BEFORE they left Los Alamos, Fermi, Oppenheimer, Bohr, Lawrence, Groves, Chadwick, and Compton had dinner to discuss the future. Some were hopeful about fission-generated nuclear energy; Groves fretted about a decline in American military power with the end of the war. “And Fermi,” Oppenheimer remembered, “said, thoughtfully, ‘I think it would be nice if we could find a cure for the common cold.’ ” Enrico and Laura went home on New Year’s Eve 1945, to the University of Chicago’s newly created Institute for Nuclear Studies, where Fermi hoped to re-create the intellectual paradise of Weimar Germany with eleven laureates and future laureates—including Urey, Franck, Mayer, Anderson, Segrè, Teller, Dyson, Garwin, and Agnew. As Valentine Telegdi said, “It was a place where you could be proud to be the dumbest one.” Harold Agnew: “Just to show you what a straight shooter and a modest individual Fermi was: When Laura came back from Italy [after the war], she said she’d really like to have a dishwasher and a washing machine.
