page_title: Bruno Pontecorvo
section_title: Early life and education
hierarchical_section_title: Bruno Pontecorvo / Biography / Early life and education
caption_attribution_description: English: Enrico Fermi and the Via Panisperna boys in the courtyard of Rome University's Physics Institute in Via Panisperna, circa 1930.From left to right: Oscar D'Agostino, Emilio Segrè, Edoardo Amaldi, Franco Rasetti and Enrico Fermi. Italiano: Enrico Fermi e i Ragazzi di via Panisperna nel cortile dell'Istituto di Fisica dell'Università La Sapienza di Roma (1930 circa).Da sinisra a destra: Oscar D'Agostino, Emilio Segrè, Edoardo Amaldi, Franco Rasetti ed Enrico Fermi.
context_page_description: Bruno Pontecorvo was an Italian and Soviet nuclear physicist, an early assistant of Enrico Fermi and the author of numerous studies in high energy physics, especially on neutrinos. A convinced communist, he defected to the Soviet Union in 1950, where he continued his research on the decay of the muon and on neutrinos. The prestigious Pontecorvo Prize was instituted in his memory in 1995.
  The fourth of eight children of a wealthy Jewish-Italian family, Pontecorvo studied physics at the University of Rome La Sapienza, under Fermi, becoming the youngest of his Via Panisperna boys. In 1934 he participated in Fermi's famous experiment showing the properties of slow neutrons that led the way to the discovery of nuclear fission. He moved to Paris in 1934, where he conducted research under Irène and Frédéric Joliot-Curie. Influenced by his cousin, Emilio Sereni, he joined the French Communist Party, as did his sisters Giuliana and Laura and brother Gillo. The Italian Fascist regime's 1938 racial laws against Jews caused his family members to leave Italy for Britain, France and the United States.
context_section_description: Pontecorvo was born on 22 August 1913 in Marina di Pisa, the fourth of eight children of Massimo Pontecorvo and his wife Maria née Maroni. His older brother Guido, who was born in 1907, became a geneticist. His brother Paolo, who was born in 1909, became an engineer who worked on radar during World War II. His older sister Giuliana was born in 1911. His  younger brother Gillo was born in 1919, and is best known as the director of The Battle of Algiers. He also had two younger sisters; Laura, who was born in 1921, and Anna, who was born in 1924, and a younger brother Giovanni, who was  born in 1926. His was a wealthy family; Massimo owned three textile factories employing over 1,000 people. The family was Jewish and non-observant, from Rome on his father's side and from Mantua - on the mother's. His grandfather on maternal side, Arrigo Maroni (1852–1924), born in Mantua, was director of the Fatebenefratelli Hospital in Milan; the mother's cousin was a notable zoologist Elisa Gurrieri-Norsa (1868-1939).
  He enterered the University of Pisa intending to study engineering, but after two years he decided to switch to physics in 1931. On the advice of his brother Guido, he decided to study at the University of Rome La Sapienza, where Enrico Fermi had gathered together a group of promising young scientists known as the Via Panisperna boys after the name of the street where the Institute of Physics of Rome University was then situated. At the age of 18 he was admitted to the third year of Physics. Fermi described Pontecorvo as "scientifically one of the brightest men with whom I have come in contact in my scientific career". As their youngest member, the group nicknamed him Cucciolo, which means "puppy".
  In 1934, Pontecorvo contributed to Fermi's famous experiment showing the properties of slow neutrons that led the way to the discovery of nuclear fission. Pontecorvo's name was included on the Via Panisperna boys' patent "To increase the production of artificial radioactivity with neutron bombardment". He was made a temporary assistant at the Royal Institute of Physics on 1 November 1934 and the University of Rome, and on 7 November, he was listed as co-author, along with Fermi and Rasetti, of a landmark paper on slow neutrons that reported that hydrogen slowed neutrons more than heavy elements, and that slow neutrons were more easily absorbed. An Italian patent was granted for the process in October 1935, in the name of Fermi, Pontecorvo, Edoardo Amaldi, Franco Rasetti and Emilio Segrè. A US patent was granted on 2 July 1940.
caption: Enrico Fermi and the Via Panisperna boys in the courtyard of Rome University's Physics Institute in Via Panisperna, about 1934. From Left to right: Oscar D'Agostino, Emilio Segrè, Edoardo Amaldi, Franco Rasetti and Enrico Fermi. Pontecorvo took the photograph.
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