Segrè, Emilio

Segrè, Emilio (Gino)

(1905–89) physicist; born in Tivoli, Italy. He discovered the slow neutron with Enrico Fermi at the University of Rome (1930–35), before moving to the University of Palermo (1935–38). A Jewish anti-Fascist, he left Mussolini's regime for the University of California: Berkeley (1938–72). There his work on synthesizing artificial atoms resulted in his isolation of fissionable plutonium (with Glenn Seaborg, 1940). After serving on the Manhattan Project (1943–46), Segrè discovered the antiproton (with Owen Chamberlain, 1955), for which the two shared the 1959 Nobel Prize in physics. Segrè continued his research in particle physics and worked to promote nuclear weapons bans.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.