. 

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