Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to Fermi. From Stockholm, Fermi, for racial reasons, moved directly to the USA. The Via Panisperna group ended. Fermi received the prestigious prize alone: he did not have to share it with anyone. The only other recipient of the award that year was the American writer Pearl Buck. Fermi shook hands with the King of Sweden, instead of giving the fascist salute. Controversy erupted in the Italian newspapers: Fascism despised the handshake, finding it effeminate. The Fermi family then embarked for the English Channel and departed from Southampton on December 24, 1938, by ship for New York. The reason for the Nobel Prize was “for his demonstrations of the existence of new radioactive elements produced by neutron irradiation, and for his related discovery of nuclear reactions brought about by slow neutrons.” It was later understood a few months later that he had not actually discovered new elements, but had split the atom, thanks to slow neutrons.
