Enrico Fermi, namesake of the nuclear power plant near Monroe, Michigan, was a leading pioneer in the development of nuclear fission and the first nuclear reactor.

Brother Fermi was born in 1901 in Rome and as a young boy, enjoyed physics and mathematics. He received his undergraduate and doctoral degrees at the prestigious Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. He published his first important scientific work in 1922, his year of graduation.

He became a Master Mason in 1923 in the Lodge Andriano Lemni in Rome, Italy.

He took a professorship in Rome at the age of 24 and remained there until 1938 when he won the Nobel Prize in physics.

Upon the discovery of nuclear fission, he went to the University of Chicago, and later to Los Alamos to serve as a general consultant. Brother Fermi contributed significantly to the Manhattan Project, the creation of the first U.S. atomic bomb. He became a U.S. citizen in 1944.

In his later years, he did important work in particle physics and was an inspiring teacher at the University of Chicago. He died in 1954 in Chicago at age 54 of stomach cancer.
In 2001, to commemorate his 100th birthday, both Italy and the United States issued stamps to honor Brother Fermi.

(Source: The Philatelic Freemason, July-August, 2012/Emessay Notes, August 2012)