Enrico Fermi
Awards & Honours
6
Awards Won
6
Honours
1
Rankings
2
Covers
3
Records
Fermi's accolades reflect his monumental impact on physics. He is one of the few scientists to have won a Nobel Prize for work that was both theoretical and experimental. The Hughes Medal and Franklin Medal recognized his contributions to nuclear physics, while the Rumford Premium and Max Planck Medal honored his broader achievements. The Enrico Fermi Award, established by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, is one of the most prestigious science awards in the world, and Fermi himself was its first recipient. His name graces laboratories, institutes, a space telescope, and even an element, fermium. In 1999, Physics World ranked him the 9th greatest physicist of all time.
Awards
Honours & Distinctions
Enrico Fermi Award
First posthumous recipient for contributions to the development of atomic energy.
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab)
Laboratory named in his honor.
Enrico Fermi Institute
Institute named after him.
Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope
Space telescope named after him.
Fermium (element 100)
Element named in his honor.
Member of the National Academy of Sciences
Elected member.
Rankings & Lists
Greatest Physicists of All Time
Magazine Covers
Time Magazine
1941-11-17
Atom Smasher
Time Magazine
1942-12-14
The Atomic Age
Records & Feats
First to achieve a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction
Fermi led the team that built Chicago Pile-1, which achieved the first artificial self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction on December 2, 1942.
Developer of Fermi-Dirac statistics
Fermi formulated the statistical laws governing particles that obey the Pauli exclusion principle, now known as fermions.
Postulated the neutrino
Fermi's theory of beta decay in 1933 postulated the existence of the neutrino, a particle not detected until 1956.