Scientists discover, publish, and get prizes – The Nobel prize being one of the most prestigious. Inventors invent and patent their inventions. This is the world of discovery and invention, in a nutshell. However, often, scientists also invent and obtain patents. Sometimes the patents might not have anything to do with the work for which they have received the Nobel prize. Let us now explore Enrico Fermi and his patents in this ninth article of the series on Nobel laureates and their patents.
Early morning of July 16, 1945. At precisely 5:30 am a humongous blast shattered the quiet of dawn and a huge mushroom cloud rose into the sky. That was the scene of the testing of the first atom bomb, code named Trinity. Various instruments had been set up all around the point at which the bomb was detonated atop a 100-foot-tall steel tower. The tower was instantly vapourised. Various sensors had been deployed at safe distances all around “ground zero” – the spot of the explosion – to measure seismic signals, wind speed and air pressure and so on which would enable computers to calculate the yield of the bomb.
One of the scientists involved in the development of the bomb who was present at the test, at a distance from ground zero, held pieces of paper, more or less equal in size, in his fist as he waited for the explosion to occur. When it did and the pressure wave hit him, he released the pieces of paper from his fist held at shoulder height. The shock wave carried the pieces of paper a little distance away from him. Based on estimated values of the height at which they were released, the areas of the pieces of paper, the distance they were carried away by the shock wave, the distance from ground zero at which he was standing and so on, he did a “back-of-the-envelope” calculation of the yield of the bomb. He calculated it as 10 kilotons of TNT - the standard units for expressing the yield of such explosions. All the instrumentation and computers of those days took their time and came up with the number 18.6 kilotons. This is a remarkably close estimate and was of great value since the result was available within minutes of the blast.
The scientist who estimated in this fashion was Enrico Fermi, an Italian born American scientist. He was awarded the Nobel prize for Physics in 1938 "for his demonstrations of the existence of new radioactive elements produced by neutron irradiation, and for his related discovery of nuclear reactions brought about by slow neutrons". He was the first one to achieve a controlled nuclear chain reaction that eventually led to the nuclear power generation in nuclear power plants. He was one of those rare scientists who was at ease with both theoretical physics and experimental physics. Many scientific phenomena carry his name which shows his great contribution to and influence on modern physics. The method of estimation described earlier carries his name. He famously said, “where is everybody?”, by which he meant why don’t we have a clear and obvious evidence for extraterrestrial life whereas various estimates claim that intelligent life must be fairly common all over the universe.
Fermi was born in Rome in 1901 but left Italy for the United States in 1938, fearing trouble from the Fascists because his wife was Jewish. Though he played aggressive games of tennis and was also a mountaineer, it is said that he had very few interests outside Physics. This is also revealed by the fact that his ten or so patents are all connected with nuclear physics.
Fermi died in 1954 from inoperable stomach cancer. He is considered one of the most influential and productive scientists of all time. Among the many things that are named after him are the Fermilab particle accelerator and physics lab in Batavia, Illinois, Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, and fermium an artificial element with the atomic number 100 and a class of elementary particles - Fermions.
