Talk:Enrico Fermi

Unsourced
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 * Albert! Stop telling God what to do.
 * Attributed response to the statement "God doesn't throw dice" derived from a comment by Albert Einstein to Max Born about Quantum mechanics. A similar remark is attributed to Niels Bohr.


 * Before I came here I was confused about this subject. Having listened to your lecture I am still confused. But on a higher level.
 * This is widely attributed to Fermi as early as the 1960s. The saying was famous enough to make it into popular science articles by 1957, and into political speeches by 1962. It is first quoted in something close to its modern form in a 1953 nuclear physics textbook by Emilio Segrè, but without attribution. Fermi was Segrè's doctoral advisor. However, I could not find a source from Fermi's lifetime (before 1954) that directly and unequivocally links the quote to him. Renerpho (talk) 22:54, 22 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Never be first; try to be second.
 * After his paper on beta decay was turned down by the journal Nature because "it contained speculations which were too remote from reality".


 * Never underestimate the joy people derive from hearing something they already know.


 * 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.


 * Whatever nature has in store for mankind, unpleasant as it may be, men must accept, for ignorance is never better than knowledge.
 * Variant: It is no good to try to stop knowledge from going forward. Ignorance is never better than knowledge.


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


 * Nothing resembles a new phenomenon as much as a mistake. Anybody have a source attribution for this one?