ENRICO FERMI - AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED 04/24/1929 - HFSID 285983

 

ENRICO FERMI
Scarce signed autograph letter by the future Nobel Prize winner on stationery of the Institute of Physics, University of Rome (1929), inquiring about fees and travel expenses for visiting professors
Scarce ALS: "Enrico Fermi", 2 pages, 6½x8½ (front and verso). Rome, 1929 April 24. On stationery of the Institute of Physics of the University of Rome. To an unnamed doctor. In Italian, translated. In full: "I impose, once again, upon your kindness to ask you about the following items concerning which I have already spoken to you. a) What is the net compensation, inclusive of travel expenses, etc., for Professor Michele Cantone of the Royal University of Naples (grade 4) for only one session held in Rome? B) What is the ongoing fee for a single session payable to Senator Professor Antonio Garbasso at the University of Florence? C) What is the net compensation for a single session payable to the members of the Commission who reside in Rome? I believe it is 25 lire minus the deduction for income tax. The usual rates of compensation are the same as those paid to the ministerial examining commission. Please excuse my troubling you. I thank you in advance." Italian physicist ENRICO FERMI (1901-1954) was awarded the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physics for identification of new radioactive elements and discovery of nuclear reactions affected by slow neutrons. In 1939, Fermi and Leo Szilard co-invented the nuclear reactor at Columbia University. The work moved to the University of Chicago when the Manhattan Project consolidated its operations there, culminating in the assembly of the first full-scale pile. From that first small pile grew production reactors that bred plutonium for the first atom bombs. Moving to Los Alamos in 1944, Fermi was present in the New Mexican desert for the first test of the new weapon in July 1945. Lightly creased. Fine condition.