Scope and Contents

This collection is divided into two series: Series 1: Manhattan Project, 1942-1947 and Series 2: Awards, Diplomas, and Other Documents, 1945-1997. Series 1 consists of correspondence, research findings, monthly reports, and patent filing documents associated with Emilio Segrè's work on the atom bomb at the Los Alamos Laboratories in New Mexico. Individuals represented in this series include: Farrington Daniels, Enrico Fermi, Marshall G. Holloway, John Jungerman, Joseph W. Kennedy, W.M. Manning, G.T. Seaborg, Edward Teller, Richard C. Tolman, and Clyde Wiegand. Series 2 contains numerous awards, diplomas, certificates, booklets, and posters related to Emilio Segrè.

Biographical / Historical

Emilio Segrè was born in Tivoli, Italy in 1905 and studied engineering at the University of Rome in 1922. He would later study under Enrico Fermi, receiving his doctorate in physics in 1928. Segrè was appointed as assistant professor at the University of Rome, but would later leave in 1936 to become the director of the physics laboratory at the University of Palermo. While visiting California in 1938, Segrè found himself dismissed from the University of Palermo by the Fascist government. Thus he remained in the United States and became a research associate in the Radiation Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. Renowned in the field of nuclear physics, Segrè was a team leader at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratories in New Mexico working on the atom bomb.

Segrè was naturalized as a United States citizen in 1944 and went on to be a professor of physics as Berkeley from 1946-1972. He was later appointed as professor of nuclear physics at the University of Rome in 1974. Working primarily in the field of atomic, nuclear, and particle physics, Segrè's work lead to the co-discovery of the elements Technetium, Astatine, and Plutonium-239, as well as of the slow neutron and the anti-proton. Together with Owen Chamberlain, Segrè received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1959 for the discovery of the anti-proton.

He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and received many honors from universities and governments throughout the world. His investigations in nuclear physics have increased our understanding of the production methods of nuclear energy.

Related Materials

There are numerous medals, plaques, and other objects that relate to Emilio SegrŠ in the Numismatics Collection, and the Division of Medicine and Science (now Division of Medicine and Science). See Accession #1999.0027.