Fano Footnote

March 2002 page 14

I have a note to add to the obituary for Ugo Fano ( Physics Today, September 2001, page 73), namely, that he wrote an excellent textbook, Physics of Atoms and Molecules: An Introduction to the Structure of Matter (U. of Chicago Press, 1972). The book is illustrated with beautiful hand drawings by his wife, Camilla Fano, the second author. I learned to appreciate the book when I adopted it to teach an advanced atomic physics course at the University of Munich. I still find it worth consulting.

In 1985, I had a chance to meet Ugo Fano in Copenhagen. He told me that he didn't know why that book did not sell very well.

Jorrit de Boer

(deboer@physik.uni-muenchen.de)

University of Munich

Munich, Germany

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