Ugo Fano (July 28, 1912 – February 13, 2001) was an Italian American physicist, notable for contributions to theoretical physics.[2]
Biography
Ugo Fano was born into a wealthy Jewish family in Turin, Italy. His father was Gino Fano, a professor of mathematics.[3]
University studies
Fano earned his doctorate in mathematics at the University of Turin in 1934, under Enrico Persico, with a thesis entitled Sul Calcolo dei Termini Spettrali e in Particolare dei Potenziali di Ionizzazione Nella Meccanica Quantistica (On the Quantum Mechanical Calculation Spectral Terms and their Extension to Ionization). As part of his PhD examination he also made two oral presentations entitled: Sulle Funzioni di Due o Più Variabili Complesse (On the functions of two or more complex variables) and Le Onde Elettromagnetiche di Maggi: Le Connessioni Asimmetriche Nella Geometria Non Riemanniana (Maggi[4] electromagnetic waves: asymmetric connections in non-Riemannian geometry).
In 1939, he married Camilla Lattes,[3] also known as Lilla, a teacher who would collaborate with him in a well-known book on atomic and molecular physics, Physics of Atoms and Molecules (1959). Appendix III of this book presents an elementary description of the collision of two charged particles, which was used by Richard Feynman in lectures that have been published as Feynman's Lost Lecture: Motion of Planets Around the Sun. An expanded version of this book was subsequently published as Basic Physics of Atoms and Molecules (1972).
Fano had a major impact in sustained work over six decades on atomic physics and molecular physics, and earlier on radiological physics. Most areas of current research in these subjects reflect his fundamental contributions. Such phenomena as the Fano resonance profile, the Fano factor, the Fano effect, the Lu-Fano plot, and the Fano–Lichten mechanism bear his name. The Fano theorem used in radiation dosimetry is also a result of his work.
Family
His brother, Robert Fano, was an eminent professor emeritus of electrical engineering at MIT. Fano's cousin, Giulio Racah, made great contributions to the quantum theory of angular momentum (well known as Racah algebra), and wrote a concise monograph with Fano on the subject (Irreducible Tensorial Sets, 1959).
