Radioactivity induced by neutron bombardment. In Nature 133

Fermi, Enrico (1901-54). Radioactivity induced by neutron bombardment. In Nature 133 (1934): 757. Whole number. [cliii] - clvi, 737-754, viii, 755-772, clvii-clx pp. 268 x 192 mm. Original printed self-wrappers, small chip in front wrapper, light soiling, but very good, and very scarce in this form. Oval stamp on front wrapper.

First Edition, journal issue. Fermi's letter to the editor of Nature, published in the issue dated 19 May 1934, was the first announcement in English of his Nobel Prize-winning neutron-bombardment experiments, predating by two months the English-language account he published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society. By publishing this brief account in Nature Fermi informed the international scientific community of his work, few of whom read the accounts in Ricerca scientifica.

Fermi and his team of young physicists in Rome began conducting their experiments in the spring of 1934, "irradiat[ing] all the substances [they] could lay their hands on" (Segrè, "No. 84a to 110," in Fermi, Collected Papers, p. 640) to see if they could produce artificial radioactivity. They published their ongoing results in a series of brief papers submitted to the Italian journal Ricerca scientifica (see Fermi, Collected Papers, nos. 84-92), which few scientists outside of Italy would have read. Fermi's letter in Nature summarizes and partly translates the first two of these Italian papers, reporting the results obtained by bombarding fourteen different elements. Fermi, Collected Papers, no. 93.