I recently read an interesting book on Enrico Fermi: The Man Who Knew
Everything. Of course, he didn't know everything in general but he knew
pretty much everything about the physics of his time. He was adept both in
theoretical and experimental physics. In addition, he was a pioneer in
applying Monte Carlo simulation on physics problems before computers. For
some reason, Fermi has been one of my scientific heroes for a long time. I
consider myself lucky as I met a Fermi's student in a PERC conference in
2007.
I was so fascinated about the biography that I wrote a review for Finnish
physics teachers (in Finnish). It must have been the fastest acceptance
letter I've ever received: it took 13 hours from sending to acceptance &
finalized layout.