Bose and Fermi

Fermions and bosons were named after the Italian physicist, Enrico Fermi (1901-1954), and the Indian physicist, Satyendra Nath Bose (1894-1974), who both studied statistical properties of groups of particles.

Fermi was both a theoretical physicist and an experimenter. He and his colleagues made important discoveries with neutrons, for which he was awarded the Nobel prize in 1938. Later, in the U.S., he pioneered in particle physics.

At first Bose had difficulty getting his famous paper accepted for publication. He sent it to Albert Einstein, who personally translated it into German and made sure it was published. For a time (starting in 1921) Bose worked in the laboratories of Marie Curie. During that period he visited Berlin where he met Albert Einstein.


Curie, Einstein, and Fermi all have chemical elements named after them. What are their symbols?