Derrick Bolander, age 15, of Champaign, ill., for his question:

WHO WAS ENRICO FERMI?

Enrico Fermi was an Italian American physicist who won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1938 for his many important discoveries.

Soon after he won the prestigious Nobel award, the splitting, or fission, of the uranium nucleus was discovered. And it wasn't long after that Fermi was engaged is the experiments at the University of Chicago that led to the first nuclear chain reaction in 1942.

Fermi created the first controlled nuclear fission chain reaction. He then spent World War II at Los Alamos, N.M., as a consultant in the development of the atomic bomb.

Later, Fermi opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb on ethical grounds.

After the war, Fermi became a professor of physics and the director of the new Institute of Nuclear Studies at the University of Chicago. He was the first scientist to win the award is atomic science that now bears his name, the Fermi Award. Also, his name was given to the element Fermium.