ENRICO FERMI QUOTES

“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.”

“Before I came here, I was confused about this subject. Having listened to your lecture, I am confused about this subject.”

“Ignorance is never better than knowledge.”

“There are two kinds of scientists: those who explain things to others, and those who refuse to.”

“If I could remember the names of all these particles, I’d be a botanist.”

“There are infinite worlds both like and unlike this world of ours. For the atoms being infinite in number… are borne some far off and scattered through boundless space.”

“Knowledge is not just more fuel for controversy. It is also the greatest remedy against prejudice.”

“It is no good to try to stop knowledge from going forward. Ignorance is never better than knowledge.”

“I cannot further the educational development of students who are unavailable for class.”

“There are many experiments suggesting that faster-than-light speeds can be achieved, such as particles moving faster than light in certain tunneling and quantum effects.”

“An experiment can have a more or less ‘eclectic’ theoretical background. But anyway, it must be a rigorous experiment.”

“Nuclear energy is unimaginable without a chain reaction. Now the chain reaction we use is hopelessly uneconomical, but it is effective.”

“It is better to solve one problem five different ways than to solve five problems one way.” LIEFSTE TANTE QUOTES

“Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by hitting back.”

“The possibility of the existence of life as we know it on another planet in the solar system has been ruled out.”

“The universe is much bigger than our prophets have said, grander, more subtle, more elegant.”

“If we limit ‘science’ only to what is strong and powerful, then we diminish the potential of future discoveries considerably.”

“We scientists, whose tragic destiny it has been to make the methods of annihilation ever more gruesome and more effective, must consider it our solemn and transcendent duty to do all in our power in preventing these weapons from being used for the brutal purpose for which they were invented.”

“The future is just a probability cloud waiting to be given substantial existence.”

“Science is not a game in which arbitrary rules are used to decide what explanations are to be permitted.”

“I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge pope and king unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way.”

“We now know that the number of atoms in the universe is around 10^80, which means that our solar system is about half way between the smallest and the largest things in the cosmos in terms of size.”

“If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion, provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense.”

“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”