Gino Segrè was born in Florence, Italy, to an Italian Jewish father (Angelo Segrè) and a German Catholic mother (Katherine ‘Katia’ Schall Segrè). The family immigrated to New York City in May 1939, where they resided for 8 years before returning to Florence.[3] Segre's uncle, Nobel laureate physicist Emilio Segrè also emigrated to the United States in 1938 because of the anti-semitic laws enacted in Italy.
The Pope of Physics: Enrico Fermi and the Birth of the Atomic Age was published in 2016. Written with his wife Bettina Hoerlin,[4]The Pope of Physics[5][6][7][8] explores the life and career of famous Italian physicist Enrico Fermi, whose colleagues referred to him as the Pope due to his infallibility.[9] Fermi has a rich legacy of scientific advances, and is best known for his leadership in building the atomic bomb. "Pope of Physics" was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal[10] and Nature.[11]
Segrè's 2011 book Ordinary Geniuses is a dual biography of Max Delbruck and George Gamow, two physicists who made major contributions to the field of biology with their 'pioneering' spirits and practical jokes.[12]Ordinary Geniuses was reviewed by Jeremy Bernstein in The Wall Street Journal[13] and Jonathon Keats in New Scientist.[14]
Segrè's 2007 book Faust in Copenhagen recounts how a group of 40 physicists assembled at Niels Bohr's Copenhagen Institute focusing on the discovery of the neutron.[15][16] On the final night of the meeting, the younger physicists mount a skit that was a parody of Goethe's Faust, adapted to the world of physics. By Segre's description, ‘What the physicists didn’t realize was that within a year, Hitler’s ascent to power would change their world and within a decade their studies of the atomic nucleus would force them to make their own Faustian bargains.’ Faust in Copenhagen was reviewed in the Sunday New York Times book section by George Johnson.[17]
Segrè's 2002 book A Matter of Degrees: What Temperature Reveals about the Past and Future of our Species, Planet and Universe[18] explores temperature’s many mysteries, from the causes of fevers in humans to the origin of the universe. Marcia Bartusiak reviewed Matter of Degrees in The New York Times.[19]
Scientific research
Segrè’s research has ranged across several major scientific topics within high-energy theoretical physics, including electroweak interactions to develop better understand of symmetry violations. Within astrophysics his research contributions have ranged from baryon asymmetry to pulsar kicks. His work includes:Pulsar Velocities and Neutrino Oscillations (with A. Kusenko, Physical Review Letters, 1996);[20] Pulsar Kicks from Neutrino Oscillations (with A. Kusenko, Phys. Rev., 1999);[21] and Implications of Gauge Unification for the Variation of the Fine Structure Constant (with P. Langacker and Matt Strassler, Phys. Letters, 2002).[22]
Personal life
Segrè is married to Bettina Hoerlin, a former Philadelphia Health Commissioner. She is the daughter of Los Alamos physicist Hermann Hoerlin and Kate Tietz Schmid. Hoerlin has chronicled her parents meeting and departure from Nazi Germany in her book ‘Steps of Courage’.[23] Together they have seven children (including Julie Segre and Kristine Yaffe), nine grandchildren and live in Philadelphia.
^Segre, Gino; Hoerlin, Bettina (2016-10-18). The Pope of Physics: Enrico Fermi and the Birth of the Atomic Age. Henry Holt and Company. ISBN9781627790055; hbk 1st edition, 368 pp.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
^Walker, Mark (2008). "review of 2 books: Faust in Copenhagen: A Struggle for the Soul of Physics by Gino Segrè; The Mental Aftermath: The Mentality of German Physicists, 1945—1949 by Klaus Hentschel (translated from German by Ann M. Hentschel)". Physics Today. 61 (3): 53–54. doi:10.1063/1.2897952.
^Johnson, George (24 June 2007). "Meta Physicists". The New York Times. Retrieved 2014-08-19.
^Segre, Gino (2002). A Matter of Degrees What Temperature Reveals about the Past and Future of our Species, Planet and Universe. Viking. ISBN978-0142002780.
