Q 01/05

On which date did Fermi's Chicago Pile-1 achieve the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction?

A) 2 December 1942

B) 16 July 1945

C) 25 January 1939

D) 4 November 1943

Answer · why

A) 2 December 1942

Compton phoned Harvard in code: 'the Italian navigator has just landed in the new world'.

Q 02/05

In which year did Fermi win the Nobel Prize in Physics, at the age of 37?

A) 1940

B) 1943

C) 1938

D) 1946

Answer · why

C) 1938

He collected it in Stockholm and sailed straight on to New York rather than return to Fascist Italy.

Q 03/05

Fermi's Nobel citation mentioned nuclear reactions brought about by what?

A) Fast protons

B) Slow neutrons

C) Alpha particles

D) Gamma rays

Answer · why

B) Slow neutrons

He had found that neutrons slowed by paraffin or water were far more easily captured by nuclei.

Q 04/05

In which city was Fermi born in 1901?

A) Milan

B) Turin

C) Naples

D) Rome

Answer · why

D) Rome

His father was a division head in the Ministry of Railways and his mother a schoolteacher.

Q 05/05

Fermi's father Alberto was a division head in which government ministry?

A) Finance

B) Education

C) War

D) Railways

Answer · why

D) Railways

It was through a colleague of his father's, Adolfo Amidei, that the boy found his first mentor.