Via Panisperna boys

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The Via Panisperna boys (Italian:I ragazzi di Via Panisperna) were a group of young scientists led by Enrico Fermi. In 1934, in Rome, they made the famous discovery of slow neutrons which opened the realization of the nuclear reactor and later on the atomic bomb. The nickname of the group comes from the name of the street where the Physics Department, at the University of Rome La Sapienza was located. The street took the name of a nearby monastery, San Lorenzo in Panisperna.

In addition to Fermi, the other member of the group were: Edoardo Amaldi, Oscar D'Agostino, Ettore Majorana, Bruno Pontecorvo, Franco Rasetti and Emilio Segrè. All of them were physicists, except for D'Agostino, who was a chemist.

The group grew under the supervision of Orso Mario Corbino, a physicist, minister, senator and director of the Institute of physics in Via Panisperna, who recognized the qualities of Enrico Fermi, appointed him in 1926 and instituted for him the first Chair of Theoretical Physics in Italy. From 1929, Fermi and Corbino dedicated themselves to the transformation of the institute into a modern research centre.

The first version of their research laboratory was mainly dedicated to atomic and molecular spectroscopy; afterwards they moved towards experimental studies of the atomic nucleus. Among the research directions mentioned: the bombarding of various substances with neutrons, obtained by irradiating beryllium with alpha particles emitted by radon, which is a strongly radioactive gas that renders possible numerous stable artificial radioactive elements. On the theoretical side, the work of Majorana and Fermi enabled the understanding of the structure of the atomic nucleus and the forces acting in it well-known as the Majorana Forces. In 1933 and 1934 they published the fundamental theory of beta decay.

In 1938, because of the Fascism racial laws and because of the imminence of the Second World War, the group dispersed and most of its members emigrated. Only Edoardo Amaldi remained in Italy, who in the post-war reconstruction of Italian physics, significantly contributed to the foundation of CERN.

The director Gianni Amelio has told their story in a film.

The building in Via Panisperna is today included in the complex of the Viminale, on the homonymous Roman hill where can be found the Ministry of the Interior. In the near future, the building is planned to host a centre for research and a museum of physics named for Enrico Fermi.