The Obsession of Physicists with the Frontier: The Case of Ausonium and Hesperium, Littorium and Mussolinium

Abstract

The attempt to find the first synthetic transuranium elements occurred via investigations completely different from anything that one could imagine. They were conducted in Rome by the renowned team of “the boys of Via Panisperna,” led by the young Enrico Fermi, affectionately called “the Pope” by his colleagues because, like the Supreme Pontiff, he was considered infallible. Nevertheless, this presumed infallibility in every area of the experimental sciences ought not stray into radiochemistry. Such hubris led to a spot on an otherwise splendid record: a clumsy interpretation of data that led to the doubtful attribution of the discovery of two transuranium elements. The hasty attempt to first name, and then retract, the two radioelements, would tarnish the prestigious and somewhat controversial figure of Enrico Fermi. On the other hand, this nonexistent discovery also sped the Roman professor to Stockholm, to receive the 1938 Nobel prize in physics. On March 25, 1934, Enrico Fermi announced the observation of neutron-induced radiation in samples of aluminum and fluorine. This brilliant experiment was the culmination of preceding discoveries: that of the neutron and that of artificial radioactivity (produced by means of α particles, deuterons, and protons). The following October, a second and crucial discovery was announced: the braking effect of hydrogenous substances on the radioactivity induced by neutrons, the first step toward the utilization of nuclear energy. The year 1934, thanks to Fermi’s research, was one of great expectations for the rebirth of Italian physics, an area that for centuries had remained in the backwater compared to the United States and the great countries of Europe. At the beginning of the 1930s, the members of Fermi’s team had explained the theory of. decay and, after 1934, with their induced radioactivity experiments, had also laid down the guidelines for research on the physics of neutrons. Rome became a reference point for nuclear research on the international level. The project of the director of the Rome Physics Institute, Senator Orso Mario Corbino (1876–1937), was nearly accomplished, a project that, from the end of the 1920s, Corbino had believed in and had not spared any expense to realize, investing all of his resources in the youthful Fermi, who was called to occupy the first chair in theoretical physics in Italy, created especially for him, when he was only 25 years of age.