Teaching Theoretical Physics: the cases of Enrico Fermi and Ettore Majorana

A. De Gregorio; S. Esposito

REVIEW

Teaching Theoretical Physics: the cases of Enrico Fermi and Ettore Majorana

A. De Gregorio, S. Esposito

History and Philosophy of Physics · Submitted 21 Feb 2006 · 26 references

Pith's verdict: Archival gold on Fermi's and Majorana's teaching, but the 'deep influence' claim is a bit looser than the evidence: the parallels are with Fermi's 1928 book, not the oral course, and no control comparison rules out common textbook tradition.

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CitationA. De Gregorio, S. Esposito. "Teaching Theoretical Physics: the cases of Enrico Fermi and Ettore Majorana." arXiv:physics/0602146 (2006). https://pith.science/paper/LMO74LDL

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Claim paper

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Editor's note

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Two things you should know. First, this paper does real archival work: it recovers three previously unknown Majorana course programs from Rome, and it maps Fermi's 65 lectures onto the six chapters of his 1928 book. That is genuinely new and useful for anyone working on the history of quantum mechanics teaching. Second, the headline claim—that Majorana's 1938 Naples lectures 'very closely reflect' Fermi's 1927-28 course—is plausible but not fully pinned down. The parallels are drawn against Fermi's published book, not the record book or any lecture notes. The paper itself even suggests Majorana fetched Fermi's book from Rome during the course. So you can say 'Fermi's approach' influenced Majorana, but the specific 'course' attribution is underdetermined.

The paper's strengths are solid. The archival provenance is clear, the tables align record-book topics with textbook sections, and the authors are transparent about gaps: missing first four Naples lectures, missing 1928-29 record book. The reconstruction of Fermi's course from record book plus textbook is standard practice and done carefully. The three recovered programs (Appendices B-D) are a real contribution, and the comparison of Majorana's group-theoretic program with Weyl's book is interesting.

Where it gets soft is the influence argument. The evidence for Majorana's debt is a set of distinctive details—'at most only one electron,' the 'Cp' symbol, Cu/Ag/Au examples, the Zeeman formula. These are from Fermi's book, not from the oral course. To claim the 1938 lectures reflect the 1927-28 course specifically, you'd need to rule out that Majorana simply had the book in front of him (which the authors themselves suspect) or that he was drawing on a shared Old Quantum Theory pedagogy found in Persico or Sommerfeld. They don't do that control. It's a moderate caveat, not a fatal one: the broader thesis of Fermi's influence survives, because Majorana attended the course and the book grew out of it. But the precise causal story is shakier than the prose suggests.

The reader's weakest-assumption point about record-book-to-book correspondence is reasonable and, to my mind, a minor concern. The stress-test note, though, is on target: without a control, the strong wording about 'course' is not uniquely supported.

Who is this for? Historians of physics and anyone interested in how quantum mechanics entered university teaching. A serious referee should engage with it, mostly to push the authors to soften the causal language and add a comparison with Persico or Sommerfeld. The archival content deserves publication.

My recommendation: send it out, but ask the authors to reframe the conclusion to 'Fermi's published and pedagogical approach' and to acknowledge the book-vs-course ambiguity explicitly.

Referee report

Significance

If the main claim is accepted, the paper makes a solid contribution to the history of quantum mechanics teaching in Italy: it documents the content of the early Italian theoretical physics course that introduced the new quantum mechanics, publishes three previously unknown course programs by Majorana, and connects these documents to Majorana's surviving Naples lecture notes. The strength of the paper lies in its systematic use of primary archival material and in the explicit appendices that allow readers to check the correspondence tables and program translations. The parallels and differences are presented in a largely falsifiable way, and the authors are appropriately cautious in flagging reconstructive speculation. However, the evidence does not fully support the sharpest formulation of the conclusion—that Majorana's lectures 'very closely reflect Fermi's 1927-28 course'—because the decisive textual parallels come from Fermi's book rather than from the record of his oral lectures.

Major objections (3)

[§5.2 and §7] The evidence for the closest parallels between Majorana's 1938 lectures and Fermi's teaching—the wording 'at most only one electron,' the Cu/Ag/Au examples, the Stoner-table symbol 'Cp,' and the Zeeman formula of Eq. (3)—is taken from Fermi's 1928 book (Ref. [4]), not from the 1927-28 record book, and no lecture notes from Fermi's 1927-28 course survive (as stated in Sect. 3). The record book in Appendix A records only topic headings, such as 'The exclusion principle' and 'Stoner table. Chemical applications,' so it cannot support claims about Fermi's exact words or formulas in the classroom. The conclusion in Sect. 7 that Majorana's lectures 'very closely reflect Fermi's 1927-28 course' therefore goes beyond what the cited evidence establishes; at most the evidence shows closeness to Fermi's published presentation. The authors should either find independent sources for Fermi's oral phrasing or reframe the conclusion to refer to Fermi's teaching approach as transmitted through both his course and his textbook.
[§6.1] The speculative reconstruction in Sect. 6.1—that Majorana traveled to Rome on January 22, 1938, to fetch Fermi's Introduzione alla fisica atomica, just before the surviving notes begin on January 25—introduces a direct alternative explanation for the parallels in the Old Quantum Theory lectures: Majorana may have been following Fermi's book rather than his memory of the 1927-28 course. The paper does not address how this possibility affects the attribution of influence to the course. To strengthen the central claim, the authors should add a control comparison with other Old Quantum Theory textbooks available at the time, such as Persico's Fondamenti della meccanica atomica (mentioned in Sect. 4) or Sommerfeld's Atombau, and show that the specific similarities (e.g., the 'Cp' notation, the Cu/Ag/Au set, the Zeeman formula) are distinctive of Fermi rather than common to the contemporary pedagogical tradition.
[§2.2 and Appendix A] The reconstruction of Fermi's 1927-28 course in Sect. 2.2 rests on two linked assumptions: that the teacher's record book faithfully records what Fermi actually lectured on, and that the 1928 book can serve as a proxy for the lecture content wherever the record book is silent. The paper demonstrates a close topical match for the first nine lectures (Table 1) but acknowledges 'slight differences' from the third chapter onward; the record book itself is a coarse list of topics without wording or formulas. This distinction matters for the later comparison with Majorana, because the record book can establish thematic overlap but not the textual and formula-level identity that Sect. 5 claims. The authors should state more precisely what curricular weight the record book can bear and mark which parallels in Sect. 5 rest on the book rather than on the record.

Minor objections (5)

[Abstract] The abstract contains typographical errors ('W e' and 'givi ng') that should be corrected.
[§3.2] The phrase 'Institute od Physics' should read 'Institute of Physics.'
[§7] In the sentence 'Majorana’s mathematical approach ... in the reminder of Majorana’s course,' the word 'reminder' should read 'remainder.'
[§2.1] The sentence 'A strict correspondence can be established between the topics reported in the handbook and those that Fermi actually lectured on in 1927' is unclear as written: it should say 'record book' rather than 'handbook,' and the year should be '1927-28' to match the rest of the section.
[§4] The sentence mentioning that the relativistic theory of the electron is expounded 'in lectures n.13 and n.14 [14]' would be more useful to readers if the reference identified the specific document or pages within Ref. [14] where those lectures appear.

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The paper

The paper claims

The paper establishes that Ettore Majorana's 1938 quantum mechanics lectures carried Fermi's phenomenological teaching style into the next generation while adding a mathematical layer Fermi never taught.

The reading

The paper sets out to show that Ettore Majorana's way of teaching theoretical physics was shaped deeply by the course in theoretical physics that Enrico Fermi gave in Rome in 1927-28, which Majorana attended, and that Majorana nevertheless built an independent, more mathematically ambitious teaching style. Using archival sources, the authors reconstruct Fermi's lectures from his teacher record book and his 1928 textbook, then compare them with Majorana's surviving lecture notes from his 1938 Naples course and with three newly found course programs Majorana submitted in Rome between 1933 and 1936. The comparison reveals lecture-by-lecture parallels in the old quantum theory part of Majorana's course, down to shared formulas and even the phrase 'at most only one electron' in the exclusion principle, while the mathematical part of Majorana's teaching introduces group theory, matrix and wave mechanics, and quantum electrodynamics. A sympathetic reader would care because the paper provides a concrete account of how quantum mechanics entered Italian university teaching and how two very different scientific personalities transmitted it.

What carries the argument

The mechanism that carries the argument is the archival correspondence between Fermi's 1927-28 teacher record book and his 1928 textbook 'Introduzione alla fisica atomica'. Because the book's chapters align with the lectures recorded in the book, the authors can use the textbook as a reliable substitute for the missing lecture notes and reconstruct Fermi's course in detail. That reconstruction becomes the yardstick for comparing Fermi's teaching with Majorana's surviving Naples lecture notes, where shared formulas, the Stoner table, and the exact phrase 'at most only one electron' appear. Majorana's three newly retrieved course programs supply the contrasting, more mathematical side of the comparison.

Extended reading notes

Core claim

On the paper's own terms, the central discovery is that Majorana's 1938 Naples course was a synthesis of two teaching methods: the phenomenological, intuitive treatment of the old Bohr-Sommerfeld quantum theory that Majorana had absorbed from Fermi, and a general mathematical presentation of the new quantum mechanics that went beyond Fermi. The authors show that in the first part of Majorana's course, on the atom, his notes closely reflect Fermi's 1927-28 lectures and his 1928 book: the same fine-structure and Zeeman formulas, the same Stoner table for electron-shell filling (with the notation Cp for element 71), and the same wording for the exclusion principle. In the second part, and in the three Rome programs he proposed between 1933 and 1936, Majorana includes group-theoretic methods, matrix calculus, wave mechanics, and quantum electrodynamics, topics that had no place in Fermi's course. The paper concludes that Fermi's teaching approach had a deep influence on Majorana's, while their scientific personalities remained thoroughly autonomous.

Load-bearing premise

The reconstruction depends on the assumption that Fermi's 1927-28 teacher record book accurately reflects what Fermi actually taught and that his 1928 textbook is close enough to those lectures to stand in for the missing notes.

Editorial extensions

If this is right

Majorana's old-quantum-theory lectures can be read as direct evidence of Fermi's pedagogical legacy reaching the next generation through a student who later became a professor.
The three Rome programs show that Majorana had designed a group-theoretic quantum mechanics curriculum by 1933, well before such material entered standard courses.
The close agreement between Fermi's record book and his 1928 textbook makes it possible to reconstruct the content of Fermi's 1927-28 course even though no lecture notes by attendees survive.
The exact verbal match for the exclusion principle, 'at most only one electron', indicates that Fermi's influence operated not only at the level of topics but at the level of phrasing.
Majorana's course combined Fermi's phenomenological route with a mathematical presentation, a combination that resembles the way quantum mechanics is often taught today.

Reading between the lines

Editorial extensions of the paper, not claims the author makes directly.

A natural testable extension would be to search for Fermi-style wordings and formulas in the notes of the other two students who attended the 1927-28 course, Edoardo Amaldi and Emilio Segrè, to see whether the verbal imprint was unique to Majorana.
The same method of pairing a teacher's record book with a contemporaneous textbook could be applied to other early theoretical physics courses where student notes are missing, potentially rewriting the history of physics teaching.
If the phrase-level correspondence is genuine, it suggests that pedagogical influence in physics propagates through shared notation, worked examples, and even wording, not only through concepts, so historians could profitably analyze such micro-details.
The three Rome programs imply that Majorana's later reputation as an isolated genius may have been accompanied by a sustained interest in teaching; the paper's archival finds open that previously dark period to historical study.

Original abstract

We report on theoretical courses by Fermi and Majorana, giving evidence of the first appearance and further development of Quantum Mechanics teaching in Italy. On the basis of original documents, we make a comparison between Fermi's and Majorana's approaches. A detailed analysis is carried out of Fermi's course on Theoretical Physics attended by Majorana in 1927-28. Three (previously unknown) programs on advanced Physics courses submitted by Majorana to the University of Rome between 1933 and 1936 and the course he held in Naples in 1938 complete our analysis: Fermi's phenomenological approach resounded in Majorana, who however combined it with a deeper theoretical approach, closer to the modern way of presenting Quantum Mechanics.

The compiled record

The paper's own sentences, arranged, kept beside the review and separate from it. Each label is drawn from a closed vocabulary; the number beside it is the probability the classifier gave that label. Numbers in the tables are the authors', checked by code. No sentence in this record was written by a model.

Compiled by classifier-1.13.0 via TypeSafe API, question bank abstract-p1-20260923, 2026-09-23: 1 request, 3,704 input tokens.

What the abstract itself states, as probabilities: claims first 0.20 · states limitation 0.06 · human participants 0.15 · controlled comparison 0.06 · randomized assignment 0.01 · states quantitative result 0.33 · compares with prior results 0.40 · mentions code or data availability 0.02.

The abstract, sentence by sentence

arXiv listing abstract v1. Results and the main claim are underlined; show every role.

We report on theoretical courses by Fermi and Majorana, giving evidence of the first appearance and further development of Quantum Mechanics teaching in Italy. On the basis of original documents, we make a comparison between Fermi's and Majorana's approaches. A detailed analysis is carried out of Fermi's course on Theoretical Physics attended by Majorana in 1927-28. Three (previously unknown) programs on advanced Physics courses submitted by Majorana to the University of Rome between 1933 and 1936 and the course he held in Naples in 1938 complete our analysis: Fermi's phenomenological approach resounded in Majorana, who however combined it with a deeper theoretical approach, closer to the modern way of presenting Quantum Mechanics.

background contribution method result interpretation main claim

What the classifier reports for each sentence. The number is the probability it gave the label.
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s0	We report on theoretical courses by Fermi and Majorana, giving evidence of the first appearance and further development of Quantum Mechanics teaching in Italy.	contribution 0.95	0.77	0.24	asserted 1.00
s1	On the basis of original documents, we make a comparison between Fermi's and Majorana's approaches.	method 0.60	0.89	0.04	asserted 0.95
s2	A detailed analysis is carried out of Fermi's course on Theoretical Physics attended by Majorana in 1927-28.	contribution 0.69	0.76	0.06	asserted 0.99
s3	Three (previously unknown) programs on advanced Physics courses submitted by Majorana to the University of Rome between 1933 and 1936 and the course he held in Naples in 1938 complete our analysis: Fermi's phenomenological approach resounded in Majorana, who however combined it with a deeper theoretical approach, closer to the modern way of presenting Quantum Mechanics.	result 0.63	0.82	0.80	asserted 1.00

What kind of paper the classifier reports this is: empirical study 0.73 · evidence from analysis of existing data 0.97.

What was examined, and what was not

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arXiv listing abstract v1

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references and citing sentences
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Every quoted sentence on this record is the authors'. Every label is from Pith's closed vocabulary, with the probability shown beside it. Every number in the measurements table is the authors', checked by code. Record as JSON

References

Works cited (26)

[4]

E. Fermi, Introduzione alla ﬁsica atomica , Zanichelli, Bologna, 1928

View on Pith 1928
[1]

E. Segr´ e, Enrico Fermi, physicist , University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1970

View on Pith 1970
[3]

E. Fermi, Lezioni di Fisica teorica dettate dal Prof. E. Fermi, raccol te dai Dott. Dei e Martinozzi, [s.n.], Roma, 1927

View on Pith 1927
[5]

E. Amaldi, La Vita e l’Opera di E. Majorana , Accad. Naz. dei Lincei, Roma, 1966; Ettore Majorana: Man and scientist , in Strong and Weak Interactions: present problems , edited by A. Zichichi, New York and London, 1966

View on Pith 1966
[6]

E. Segr´ e, A mind always in motion. The Autobiography of Emilio Segr´ e , University of Cali- fornia Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1993

View on Pith 1993
[7]

F. Rasetti in: E. Fermi, Collected Papers (Note e Memorie) , edited by E. Amaldi et al. , University of Chicago Press - Accad. Naz. dei Lincei, Chicag o - Roma, 1962-1965, 2 vols., Vol. I (1962), p. 277

View on Pith 1962
[8]

E. Di Grezia and S. Esposito, “Fermi, Majorana and the Sta tistical Model of Atoms,” Found. Phys., 34 (2004), 1431-1450. [arXiv:physics/0406030]

View on Pith Pith review arXiv 2004
[9]

S. Esposito, E. Majorana jr, A. van der Merwe and E. Recami (eds.) Ettore Majorana: Notes on Theoretical Physics , Kluwer, New York, 2003

View on Pith 2003
[10]

H. W eyl, Gruppentheorie und Quantenmechanik (ﬁrst edition), Hirzel, Leipzig, 1928. Eng- lish translation from the second German edition in The Theory of Groups and Quantum Mechanics, Dover, New York, 1931

View on Pith 1928
[11]

E. Recami, Il caso Majorana , Oscar Mondadori, Milano, 1991, 2nd edition; idem, Di Renzo, Roma, 2002, 4th revised and enlarged edition. See also E. Rec ami, “Ettore Majorana: l’opera scientiﬁca edita e inedita,” Nuovo Sagg., 3-4 (1999), 14-29; “Ricordo di Ettore Majorana a sessant’anni dalla sua scomparsa: l’opera edita e inedita” , Quad. Storia Fis., 5 (...

View on Pith Pith review arXiv 1999
[12]

E. Majorana, “Teoria simmetrica dell’elettrone e del p ositrone,” Nuovo Cim., 14 (1937), 171-184

View on Pith 1937
[13]

E. Majorana, Lezioni all’Universit` a di Napoli , Bibliopolis, Napoli, 1987

View on Pith 1987
[14]

S. Esposito, “Il corso di Fisica teorica di Ettore Major ana: il ritrovamento del documento Moreno,” Nuovo Sagg., 21 (2005), 21-33; A. Drago and S. Esposito, “Ettore Majorana’s course on Theoretical Physics: a recent discovery,” e-prin t arXiv:physics/0503084

View on Pith Pith review arXiv 2005
[15]

E. Majorana, Lezioni di Fisica Teorica , edited by S. Esposito, Bibliopolis, Napoli, 2006 (in press)

View on Pith 2006
[16]

P.A.M. Dirac, The Principles of Quantum Mechanics , Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1930, p. viii

View on Pith 1930
[17]

S. Esposito, “Una lezione particolare di Ettore Majora na,” Quad. Storia Fis., to be published [arXiv:physics/0512174]

View on Pith Pith review arXiv
[18]

S. Esposito, “Majorana solution of the Thomas-Fermi eq uation,” Am. J. Phys. 70 (2002) 852-856

View on Pith 2002
[19]

E. Majorana, “Teoria relativistica di particelle con m omento intrinseco arbitrario,” Nuovo Cim., 9 (1932), 335-344

View on Pith 1932
[20]

Concerning the path towards nuclear researches in Rome , see for example A. De Gregorio, “A Far-reaching project behind the discovery of neutron-in duced radioactivity,” Studies Hist. Phil. Mod. Phys., to be published

View on Pith
[21]

E. Fermi and E. Segr´ e, “Zur Theorie der Hyperfeinstruk turen,” Zeit. Phys., 82 (1933), 729- 749; “Sulla teoria delle strutture iperﬁni,” Mem. Accad. d’ Italia, 4 (1933), 131-158; repro- duced in E. Fermi, Collected Papers, cit. in Ref. [7], Vol. I, pp. 514-537

View on Pith 1933
[22]

E. Persico, Fondamenti della meccanica atomica , Zanichelli, Bologna, 1936. TEACHING THEORETICAL PHYSICS: THE CASES OF E. FERMI AND E. MA JORANA 21

View on Pith 1936
[23]

See M. Leone, N. Robotti, C.A. Segnini, “Fermi Archives at the Domus Galilaeana in Pisa”, Physis, 27 (2000) 501-533

View on Pith 2000
[24]

L. Belloni, “On Fermi’s route to Fermi-Dirac statistic s,” Eur. J. Phys., 15 (1994), 102-109; F. Cordella and F. Sebastiani, “I due lavori che preludono alla statistica quantica,” Giornale di Fisica, 41 (2000), 83-101; “Sul percorso di Fermi verso la statistica q uantica,” Nuovo Sagg., 16 (2000), 11-22

View on Pith 1994
[25]

E. Amaldi in: E. Fermi, Collected Papers, cit. in Ref. [7], Vol. I, p. 305

View on Pith
[26]

See for example the letter Fermi wrote to Dirac in 1926; i n H. Kragh, Dirac: a scientiﬁc biography, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990, p. 36

View on Pith 1926
[27]

See E. Fermi, Collected Papers, cit. in Ref. [7], Vol. I, p. 641. A. De Gregorio : Dipartimento di Fisica, Universit `a degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”, p.le Aldo Moro, 00185 Rome, Italy ( Alberto.DeGregorio@roma1.infn.it) S. Esposito : Dipartimento di Scienze Fisiche, Universit `a di Napoli “Federico II” & I.N.F.N. Sezione di Napoli, Complesso Universi...

View on Pith

Discussion

Disagree with the review, or know something it missed? Leave a comment, highlight any passage above to comment on it, or challenge this review formally.

[1] [4]

E. Fermi, Introduzione alla ﬁsica atomica , Zanichelli, Bologna, 1928

View on Pith 1928

[2] [1]

E. Segr´ e, Enrico Fermi, physicist , University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1970

View on Pith 1970

[3] [3]

E. Fermi, Lezioni di Fisica teorica dettate dal Prof. E. Fermi, raccol te dai Dott. Dei e Martinozzi, [s.n.], Roma, 1927

View on Pith 1927

[4] [5]

E. Amaldi, La Vita e l’Opera di E. Majorana , Accad. Naz. dei Lincei, Roma, 1966; Ettore Majorana: Man and scientist , in Strong and Weak Interactions: present problems , edited by A. Zichichi, New York and London, 1966

View on Pith 1966

[5] [6]

E. Segr´ e, A mind always in motion. The Autobiography of Emilio Segr´ e , University of Cali- fornia Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1993

View on Pith 1993

[6] [7]

F. Rasetti in: E. Fermi, Collected Papers (Note e Memorie) , edited by E. Amaldi et al. , University of Chicago Press - Accad. Naz. dei Lincei, Chicag o - Roma, 1962-1965, 2 vols., Vol. I (1962), p. 277

View on Pith 1962

[7] [8]

E. Di Grezia and S. Esposito, “Fermi, Majorana and the Sta tistical Model of Atoms,” Found. Phys., 34 (2004), 1431-1450. [arXiv:physics/0406030]

View on Pith Pith review arXiv 2004

[8] [9]

S. Esposito, E. Majorana jr, A. van der Merwe and E. Recami (eds.) Ettore Majorana: Notes on Theoretical Physics , Kluwer, New York, 2003

View on Pith 2003

[9] [10]

H. W eyl, Gruppentheorie und Quantenmechanik (ﬁrst edition), Hirzel, Leipzig, 1928. Eng- lish translation from the second German edition in The Theory of Groups and Quantum Mechanics, Dover, New York, 1931

View on Pith 1928

[10] [11]

E. Recami, Il caso Majorana , Oscar Mondadori, Milano, 1991, 2nd edition; idem, Di Renzo, Roma, 2002, 4th revised and enlarged edition. See also E. Rec ami, “Ettore Majorana: l’opera scientiﬁca edita e inedita,” Nuovo Sagg., 3-4 (1999), 14-29; “Ricordo di Ettore Majorana a sessant’anni dalla sua scomparsa: l’opera edita e inedita” , Quad. Storia Fis., 5 (...

View on Pith Pith review arXiv 1999

[11] [12]

E. Majorana, “Teoria simmetrica dell’elettrone e del p ositrone,” Nuovo Cim., 14 (1937), 171-184

View on Pith 1937

[12] [13]

E. Majorana, Lezioni all’Universit` a di Napoli , Bibliopolis, Napoli, 1987

View on Pith 1987

[13] [14]

S. Esposito, “Il corso di Fisica teorica di Ettore Major ana: il ritrovamento del documento Moreno,” Nuovo Sagg., 21 (2005), 21-33; A. Drago and S. Esposito, “Ettore Majorana’s course on Theoretical Physics: a recent discovery,” e-prin t arXiv:physics/0503084

View on Pith Pith review arXiv 2005

[14] [15]

E. Majorana, Lezioni di Fisica Teorica , edited by S. Esposito, Bibliopolis, Napoli, 2006 (in press)

View on Pith 2006

[15] [16]

P.A.M. Dirac, The Principles of Quantum Mechanics , Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1930, p. viii

View on Pith 1930

[16] [17]

S. Esposito, “Una lezione particolare di Ettore Majora na,” Quad. Storia Fis., to be published [arXiv:physics/0512174]

View on Pith Pith review arXiv

[17] [18]

S. Esposito, “Majorana solution of the Thomas-Fermi eq uation,” Am. J. Phys. 70 (2002) 852-856

View on Pith 2002

[18] [19]

E. Majorana, “Teoria relativistica di particelle con m omento intrinseco arbitrario,” Nuovo Cim., 9 (1932), 335-344

View on Pith 1932

[19] [20]

Concerning the path towards nuclear researches in Rome , see for example A. De Gregorio, “A Far-reaching project behind the discovery of neutron-in duced radioactivity,” Studies Hist. Phil. Mod. Phys., to be published

View on Pith

[20] [21]

E. Fermi and E. Segr´ e, “Zur Theorie der Hyperfeinstruk turen,” Zeit. Phys., 82 (1933), 729- 749; “Sulla teoria delle strutture iperﬁni,” Mem. Accad. d’ Italia, 4 (1933), 131-158; repro- duced in E. Fermi, Collected Papers, cit. in Ref. [7], Vol. I, pp. 514-537

View on Pith 1933

[21] [22]

E. Persico, Fondamenti della meccanica atomica , Zanichelli, Bologna, 1936. TEACHING THEORETICAL PHYSICS: THE CASES OF E. FERMI AND E. MA JORANA 21

View on Pith 1936

[22] [23]

See M. Leone, N. Robotti, C.A. Segnini, “Fermi Archives at the Domus Galilaeana in Pisa”, Physis, 27 (2000) 501-533

View on Pith 2000

[23] [24]

L. Belloni, “On Fermi’s route to Fermi-Dirac statistic s,” Eur. J. Phys., 15 (1994), 102-109; F. Cordella and F. Sebastiani, “I due lavori che preludono alla statistica quantica,” Giornale di Fisica, 41 (2000), 83-101; “Sul percorso di Fermi verso la statistica q uantica,” Nuovo Sagg., 16 (2000), 11-22

View on Pith 1994

[24] [25]

E. Amaldi in: E. Fermi, Collected Papers, cit. in Ref. [7], Vol. I, p. 305

View on Pith

[25] [26]

See for example the letter Fermi wrote to Dirac in 1926; i n H. Kragh, Dirac: a scientiﬁc biography, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990, p. 36

View on Pith 1926

[26] [27]

See E. Fermi, Collected Papers, cit. in Ref. [7], Vol. I, p. 641. A. De Gregorio : Dipartimento di Fisica, Universit `a degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”, p.le Aldo Moro, 00185 Rome, Italy ( Alberto.DeGregorio@roma1.infn.it) S. Esposito : Dipartimento di Scienze Fisiche, Universit `a di Napoli “Federico II” & I.N.F.N. Sezione di Napoli, Complesso Universi...

View on Pith