Enrico Fermi. The obedient genius. Translated from the Italian by Ugo Bruzzo
type: Item
instance of: scholarly article
title: Enrico Fermi. The obedient genius. Translated from the Italian by Ugo Bruzzo
zbMATH Open document ID: 1396.81006
DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4939-3533-8
author: Giuseppe Bruzzaniti
published in: Springer Biographies
publication date: 2016-03-22T00:00:00Z
review text: The most puzzling feature of this -- otherwise admirable -- book is its subtitle: ``The obedient genius.'' Why on earth the ``genius'' of Enrico Fermi should be dubbed as ``obedient'' is a bit of a mystery because the author never again seems to use this word in this sense in the subsequent chapters, but for a few lines in the \textit{Epilogue}: ``My story with Enrico Fermi started three years ago [in fact three years before 2007, the date of the first Italian edition], and that with the physics of his time, 25 years ago. Now I think to know many aspects of his person, perhaps difficult to document, but very clear in my perception: his style, the different nuances of his scientific `prudence' the young researcher's \textit{obedience} [reviewer's emphasis] to the academic rules, and the wisdom of the great master.'' The words ``obedient, obedience'' are nowhere else to be found with the same meaning along the more than 300 pages of this study, while from the previous quotation they seem to point to some sort of ``prudence'' and even ``obedience to academic rules,'' so that the reader could almost expect the utterance of the profane epithet ``conformist,'' if it were not to be related to such an outstanding scientific personality as Enrico Fermi was. Could all that possibly make reference to the well known fact that in 1934 (as it is duly recalled in the Sections 4.7 and 5.3) Fermi and his coworkers discovered the neutron-induced artificial radioactivity, but failed to see the fission reactions later recognized (1938--9) by Hahn, Strassmann, Meitner and Frisch? Should this blunder be attributed to some sort of lack of non-conformist imagination? Did they not dare to think new enough, despite Ida Noddack's hints? This mesmerizing point is discussed in some detail in the Section 5.3 without however reaching -- naturally enough -- a definitive conclusion, but without explicitly articulating the word ``obedient'' either (was this finally a suitable lexical choice?): ``One…
reviewed by: Nicola Cufaro Petroni
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 81-03
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 83-01
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 01A70
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 01A60
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 81V35
zbMATH DE Number: 6559660
zbMATH Keywords: nuclear physics
zbMATH Keywords: beta decay
zbMATH Keywords: fission
MaRDI profile type: Publication
full work available at URL: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-3533-8
OpenAlex ID: W4239133436
description: scientific article; zbMATH DE number 6559660