Fano Footnote

I have a note to add to the obituary for Ugo Fano (Physics Today, Physics Today 0031-9228 54 9 2001 73  https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1420522 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.