Majorana Returns

This was the title of a Nature article in describing renewed interest in the work of Ettore Majorana, a prodigy who made a sudden disappearance when he was only 32 years old. In Fermi's team he pocketed all the prize money whenever a bet was fixed on solution to a scientific problem. However, paper writing, publishing appeared unexciting to him and at least two of his ideas won Nobel prizes later and he was not credited with. B. R. Holstein in his review writes,

"Majorana was a reluctant author. Once he discovered something he considered his own work to be banal. Once a problem was solved Majorana was very reluctant to write anything up on it. An example was the discovery of the neutron. Work by Joliot and Curie in France discovered a neutral particle that can enter matter and expel a proton. their conclusion was that it must be a photon, because at the time it was the only know particle with no charge. Majorana saw immediately that it must be a particle with a mass near that of the proton, in order to move something as heavy as the proton. When he heard this, Fermi urged him to write it up immediately, but nothing happened and soon thereafter Chadwick was given the credit for discovery of the neutron for his work in berylium."

The much talked about neutrino paper would not have seen the day, at least Majorana as author had not he needed a publication list for a position to support his application. This is the famous paper on Neutrino work by Majorana, but was written by Fermi. There are only 9 publications against his name.

In the words of Fermi, "There are many categories of scientists, people of second and third rank, who do their best, but do not go very far. There are also people of first class, who make great discoveries, which are of capital importance for the development of science. But then there are the geniuses, like Galileo and Newton. Well, Ettore was one of these. Majorana had greater gifts than anyone else in the world; unfortunately he lacked one quality which other men generally have: plain common sense."

His disappearance is linked to many theories : spiritual quest, reluctance to be a part of nuclear weapon making group, suicide etc. On March 25, 1938 this is what he wrote to Director of his institute where he leaves a hint of this exit plan.

Dear Carrelli,
I made a decision that has become unavoidable. There isn't a bit of selfishness in it, but I realize what trouble my sudden disappearance will cause you and the students. For this as well, I beg your forgiveness, but especially for betraying the trust, the sincere friendship and the sympathy you gave me over the past months. I ask you to remind me to all those I learned to know and appreciate in your Institute, especially Sciuti: I will keep a fond memory of them all at least until 11 pm tonight, possibly later too.
E. Majorana

Some of the links related to Mjorana are:

http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/29664
http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v5/n9/box/nphys1380_BX1.html
http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v5/n9/full/nphys1380.html
http://www.physics.sc.edu/CISNP/workshop/Holstein-majorana.pdf

I read an article on Majorana yesterday where the author quotes following lines of William Blake paying tribute to this genius.

To see a world in a grain of sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 
And Eternity in an hour.