Here We Split the Atom
“If Enrico Fermi was not married to a Jewish woman, could he have conceivably worked on the nuclear program for Nazi Germany?”
It was 2017, the last day of November. I was back at my alma mater, the University of Chicago, where I received my PhD in physics in 2015. The first controlled, self-sustained nuclear chain reaction was achieved on this campus by a group of scientists led by Enrico Fermi 75 years ago on December 2, 1942. To commemorate this scientific breakthrough and its complex legacy, the University organized a series of events through the fall, including a weekly colloquium at the Physics Department that Fermi and his team used to call home.
The last colloquium of the special series was given by an Italian couple, Gino Segrè and Bettina Hoerlin, who co-authored a new biography of Fermi, the topic of their talk. During the question and answer session, I asked the speakers about this hypothetical scenario.
“Well, that depends on many things being different. Fermi would also have to be German.” Segrè paused for a moment, and then said, “But yes, the answer is yes. Given how Fermi compartmentalized science from politics, my answer is yes.”
Gino Segrè, professor emeritus of physics at University of Pennsylvania, is the nephew of Nobel laureate Emilio Segrè, Fermi’s first student in Rome. His wife and co-author Bettina…
