Enrico Fermi Quotes

On this page you can find the TOP of Enrico Fermi's best quotes! We hope you will find some sayings from Physicist Enrico Fermi's in our collection, which will inspire you to new achievements! There are currently 20 quotes on this page collected since September 29, 1901! Share our collection of quotes with your friends on social media so that they can find something to inspire them!
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  • 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.

    Science   Discovery   Two  
    "Nuclear Principles in Engineering". Book by Tatjana Jevremovic, 2005.
  • I hope it won't take long.

    "The collected works of Eugene Paul Wigner". Book by Eugene Paul Wigner edited by Alvin M. Weinberg and Alfred M. Perry, November 1, 1992.
  • Experimental confirmation of a prediction is merely a measurement. An experiment disproving a prediction is a discovery.

  • Ignorance is never better than knowledge

    Quoted in Laura Fermi Atoms in the Family (1954).
  • An experiment disproving a prediction is discovery.

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

    People   Joy   Hearing  
  • 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.

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

    Science   Men   Names  
  • 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.

    Epic   People   Feelings  
  • 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 (1971). “Collected Papers: Italy 1921-1938”
  • 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?

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

  • 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.

    Choices   Might   Sun  
    Enrico Fermi (1965). “Note e memorie (Collected papers)”
  • It is not good to try to stop knowledge from going forward. Ignorance is never better than knowledge.

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

  • 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.'

    "A meeting with Enrico Fermi" by Freeman Dyson, "Nature" Volume 427, p. 297, January 22, 2004.
  • When asked what he meant by a miracle: Oh, anything with a probability of less than 20%.

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

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

    Numbers   Ties   Machines  
    Enrico Fermi, James W. Cronin (2004). “Fermi Remembered”, p.75, University of Chicago Press
  • [on what characteristics Nobel prize winning physicists had in common] I cannot think of a single one, not even intelligence.

    Physics Today, October 1994.
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We hope you have found the saying you were looking for in our collection! At the moment, we have collected 20 quotes from the Physicist Enrico Fermi, starting from September 29, 1901! We periodically replenish our collection so that visitors of our website can always find inspirational quotes by authors from all over the world! Come back to us again!
Enrico Fermi quotes about:

Enrico Fermi

  • Born: September 29, 1901
  • Died: November 28, 1954
  • Occupation: Physicist