LETTERS
Intro physics and Fermi

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I am just reading the December/01 issue, and the article on Enrico Fermi ("Beyond the Bomb"). After receiving my master's in physics in 1944 I served in the U.S. Navy for two years. In 1946 I returned to Chicago to continue studies for a Ph.D. I was fortunate to receive an assistantship, working with Enrico Fermi in his course for undergraduates. This experience remains one of my fondest memories of the University. Fermi was willing to devote his time to inspire first-year physics students. In other universities such work was assigned to junior instructors or graduate students. Fermi personally presented all the lectures, while grad students helped with sectional lab work. I am sure a considerable number of students took up physics seriously because of Fermi's lectures.

I am writing from Chiang Mai, Thailand, where I am spending two months as consultant to Payap University, the first accredited private university in Thailand. When I first went to Thailand in 1947 I used some of the subject matter gleaned from Fermi's lectures with my high-school students-some of whom became physicists and contributed to the development of academic institutions in Thailand.

Konrad Kingshill, SM'44
Claremont, California

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