Physicist Emilio Segrè (1905 - 1989) made important contributions to the fields of atomic and nuclear physics during his lifetime. He co - discovered three elements, and was part of the scientific team that developed the atomic bomb, which helped to end World War II. Segrè's ultimate honor came in 1959, when he won the Nobel Prize in physics for the antiproton, an honor he shared with colleague Owen Chamberlain.
In the profile found on The National Academies Press Home Page, biographer J. David Jackson described Emilio Segrè as a "complicated man . . . who had high standards and expected others to measure up. He appeared proud, aloof, and somewhat intimidating, but underneath he was welcoming and generous in his support of younger physicists." In Atoms, Bombs, & Eskimo Kisses - A Memoir of Father and Son, a biography written by his son, Claudio, Segrè was remembered as "a world - famous physicist . . . an architect of the atomic age."
Childhood in Italy
Segrè was born on January 30, 1905, in Tivoli, Italy, into a well - to - do Jewish family. He was the youngest son of Giuseppe Segrè, a manufacturer, and Amelia (Treves) Segrè, and arrived late in his parents' life. They were 46 and 37, and his brothers were 14 and 12 when he was born. Because of a slight delay in registering the birth of their new son, authorities listed February 1, 1905 as his official birthday.
Nicknamed Pippi, Segrè's mother taught him to read at an early age. In A Mind Always in Motion: The Autobiography of Emilio Segrè, Segrè recalled that he really enjoyed reading as a child, "especially La scienza per tutti, (Science for Everybody), a popular magazine" of the day. He also enjoyed doing science experiments and kept notebooks of the results.
In his autobiography, Segrè remembered, "As a boy, I lacked any special interest in the law or in history, and most of the dead classicism we learned in high school seemed a boring waste of time to me." He added that he really enjoyed the walks he took in the Roman Forum with his uncle. Segrè attended the local elementary school in Tivoli and graduated from high school in 1922, when he was 17 years old.
Physics Student
Upon completing high school, Segrè began to study engineering. In his autobiography, he recalled, "The end of high school materially changed my studies, which were still my primary occupation. No longer was I forced to study subjects in which I was not interested."
In 1927, Segrè met Italian scientist Enrico Fermi. Shortly after that meeting, Segrè decided to switch his major from engineering to physics, so he could become Fermi's first graduate student. This decision met with opposition from his family, as they believed engineering was a field which would provide more opportunities for him. Nonetheless, Segrè entered the Physics Institute.
Biographer Jackson recalled, "Under the tutelage of Rasetti (experiment) and Fermi (theory) and the paternal oversight of O.M. Corbino, director of the institute, Segrè developed laboratory skills and gained much theoretical knowledge before getting his doctorate after only one year as a physics student." He earned his doctorate in the summer of 1928, and then did his one year of required military service in the Italian Army.
Became College Professor
In his autobiography, Segrè reflected, "The laurea that entitled me to call myself Dr. Segrè completed my formal scholastic career, but my study of physics was to be a lifelong occupation." Between 1929 and 1932, Segrè was an assistant to Corbino at the University of Rome, and also served as an instructor.
As noted by Jackson, Segrè also held a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, and worked with Professor Otto Stern in Hamburg, Germany, and Professor Pieter Zeeman in Amsterdam, Holland. Jackson continued that in 1932, Segrè became the equivalent of an assistant professor, and was working with Fermi. Jackson added that "in 1934, the Fermi group switched from atomic spectroscopy to nuclear physics . . . making Rome the center of research with this new tool for nuclear transformations." Subsequently, this scientific team discovered the slow neutron.
The year 1936 would be a time of change for Segrè. He had been courting Elfriede Spiro, a German woman, and the couple married in February of that year. In addition, he was appointed director of the physics laboratory and professor at the University of Palermo.
Segrè reminisced in his autobiography, "Marriage and transfer to Palermo signaled significant changes in my life. From being a young man living in his parents' home, I now became head of a new family; from being a subordinate in the physics Institute in Rome, I became chief of an institute of my own in Sicily."
In the spring of 1937, Segrè and his wife welcomed their first child, a son named Claudio. Life was good. Segrè remembered, "At the University of Palermo I was a young, but important, tenured professor, and my career seemed established." Things would soon change, however.
The political situation in Europe was shaky. Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party ruled in Germany, and Benito Mussolini and the Fascists were in charge in Italy. Both dictators were purging "undesirables" and "annexing" other countries. In 1938, while on a summer visit to the University of California in Berkeley, Segrè learned he was fired from the University of Palermo because he was Jewish. He made the decision to stay in the United States, in Berkeley.
Teacher and Scientist
Between 1938 and 1943, Segrè held various positions at the University of California, Berkeley. He was a research associate in Ernest Lawrence's laboratory, and was also a lecturer, teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in physics. In his personal life, the Segrè family also welcomed a daughter, Amelia, in 1942.
In 1937, Segrè was working with Carlo Perrier, a Palermo chemist, and they co - discovered the element technetium. As recounted in Notable Scientists: From 1900 to the Present, "Segrè and Perrier suggested the name technetium for the element from the Greek word teknetos, for 'artificial'. . . . This was the first artificially produced new element in scientific history."
While working with Dale Corson and Kenneth MacKenzie in 1940, Segrè and his team found the evidence to prove that element 85 existed. The team suggested the name astatine. Biographer Jackson continued, "After the discovery of plutonium in early 1941, Segrè collaborated with [Glenn T.] Seaborg, [Joseph W.] Kennedy, and [Arthur C.] Wahl on the isolation of the isotope 239Pu by slow neutron bombardment of uranium and then studied its chemistry and nuclear fission properties." Plutonium would play a significant role in world history, as it was the main energy source in the atomic bomb.
Joined "Manhattan Project"
As Segrè wrote in his autobiography, by the early 1940s, the United States government "assumed control of the atomic bomb project." He continued that in September of 1942, the military had taken the lead role in this project. By November of that year, it was determined that a special lab to build the bomb was needed. Segrè's colleague Oppenheimer was selected to be the director, and he asked Segrè to come work at the lab.
Segrè and his family moved to New Mexico, site of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, where he joined the "Manhattan Project." Segrè worked as a physicist and group leader from 1943 - 1946. In his book, Claudio Segrè described Los Alamos as "a dream scientific community behind barbed wire." He added, "Ironically, atop this mesa in the mountains of New Mexico, my father felt at home. He was a member of the elite." Segrè was committed to the project. He wrote in his autobiography, "I had no choice about going to Los Alamos. War work was a duty to the United States I felt strongly about."
Even though Segrè was a citizen of Italy, an enemy country, he reflected, "My work had put me at the very center of the atomic bomb project. Although I was technically an enemy alien, so were many others who were vital to the enterprise, and I found myself in a relatively important position in the extraordinary adventure that was the Los Alamos laboratory." He continued, "The laboratory had one purpose only: to build the bomb as fast as possible."
On July 16, 1945, the first atomic bomb was exploded near Los Alamos. In August, the United States dropped bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, ending World War II. In his autobiography, Segrè ruminated, "I have been asked innumerable times my thoughts immediately after the bomb's explosion and the following days . . . I certainly rejoiced in the success that crowned years of heavy work, and I was relieved by the ending of the war."
Back to Berkeley
While in Los Alamos, Segrè and his wife had become U.S. citizens and added a daughter, Fausta, born in 1945, to their family. Segrè had the option to stay in Los Alamos, but he missed the academic life. In early 1946, Segrè and his family headed back to the University of California, Berkeley, where he had accepted a position as a professor in the Physics Department.
Biographer Jackson wrote, "Having left Berkeley in 1943 as a lecturer on a temporary appointment, Segrè returned as a full professor with a regular campus appointment as well as affiliation with the Radiation Laboratory." He was pleased to be teaching physics again.
In many ways, Segrè's life had come full circle. In his autobiography he shared, "I landed in New York on July 13, 1938, expecting to return to Italy in the autumn for the beginning of the school year. Instead, nine years were to elapse before I revisited Italy. By that time, having lost my Italian job, I had built a second career, participated in great historic events, won a superior university position, and become a U.S. citizen and a Californian."
Won Nobel Prize
In 1955, Segrè and his colleagues Owen Chamberlain, Clyde Wiegand, and Thomas Ypsilantis discovered the antiproton, a negatively charged proton. As biographer Jackson noted, "The discovery of the antiproton removed any lingering doubts about the particle - antiparticle symmetry of nature." Many in the scientific community believed this finding might merit the Nobel Prize.
In the biography he wrote about his father, Claudio Segrè recalled, "For eight years, between 1951 and 1959, my father wrestled with frustrations, bitterness, and fear that the Prize would elude him." He added that since his father's friends and colleagues had already won the Nobel Prize, Segrè may have believed his best work was past him.
Jackson continued, "The circumstances surrounding the discovery of the antiproton were not without controversy . . . Even within the group, feelings of injustice prevailed." Only Segrè and Chamberlain were recognized when they announced the 1959 Nobel Prize in Physics. Segrè's son remembered, "Fermi's support in particular - the approbation of his great teacher, his model, perhaps the greatest all - around physicist of his generation - meant almost as much as winning the Prize itself." On December 10, 1959, Segrè and Chamberlain received the Nobel Prize from King of Sweden in Stockholm.
Biographer Jackson wrote, "Segrè's life changed as it does for most upon receiving the Nobel Prize. He became increasingly involved in travel, guest lectures, and committee service, but he was only 54 and stayed as co - head of the research group, now more in an advisory role than as a participant." Segrè also received an honorary degree from the University of Palermo in 1959, and was one of the American scientists named "Men of the Year" for 1960 by Time Magazine on January 2, 1961.
Academic Life
Segrè remained at the University of California, Berkeley, as a Professor of Physics. He also wrote almost 200 scientific papers, and held memberships in the National Academy of Sciences, American Physical Society (fellow), American Philosophical Society, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Academia Nazionale dei Lincei. He also wrote numerous books and text books, including the biography of his mentor Enrico Fermi, Physicist, in 1970. In addition, he served as the editor of the Annual Review of Nuclear Science for 20 years and received many honorary degrees.
Of his time at the University of California, Berkeley, biographer Jackson noted, "In departmental and university affairs Segrè took an active role . . . He took very seriously the intellectual health of the department and its future development . . . He played a strong role in departmental faculty meetings, even after retirement."
Segrè's wife died of a heart attack in October of 1970, while the couple was traveling in Italy. Shaken by the sudden loss of his wife, Segrè went through a period of mourning, and ultimately recognized (as told by his son), "There's nothing to be done . . . The pain never goes away." At the end of the 1972 spring term, Segrè retired as a college professor. He was 67. During his tenure, Jackson noted, he was responsible for training 30 Ph.D. students.
Later Years
Biographer Jackson stated that after retirement, Segrè "remained active with traveling and writing taking much of his time. He retained an enduring curiosity about new developments in physics and often sought out a colleague to explain their significance." He also continued to write. From X - Rays to Quarks: Modern Physicists and Their Discoveries was published in English in 1980, and From Falling Bodies to Radio Waves: Classical Physicists and Their Discoveries was released in 1984. He also worked on his autobiography. Segrè had also remarried, taking Rosa Mines as his second wife in 1972.
On April 22, 1989, Segrè died of a heart attack in Lafayette, California. His autobiography, A Mind Always in Motion: The Autobiography of Emilio Segrè, was published after his death, in 1993. Publishers Weekly noted that although Segrè's memoirs gave personal insight into the "fathers of fission," it really was "more the story of the man than of an era."
Books
Nobel Lectures, Physics 1942 - 1962, Elsevier Publishing Company, 1964.
Notable Scientists: From 1900 to the Present, Gale Group, 2001.
The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives, Volume 2: 1986 - 1990, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1999.
Segrè, Claudio G., Atoms, Bombs, & Eskimo Kisses: A Memoir of Father and Son, Viking, 1995.
Segrè, Emilio, A Mind Always in Motion: The Autobiography of Emilio Segrè, University of California Press, 1993.
World of Physics, 2 vols., Gale Group, 2001.
World of Scientific Discovery, 2nd ed., Gale Group, 1999.
Periodicals
New York Times, April 24, 1989.
Publishers Weekly, September 27, 1993.
Online
Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2005. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2005. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRCGale, 2003 (April 14, 2005).
"Emilio Gino Segrè - Biographical Memoirs from the National
Academy of Sciences by J. David Jackson," The National Academies Press Home Page,http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/biomems/esegre.html (November 25, 2004).
"Emilio Segrè," Spartacus Educational - Home Page, http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASegre.htm (November 25, 2004).
"Emilio Segrè," Welcome to Atomic Archive: Explore the History, Science, and the Consequences of the Atomic Bomb website, http://www.autoicarchive.com/Bios/Segre.shtml (November 25, 2004).
"Emilio Segrè - Biography," Nobelprize.org website, http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/1959/Segre - bio.html (November 25, 2004).
