Enrico Fermi Quotes

• Before I came here I was confused about this subject. Having listened to your lecture I am still confused. But on a higher level.

  Enrico Fermi

  Confused, Lectures, Levels

  75 Copy quote

• There are two possible outcomes: if the result confirms the hypothesis, then you've made a measurement. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you've made a discovery.

  Enrico Fermi

  Science, Discovery, Two

  "Nuclear Principles in Engineering". Book by Tatjana Jevremovic, 2005.

  66 Copy quote

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

  Enrico Fermi

  People, Joy, Hearing

  62 Copy quote

• Experimental confirmation of a prediction is merely a measurement. An experiment disproving a prediction is a discovery.

  Enrico Fermi

  Science, Discovery, Engineering

  88 Copy quote

• It is not good to try to stop knowledge from going forward. Ignorance is never better than knowledge.

  Enrico Fermi

  Positive, Ignorance, Science

  55 Copy quote

• Where is everybody? Humans could theoretically colonize the galaxy in a million years or so, and if they could, astronauts from older civilizations could do the same. So why haven't they come to Earth?

  Enrico Fermi

  Spring, Years, Civilization

  40 Copy quote

• Whatever Nature has in store for mankind, unpleasant as it may be, men must accept, for ignorance is never better than knowledge.

  Enrico Fermi

  Ignorance, Knowledge, Science

  Quoted in Laura Fermi Atoms in the Family (1954).

  32 Copy quote

• I remember my friend Johnny von Neumann used to say, 'with four parameters I can fit an elephant and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk.'

  Enrico Fermi

  Elephants, Four, Remember

  "A meeting with Enrico Fermi" by Freeman Dyson, "Nature" Volume 427, p. 297, January 22, 2004.

  54 Copy quote

• Some people stick with the traditional, feeling struck by the epic beauty or blown away by the insane scale of the universe. Personally, I go for the old "existential meltdown followed by acting weird for the next half hour. But everyone feels something.

  Enrico Fermi

  Epic, People, Feelings

  46 Copy quote

• An experiment disproving a prediction is discovery.

  Enrico Fermi

  Discovery, Predictions, Experiments

  33 Copy quote

• Ignorance is never better than knowledge

  Enrico Fermi

  Ignorance, Knowledge, Knowledge And Ignorance

  Quoted in Laura Fermi Atoms in the Family (1954).

  28 Copy quote

• The fact that no limits exist to the destructiveness of this weapon [the 'Super', i.e. the hydrogen bomb] makes its very existence and the knowledge of its construction a danger to humanity as a whole. It is necessarily an evil thing considered in any light. For these reasons, we believe it important for the President of the United States to tell the American public and the world what we think is wrong on fundamental ethical principles to initiate the development of such a weapon.

  Enrico Fermi

  Believe, Thinking, Light

  47 Copy quote

• Young man, if I could remember the names of these particles, I would have been a botanist.

  Enrico Fermi

  Science, Men, Names

  24 Copy quote

• When asked what he meant by a miracle: Oh, anything with a probability of less than 20%.

  Enrico Fermi

  Science, Miracle, Biographies

  24 Copy quote

• [on what characteristics Nobel prize winning physicists had in common] I cannot think of a single one, not even intelligence.

  Enrico Fermi

  Winning, Thinking, Common

  Physics Today, October 1994.

  36 Copy quote

• It does not say in the Bible that all laws of nature are expressible linearly!

  Enrico Fermi

  Law, Doe, Laws Of Nature

  22 Copy quote

• One might be led to question whether the scientists acted wisely in presenting the statesmen of the world with this appalling problem. Actually there was no choice. Once basic knowledge is acquired, any attempt at preventing its fruition would be as futile as hoping to stop the earth from revolving around the sun.

  Enrico Fermi

  Choices, Might, Sun

  Enrico Fermi (1965). “Note e memorie (Collected papers)”

  16 Copy quote

• I hope it won't take long.

  Enrico Fermi

  Long, Last Words

  "The collected works of Eugene Paul Wigner". Book by Eugene Paul Wigner edited by Alvin M. Weinberg and Alfred M. Perry, November 1, 1992.

  16 Copy quote

• 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.

  Enrico Fermi

  Numbers, Ties, Machines

  Enrico Fermi, James W. Cronin (2004). “Fermi Remembered”, p.75, University of Chicago Press

  90 Copy quote

• 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.

  Enrico Fermi

  Years, Important, Elements

  Enrico Fermi (1971). “Collected Papers: Italy 1921-1938”

  19 Copy quote

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