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Lot 123
FERMI, ENRICO. 1901-1954.
4 June 2014, 13:00 EDT
New YorkSold for US$8,125 inc. premium
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FERMI, ENRICO. 1901-1954.
1. 3 original black and white photographs of laboratory equipment, 85 x 62 mm, with Italian ink annotations in Fermi's hand to versos, 1934-35.
2. FEA, GIORGIO. fl. 1935. Folding blueprint chart titled "Trasmutazioni Artificiali," 323 x 590 mm, signed in pencil by Fermi ("Fermi / P. III"), May 1935.
3. FERMI, ENRICO. Autograph note signed ("Enrico Fermi") to Prof. Giovanni Magrini, 1 p, 12mo, Rome, 2 January 1933, on card engraved with the insignia of the Reale Accademia d'Italia.
4. ---, FRANCO RASETTI and OSCAR D'AGOSTINO. "Sulla possibilità di produrre elementi di numero atomico maggiore di 92." Offprint from: Ricerca scientifica V, vol I, June 1934. 4to (245 x 172 mm). [1] p.
Light soiling and a few small marginal tears in chart; small rust-mark from staple in upper corner, docketing in blue grease pencil on ANS: otherwise a fine collection.
Provenance: Jeremy Norman.
FERMI AND NUCLEAR TRANSMUTATION. An extraordinary group of autograph materials dating from 1933-35, the critical turning point in Fermi's scientific career, as it marks the beginning of his celebrated neutron bombardment experiments that led directly to his receipt of the Nobel Prize for physics in 1938. Autograph material by Fermi from this period is almost impossible to find on the market; this is the first such material we have seen seen available.
Prior to 1934, Fermi focused primarily on theoretical physics, but after Curie and Joliot's discovery of artificially induced radioactivity (by bombardment with alpha particles) in 1934, Fermi and his colleagues at the University of Rome embarked on a course of experiments involving the bombardment of various elements with neutrons.
The homemade Geiger counter that Fermi built is illustrated in the first photograph; the Wilson chamber used by Fermi and his associates in second; and in the third, Fermi's ionization chamber, a device for measuring radioactivity. Fermi's team continued their work during the summer of 1934, irradiating "all the substances [they] could lay their hands on" (Fermi, Collected Papers, I, p 640), all the way up to uranium, the heaviest in atomic weight of the naturally occurring elements. The results of the team's work, published in "almost weekly short letters to Ricerca Scientifica" (Segrè Fermi p 74), were tabulated the following year by Giorgio Fea, whose "Tabelle riassuntive e bibliografia delle trasmutazioni artificiali" (Nuovo Cimento 12 [June 1935]) represents the first published table of isotopes (radionuclides). The present lot includes Fermi's signed copy of the "blueprint" of Fea's chart, dated a month before its publication (item 2 above). As can be seen by Fermi's notes on the photographs, and by the title of the offprint included in this collection, he and his team expected their bombardment experiments to produce transuranic elements, i.e., elements with an atomic number higher than uranium's 92. This did not take place, nor, as Segrè writes, did the Fermi team discover nuclear fission, despite the nature of their researches. Fermi Collected Papers I, pp 639-40; Segrè Enrico Fermi, Physicist pp 73-77.
2. FEA, GIORGIO. fl. 1935. Folding blueprint chart titled "Trasmutazioni Artificiali," 323 x 590 mm, signed in pencil by Fermi ("Fermi / P. III"), May 1935.
3. FERMI, ENRICO. Autograph note signed ("Enrico Fermi") to Prof. Giovanni Magrini, 1 p, 12mo, Rome, 2 January 1933, on card engraved with the insignia of the Reale Accademia d'Italia.
4. ---, FRANCO RASETTI and OSCAR D'AGOSTINO. "Sulla possibilità di produrre elementi di numero atomico maggiore di 92." Offprint from: Ricerca scientifica V, vol I, June 1934. 4to (245 x 172 mm). [1] p.
Light soiling and a few small marginal tears in chart; small rust-mark from staple in upper corner, docketing in blue grease pencil on ANS: otherwise a fine collection.
Provenance: Jeremy Norman.
FERMI AND NUCLEAR TRANSMUTATION. An extraordinary group of autograph materials dating from 1933-35, the critical turning point in Fermi's scientific career, as it marks the beginning of his celebrated neutron bombardment experiments that led directly to his receipt of the Nobel Prize for physics in 1938. Autograph material by Fermi from this period is almost impossible to find on the market; this is the first such material we have seen seen available.
Prior to 1934, Fermi focused primarily on theoretical physics, but after Curie and Joliot's discovery of artificially induced radioactivity (by bombardment with alpha particles) in 1934, Fermi and his colleagues at the University of Rome embarked on a course of experiments involving the bombardment of various elements with neutrons.
The homemade Geiger counter that Fermi built is illustrated in the first photograph; the Wilson chamber used by Fermi and his associates in second; and in the third, Fermi's ionization chamber, a device for measuring radioactivity. Fermi's team continued their work during the summer of 1934, irradiating "all the substances [they] could lay their hands on" (Fermi, Collected Papers, I, p 640), all the way up to uranium, the heaviest in atomic weight of the naturally occurring elements. The results of the team's work, published in "almost weekly short letters to Ricerca Scientifica" (Segrè Fermi p 74), were tabulated the following year by Giorgio Fea, whose "Tabelle riassuntive e bibliografia delle trasmutazioni artificiali" (Nuovo Cimento 12 [June 1935]) represents the first published table of isotopes (radionuclides). The present lot includes Fermi's signed copy of the "blueprint" of Fea's chart, dated a month before its publication (item 2 above). As can be seen by Fermi's notes on the photographs, and by the title of the offprint included in this collection, he and his team expected their bombardment experiments to produce transuranic elements, i.e., elements with an atomic number higher than uranium's 92. This did not take place, nor, as Segrè writes, did the Fermi team discover nuclear fission, despite the nature of their researches. Fermi Collected Papers I, pp 639-40; Segrè Enrico Fermi, Physicist pp 73-77.