6 Enrico Fermi Quotes on Physics

Enrico Fermi quotes on physics

1. Although the problem of transmuting chemical elements into each other is much older than a satisfactory definition of the very concept of chemical element, it is well known that the first and most important step towards its solution was made only nineteen years ago by the late Lord Rutherford, who started the method of the nuclear bombardments.

6. If I could remember the names of all these particles, I'd be a botanist.

12. The fundamental point in fabricating a chain reacting machine is of course to see to it that each fission produces a certain number of neutrons and some of these neutrons will again produce fission.

14. A three standard deviation is a statistical fluctuation; a five standard deviation effect is a miracle. Quoted by Owen Chamberlain.

17. If Fermi had been born a few years earlier, one could well imagine him discovering Rutherford's atomic nucleus, and then developing Bohr's theory of the hydrogen atom. If this sounds like hyperbole, anything about Fermi is likely to sound like hyperbole.

18. There is no democracy in physics. We can't say that some second-rate guy has as much right to opinion as Fermi.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.