FERMI, E. (+) E. SEGRÉ.

Zur Theorie der Hyperfeinstruktur.

Berlin, Springer, 1933. 8vo. In contemporary halv cloth with gilt lettering to spine. In "Zeitschrift für Physik", Bd. 82, 1933. Entire volume offered. Stamp to front free end-paper and titlepage, otherwise fine and clean. Pp. 729-49 [Entire volume: VIII, 838 pp.].

First German edition published the same year as the original ("Sulla teoria delle strutture iperfini", published in Reale acc. d'Italia, memorie cl. scienze fisiche 4 (1933)) of Fermi and Segré's important paper on hyperfine structure.

In 1930 Fermi started to work on the hyperfine structure of spectra lines, a subject that he further developed in collaboration with Segrè in 1932-3, the present paper being his being his final on the subject.
Hyperfine structures was the research area the initially caught Fermi's interest in physics: "At this time quantum mechanics had reached its full development; nonrelativistic problems, at least in principle, were soluble except for mathematical difficulties. In this sense atomic physics was showing signs of exhaustion, and one could expect the next really important advances to be in the study of the nucleus. Realizing this, Fermi decided to switch to nuclear physics. He initially investigated the theory of the hyperfine structure of the spectral lines and the nuclear magnetic momenta (FP no. 57), a suitable subject for making the transition from atomic to nuclear physics."

Order-nr.: 49261