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| Ettore Majorana |
By Niccolò Graffio
“There is no great genius without a touch of dementia.” – Seneca: De tranquilitatate anime, XV, c. 62 AD.
“When Ettore first arrived at Via Panisperna to meet Fermi, the institute was struggling to solve what is now known as the universal Fermi potential, an essential tool for doing calculations in atomic physics. Fermi had managed to tabulate some regions of the potential, doing a giant number of sums essentially by hand (this was before computers), and although the results looked promising, they were still inconclusive. Fermi explained to Ettore why there were still such gaping holes in his table and why no one had been able to fill them. Ettore asked a few short questions, then left in the enigmatic style that would become his trademark.
The next day he returned and asked Fermi to show him the table again. Ettore then produced a piece of paper, did a few quick calculations, and congratulated Fermi on having made no mistakes. When Fermi looked surprised, Ettore went to the blackboard and wrote out a simple mathematical transformation converting the impenetrable problem into a well-known textbook equation. The picture of the full potential sprang into focus. Jaws duly dropped. Young Ettore was much given to theatricality.” – Joao Magueijo: A Brilliant Darkness – The Extraordinary Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Ettore Majorana, the Troubled Genius of the Nuclear Age, X, Basic Books, 2009.
Thus, with that staggering display of cognition, the brilliant young Sicilian physicist by the name of Ettore Majorana entered the world stage. By no means, though, would it be the last time he would impress his peers with his genius.
Students studying Physics nowadays invariably learn the names of many of the “greats” this field has produced; men like Isaac Newton, Enrico Fermi, Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg and of course, Albert Einstein, to name a few. The contributions to the field these men produced can (and has) filled libraries.
Less well known, though certainly no less great than these intellectual giants was the innocuous-looking young man who managed to stun future Nobel Prize-winner Enrico Fermi.
Ettore Majorana was born in Catania, Sicily on August 5th, 1906. A child prodigy, he was able to do cube roots in his head while other children his age were still trying to master the ‘art’ of playing marbles. His parents, who often showed off his intellectual prowess to others, would not allow young Ettore to play with neighborhood children. Thus, he spent his youth in isolated loneliness, which would have a profound effect on his later personality.
When he was old enough for college, he chose civil engineering at the urging of his father. However, he later changed his major (on impulse) to theoretical physics at the behest of future Nobel Laureate Emilio Segré, who recognized in young Ettore his innate brilliance. This did not sit well with his family. Physics at that time was not considered the respectable field it is today. As a result, relations with his parents would remain strained for the remainder of his short life. This reaction was odd given the fact his paternal uncle, Quirino Majorana, was also a physicist.
While in university, he befriended Giovanni Gentile Jr., son of the infamous “philosopher of Fascism”, who at that time was a junior professor at the Institute of Physics in Rome. In 1928, while still an undergraduate, he coauthored a paper with Gentile Jr. It was an early quantitative application to atomic spectroscopy of Fermi's statistical model of atomic structure.
As mentioned earlier, Ettore Majorana first came to public attention when he showed up at the Via Panisperna Institute. The “Via Panisperna boys” as they were dubbed by the Italian media, were treated to the visage of this interloper: short and slender, with black hair, olive skin and dark but bright, vivacious eyes. A textbook example of the Mediterranean sub-racial type! His clothes were disheveled; his manner shy. He was not one given to small talk, preferring to ponder on whatever problem was at hand. He must have seemed to observers a caricature of a genius.
In contrast to him were Enrico Fermi and his crew at the institute, a raucous bunch who were little more than juvenile geniuses at play in what was then one of the leading physics research institutes on earth. Though most of the “Via Panisperna boys” (Fermi included) never became especially close to Majorana, all were in awe of his genius. An excerpt from a letter written in 1984 by Gilberto Bernardini, from the Florence group of Italian physicists, sums up the typical attitude towards Majorana by his peers:
“I avoided talking physics with Ettore because anything I could have told him would have been insignificant for him. As it happened to me with Pauli later, Ettore must have thought that it was more accessible for me and less banal for him, to communicate, for example, how good it was that he’d been born after Michelangelo and Beethoven.”
One notable exception to that rule was Enrico Fermi himself. As relayed by Emilio Segré, though Ettore Majorana remained aloof from his coworkers at the institute, Fermi enjoyed his (occasional) presence due to the fact that prior to his arrival Fermi felt “somewhat isolated because only Majorana could speak with him about theory on an equal footing.”
“Equal” is being generous, for in truth, Ettore Majorana was the intellectual superior of even the great Enrico Fermi, and Fermi knew it! Several of “the boys” at the institute later relayed the fact that Ettore Majorana was the only one of the bunch who would stand up to Fermi and treat him as an equal, rather than a superior. Emilio Segré stated that Fermi once reluctantly admitted: “If Majorana can’t figure it out, no one can” and again: “Ettore is more intelligent than me.” It must have been very disconcerting for a man who was a celebrated genius in his own right to make such statements.
In addition to Fermi, Majorana befriended other great physicists including Niels Bohr (who astonished Ettore with his prowess for consuming vast quantities of Carlsberg beer!) and Werner Heisenberg. In a letter to the latter, Majorana revealed to him that he had found not only a scientific colleague, but a warm, personal friend.
Another anecdote concerning Ettore’s genius comes from the physicist Giancarlo Wick. During a conversation with Fermi and Wick over the recent discovery of an unknown subatomic particle by Irene Curie and Frederic Joliot, Majorana predicted the particle would have to be neutral in charge and have a mass similar to that of the proton. He then went on to give his reasons why this should be so. Fermi was so impressed he urged Ettore to publish his hypothesis but Majorana refused. Later, James Chadwick would rightfully be given credit for discovering the existence of the neutron, though Majorana had predicted its existence fully three years earlier.
A number of colleagues, including Enrico Fermi, had stated one flaw in Ettore Majorana’s personality was that he often would not publish his hypotheses or seek credit for his work. This was because what he considered known to be banal. While other scientists craved the recognition of making a significant discovery, to Ettore, science was just one facet of his life. In fact, according to one source, when Chadwick announced his discovery of the neutron, Majorana was said to have joked: “Great! Now I don’t have to write anything!” This cavalier attitude was a source of acrimony between Majorana and Fermi at the institute.
Majorana returned to Italy from Germany in the fall of 1933 in declining health (due to chronic gastritis). The ‘lone wolf’ physicist became even more reclusive, withdrawing from friends, colleagues and family to the point of becoming almost a hermit! His physical problems took a toll on his personality, causing him to plunge into periodic bouts of depression.
In 1937 he was appointed a full professor in theoretical physics at the University of Naples. He was given this prestigious position (and a higher than normal salary) without having to take any examination due to his "high fame of singular expertise reached in the field of theoretical physics.”
On March 27th, 1938 Ettore Majorana, after having withdrawn his life savings (the equivalent of about $70,000 in the monies of the time), took his passport and boarded a passenger ship from Palermo, Sicily bound for Naples. He would never arrive. To this day, no one is quite sure what happened to him. His body has never been found. As often happens in cases like this, loony conspiracy theories abounded. The two most likely scenarios, according to reputable authorities:
- Suicide – his physical and mental health were poor. Prior to his departure for Naples, he left two messages which some have interpreted as suicide notes. Of all the hypotheses I have read concerning his disappearance, this one to me has the most credence.
- Murder – some believe he took his passport with him because he was planning to visit his friend Emilio Segré in California (he was banished there by Mussolini’s government for the ‘crime’ of being a Jew). A “dirty little secret” of both the passenger and cruise ship industries is passengers do occasionally find themselves victims of crimes such as robbery, rape and even murder. Ettore Majorana was carrying a considerable amount of cash, making him a prime target for a thug.
Ettore Majorana is chiefly remembered for his theoretical work on neutrino masses, a currently active subject of research. He was considered prescient in this regard. Several terms in particle physics (Majorana equation, Majorana mass & Majorana particle) are named in honor of him.
The year 2006 marked the centenary of his birth. The Italian Physical Society published a commemorative book containing nine of his published papers. The Electronic Journal of Physical Research in that same year established an annual prize, the Majorana Medal, “for researchers who have shown peculiar creativity, critical sense and mathematical rigour in theoretical physics — in its broadest sense.”
"There are many categories of scientists, people of second and third rank, who do their best, but do not go very far. There are also people of first class, who make great discoveries, which are of capital importance for the development of science. But then there are the geniuses, like Galilei and Newton. Well, Ettore was one of these. Majorana had greater gifts that anyone else in the world; unfortunately he lacked one quality which other men generally have: plain common sense." - Enrico Fermi (as reported by Giuseppe Cocconi).
An ongoing international collaboration of physicists, the Neutrino Ettore Majorana Observatory (NEMO), is currently searching for neutrinoless double beta decay. In addition, a next generation experiment, dubbed SuperNEMO, is currently under construction and will be ready to begin sometime in 2012.
Beginning in 2009 the Albert Einstein Society Bern and the University of Bern, Switzerland initiated the Einstein Lectures. They take place every autumn and are given, in turn, by a physicist, a mathematician and a philosopher. The first Einstein Lecture was given by Prof. Frank Wilczek, Nobel Prize Winner in Physics in 2004. It was entitled “Majorana Returns”.
That scientists involved in cutting edge research in particle physics would feel compelled to bestow such honors upon Majorana is proof of the profound impact the late, great Sicilian had on the field, even if the mass media and academics here in America still largely ignore him.
Further reading:
• Joao Magueijo: A Brilliant Darkness – The Extraordinary Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Ettore Majorana, the Troubled Genius of the Nuclear Age; Basic Books, 2009 (Highly recommended reading! – NG)• http://www.ccsem.infn.it/em/EM_genius_and_mystery.pdf
• http://www.ejtp.com/articles/ejtpv3i10p1.pdf
• http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v5/n9/abs/nphys1380.html
