Enrico Fermi's fame rests on accomplishments in the fields of both theoretical and experimental physics. At the age of 25, he developed a statistical method for describing the behavior of a cloud of electrons that later came to be known as Fermi-Dirac statistics. In combination with another system of mathematics, Bose-Einstein statistics, it provides a method for analyzing any system of discrete particles, such as photons, electrons, or neutrons. Fermi also devised an explanation for the process of beta decay, an event in which an atomic nucleus emits an electron and changes into a new nucleus. Fermi's major experimental contributions involved the study of nuclear changes brought about as a result of neutron bombardment of nuclei. This field of research eventually led to Fermi's participation in the Manhattan Project, during which the first controlled fission reactions were carried out. For his work on neutron bombardment, Fermi was awarded the...