List of Enrico Fermi Quotes

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.

I Hope It Won't Take Long.

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.

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.

When Asked What He Meant By A Miracle: Oh, Anything With A Probability Of Less Than 20%.

It Does Not Say In The Bible That All Laws Of Nature Are Expressible Linearly!

[on What Characteristics Nobel Prize Winning Physicists Had In Common] I Cannot Think Of A Single One, Not Even Intelligence.

Young Man, If I Could Remember The Names Of These Particles, I Would Have Been A Botanist.

Ignorance Is Never Better Than Knowledge

An Experiment Disproving A Prediction Is Discovery.

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.

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.