2008/03/07 by Salvatore Esposito, S. Esposito, Esposito, S. +2
Arts and Humanities · Physics and Astronomy · Social Sciences · #FOS: Physical sciences #History and Philosophy of Physics (physics.hist-ph) #Nuclear Issues and Defense #Physics and Society (physics.soc-ph) #Popular Physics (physics.pop-ph) #Twentieth Century Scientific Developments #physics.hist-ph #physics.pop-ph #physics.soc-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.0803.1145
Latex, amsart, 78 pages, 7 (low resolution) figures
arxiv created 2008/03/07 · openalex publication_date 2008/03/07 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We give a detailed account of the recent retrieval of a consistent amount (about 600 pages) of documents written by Enrico Fermi and/or his collaborators, coming from different sources previously unexplored. These documents include articles, patents, reports, notes on scientific and technical meetings and other papers, mainly testifying Fermi's activity in the 1940s about nuclear pile physics and engineering. All of them have been carefully described, pointing out the relevance of the given papers for their scientific or even historical content. From the analysis of these papers, a number of important scientific and technical points comes out, putting a truly new light on the Fermi's (and others') scientific activity about nuclear piles and their applications. Quite unexpectedly intriguing historical remarks, such as those regarding the relationships between U.S. and Britain, just after the end of the war, about nuclear power for pacific and/or military use, or even regarding long term physics research and post-war research policy, emerge as well.