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*Won the Noble 

Prize in 1938 for 

his work in 

radioactivity

*Built the first 

nuclear reactor

*Element 100, 

fermium is 

named in his 

honour.

*Italian Scientist

*Worked on the 

Manhattan Project to

develop the first

atomic bomb.

*Artificial Transmutation: the changing of an atom's 

nucleus from one element to another by artificial means.

*Between 1934 and 1938 bombarded many elements with 

neutrons. 

*Fermi postulated that if uranium- the largest occurring 

element was bombarded with neutrons, a new element with an 

atomic number one larger than uranium could be produced.

*Through this, Fermi produced element 93 (Neptunium)- the 

first artificially produced element.

*Nuclear Fission: The process where a heavy atomic nucleus (such as 

uranium) is hit by a slow neutron, and splits into two or more smaller 

nuclei and energy is released. 

*Fermi and his team were puzzled when they found that apart from the 

anticipated transuranic elements, many other isotopes were produced. 

All were beta emitters with different measurable half-lives. (They could 

not understand the nature of this process)

*What fermi observed was known as nuclear fission. For different 

speeds of neutrons, different products had formed.

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