Template:POTD/2026-09-29
Enrico Fermi (29 September 1901 – 28 November 1954) was an Italian-American physicist who was awarded the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physics. He created the world's first nuclear reactor, Chicago Pile-1, and is one of 16 scientists who have elements named after them. One of the few physicists to excel in both theoretical and experimental work, he made significant contributions to quantum theory, statistical mechanics, and nuclear and particle physics. He helped formulate Fermi–Dirac statistics for particles that obey Wolfgang Pauli's exclusion principle, called "fermions". His theory of beta decay correctly predicted that a particle he named the "neutrino" would be emitted along with an electron, satisfying the law of conservation of energy. He left Italy in 1938 to escape the Italian racial laws that affected his Jewish wife Laura, and emigrated to the United States. He worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II, but later opposed development of the hydrogen bomb on moral and technical grounds. This photograph of Fermi was taken in the 1940s and is in the collection of the National Archives and Records Administration.Photograph credit: United States Department of Energy; restored by Yann Forget
