Leaving Italy in 1938
Fermi left Italy after new racial laws affected his Jewish wife, Laura Capon. He immigrated to the United States and later worked on the Manhattan Project during the Second World War.
Science
Enrico Fermi
Italian-American physicist who created the first artificial nuclear reactor and won the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Enrico Fermi made major contributions to statistical mechanics, quantum theory, and nuclear and particle physics. He combined theoretical and experimental work and later participated in the Manhattan Project. In Como, he joined physicists gathered for the Volta centenary congress at the Carducci Institute.
Worth knowing
Chicago Pile-1
At the University of Chicago, Fermi led the team that designed and built Chicago Pile-1. On 2 December 1942, it achieved the first human-created, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.
Estimating the Trinity test's yield
Fermi attended the Trinity test on 16 July 1945, the first test of a nuclear bomb. He used his Fermi method to estimate its explosive yield.
The Volta centenary congress
Fermi joined the physicists assembled in Como for the Volta centenary congress at the Carducci Institute, now associated with the institute's Nobel Room.
Addresses you can still visit
Every place in this city with a documented tie to this person.
Performed here
Nobel Room at the Carducci Institute
He joined the physicists assembled in Como for the Volta centenary congress.
Performed here
Villa Monastero
Fermi delivered his final series of physics lectures at Villa Monastero in 1954.
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