Ettore Majorana
ROSARIO NUNZIO MANTEGNA*
Dipartimento di Fisica e Tecnologie Relative, Palermo University, Italy(Received 23 April 2004; in final form 14 February 2005)
Ettore Majorana was one of the greatest theoreticalphysicists during the exciting period of the developmentof quantum mechanics and nuclear physics in the firsthalf of the last century. He was one of the ‘Ragazzi diVia Panisperna’, the famous research group led by EnricoFermi in Rome. Born in Catania, Italy in 1906, EttoreMajorana did his study in Rome graduating in physicsin 1929 under the supervision of E. Fermi. During theyears from 1929 to 1933 he devoted all his energy totheoretical physics and essentially produced most of hiswork in this field. In 1933 he visited Leipzig, wherehe positively interacted with W. Heisenberg. After hisreturn to Rome during the fall of 1933, his involvementin theoretical physics research declined until 1937 whenhe again showed active interest in theoretical physicsby taking part in a national examination to obtain theposition of professor of theoretical physics. The evaluat-ing Committee composed by E. Fermi, O. Lazzarino,E. Persico, G. Polvani and A. Carrelli, unanimouslyconsidered his work outstanding and incomparable withthe other candidates. They therefore proposed to theMinister of Education to nominate E. Majorana as fullprofessor for ‘chiara fama’, namely outside the exami-nation procedure. He therefore became Professor ofTheoretical Physics at Naples University, where he taughta quantum mechanics course during the academic year1937–1938. Ettore Majorana mysteriously disappearedin March 1938 during a journey by ship connectingPalermo to Naples. His body was never found andMajorana has been searched for both by governmentofficials and members of Majorana’s family for a longtime.yEnrico Fermi held Majorana in very high esteem.In the letter he wrote in 1938 to the Italian prime ministerB. Mussolini to ask the government to intensify theresearch of Ettore, Fermi stated ‘I have no hesitation tostate to You, and I am not saying this as an hyper-bolic statement, that among all Italian and foreignscholars that I had the opportunity to meet, Majoranais among all of them the one that has most struck mefor his deep sharpness’.
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