Rosenfeld’s work on Fermi compilation

The obituary honoring Arthur Rosenfeld (Physics Today, September 2017, page 72 ) did not mention the very important contribution that he, together with Jay Orear and R. A. Schluter, made to the education of my generation of physicists. The trio compiled Enrico Fermi’s 1949 physics lectures from the University of Chicago into the book Nuclear Physics, originally published in 1949–50. Students at the time universally referred to it as Fermi’s Notes.

A dense compilation of just about all the nuclear physics understood at the time—including a chapter each on nuclear reactors and cosmic rays—this modest and reasonably priced volume sparkles with the kind of physical insight said to be characteristic of Fermi’s style as a teacher.

I remember one of its sample problems: An American car was shown to be tunneling quantum mechanically through a one-foot-high bump in the road. Would this be a solution to our crumbling roads? Not quite. The probability of that happening is not zero, but it is infinitesimally small!