Overview

Enrico Fermi is unquestionably among the greats of the world's physicists, the most famous Italian scientist since Galileo. Called the Pope by his peers, he was regarded as infallible in his instincts and research. His discoveries changed our world; they led to weapons of mass destruction and conversely to life-saving medical interventions. This unassuming man struggled with issues relevant today, such as the threat of nuclear annihilation and the relationship of science to politics. Fleeing Fascism and anti-Semitism, Fermi became a leading figure in America's most secret project: building the atomic bomb. The last physicist who mastered all branches of the discipline, Fermi was a rare mixture of theorist and experimentalist. His rich legacy encompasses key advances in fields as diverse as comic rays, nuclear technology, and early computers. In their revealing book, The Pope of Physics, Gino Segrè and Bettina Hoerlin bring this scientific visionary to life. An examination of the human dramas that touched Fermi's life as well as a thrilling history of scientific innovation in the twentieth century, this is the comprehensive biography that Fermi deserves.

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9781665275507

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Segre and Hoerlin draw an engaging portrait of a man with boundless curiosity who delighted in his work; fans of pop science and history will thoroughly enjoy this entertaining and accessible biography of a scientist who deserves to be better understood.-- Publishers Weekly Starred Review

Segre and Hoerlin draw an engaging portrait of a man with boundless curiosity who delighted in his work; fans of pop science and history will thoroughly enjoy this entertaining and accessible biography of a scientist who deserves to be better understood.-- ""Publishers Weekly Starred Review""

Author Information

Gino Segre has a bachelor's degree in physics from Harvard, attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for graduate school, and spent time at Geneva's international accelerator laboratory for postdoctoral work. He began teaching at the University of Pennsylvania in 1967, and is now emeritus. A long-term interest in history led him to begin writing science history for a broader audience. After many years of specialized research, he wanted to try thinking about science in a broader context. That is how he began his first book. Bettina Hoerlin was born in America after her parents fled Nazi Germany and is a graduate of Los Alamos High School. She holds a doctorate in policy sciences and taught at the University of Pennsylvania for seventeen years, having previously served as health commissioner of Philadelphia. She was also a visiting professor at Haverford College, where she taught courses in health care disparities. An enthusiastic hiker and avid music lover, she lives with her husband, physicist Gino Segre, in Philadelphia. Tim Campbell, winner of AudioFile Earphones Awards, is a narrator and actor based in Los Angeles, California. He studied at the University of California and earned a BA in music and theater and a certification from the prestigious Great Books program at Pepperdine University, where he graduated magna cum laude. He is also a classically trained singer and performs regularly with the Los Angeles Master Chorale and Los Angeles Opera Chorus, as well as on studio soundtracks for film and television.

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