Patent for the method of producing nuclear reactions

Prix de départ
$ 10 000
Date de l'enchèreClassic
02.02.2024 10:00UTC -04:00
Auctioneer
CHRISTIE'S
Lieu de l'événement
Etats-Unis, New York
Archive
La vente aux enchères est terminée. Vous ne pouvez plus enchérir.
Archive
ID 1129640
Lot 22 | Patent for the method of producing nuclear reactions
[FERMI, Enrico (1901-1954), and others.] Method for Increasing the Efficiency of Nuclear Reactions and Products thereof (caption title). Patent number 465,045. [London: His Majesty's Stationery Office,] 1937.

Very rare original patent specification for the production of artificial radioactivity through slow neutron bombardment. This is the first of the documents listed under the Printing and the Mind of Man entry for the Atom Bomb (PMM 422). Before the outbreak of World War Two, information about nuclear reactions and radioactivity was openly published internationally. Its application to weaponry was not part of the 1930s discourse. On the contrary, "the only practical use suggested for it was "implied in the Fermi patent for producing radioactive isotopes, which has been a continued blessing to medical and physiological research." However, Fermi's process "also isolated as by-products two new elements, heavier than uranium, which by analogy were called 'neptunium' and 'plutonium.' The latter was later found to be fissionable” (PMM).

The patent was submitted on October 25, 1935, based on discoveries made in Italy the year before. The patent was accepted on April 26, 1937, and assigned to G.M. Giannini & Co on behalf of Fermi and his colleagues. A U.S. patent was also applied for at the same time in the United States. Fermi’s work led directly to the 1938 experiments of Hahn and Strassman in Berlin, which in turn led Lise Meitner, who had fled to Copenhagen, to realize that the phenomena they observed were the result of nuclear fission (PMM 422b). Fermi's work, culminating with the present patent, "made him the perhaps the world's leading expert on the subject during the thirties" (Pais). See lots 36, 37, and 38 for Meitner and Frisch's works based on Fermi's discoveries. PMM 422a.

Single folio sheet (280 x 190mm). Printed recto and verso. Inkstamp: "27.Mai 1937."
Adresse de l'enchère CHRISTIE'S
20 Rockefeller Plaza
10020 New York
Etats-Unis
Aperçu
26.01.2024 10:00 – 17:00
27.01.2024 10:00 – 17:00
28.01.2024 13:00 – 17:00
29.01.2024 10:00 – 17:00
30.01.2024 10:00 – 17:00
31.01.2024 10:00 – 17:00
Téléphone +1 212 636 2000
Fax +1 212 636 4930
E-mail
Conditions d'utilisationConditions d'utilisation
transport Service postal
Service de messagerie
ramassage par vous-même
Modes de paiement Virement bancaire
Heures d'ouvertureHeures d'ouverture
Lu 09:30 – 17:00   
Ma 09:30 – 17:00   
Me 09:30 – 17:00   
Je 09:30 – 17:00   
Ve 09:30 – 17:00   
Sa fermé
Di fermé

Plus du Créateur

Fermi,E.
Fermi,E.
€120

Termes connexes