Atoms in the Family

Download or read book Atoms in the Family written by Laura Fermi and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-10-24 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this absorbing account of life with the great atomic scientist Enrico Fermi, Laura Fermi tells the story of their emigration to the United States in the 1930s—part of the widespread movement of scientists from Europe to the New World that was so important to the development of the first atomic bomb. Combining intellectual biography and social history, Laura Fermi traces her husband's career from his childhood, when he taught himself physics, through his rise in the Italian university system concurrent with the rise of fascism, to his receipt of the Nobel Prize, which offered a perfect opportunity to flee the country without arousing official suspicion, and his odyssey to the United States.