Enrico Fermi Quotes
A little bomb like that can make us all disappear
he cupped his two hands Fermi was the scientist who organized and planned the first controlled nuclear chain reaction
Enrico Fermi, 1901-1954, Physicist & Nobel Laureate, Statement to friends in his office at Columbia University while the Manhattan Project was ongoing.
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Quoting the Baghavad-Gita at the first atomic bomb test, Alamogordo, NM, July 16, 1945
This declaration, drafted by Russell and Einstein two days before Einstein’s death was signed by a number of other prominent scientists.
The lecture was on radium and the radioactivity that scientists had recently discovered. This appears to be the first time a scientist suggested the possibility of using atomic energy to produce a powerful weapon. At the same time, note that he also mentioned the possible destruction of the earth. “Heavy matter” referred to the elements—many of which had not yet been discovered—that had larger atomic numbers than radium like uranium.
Dr. Libby worked with Enrico Fermi to create the first nuclear chain reaction to prove the feasibility of a nuclear bomb. She was the only female on the team.
The bombing of Tokyo to which she referred, killed over 100,000 Japanese in a single raid, more than each of the two atomic bombs. However, those who, in hindsight, raise the issue of the morality of using the atomic bombs, say nothing about the firebombing. The graphic is of Dr. Libby when she was working with Enrico Fermi to create the first nuclear chain reaction to prove the feasibility of a nuclear bomb. She was the only female on the team.
This was the same man who as a Senator only 4 years before threatened the North that the South was economically and militarily invincible.
He was warning the majority and blaming them for what was to happen. Ironically, at the end of the First World War, Germany was so harshly treated because the allies felt that the Germans had been aforewarned not only by others but by opposition Germans as well.
During the American Revolution, the Iroquois sided with the British, aiding them militarily and other ways. The revolutionaries responded by attacking and destroying most of the Iroquois who retreated to British Canada.
He was the first man to see the experimental evidence of nuclear power and he realized that it had the potential for an incredibly powerful weapon. It was his message about the possibilities about the atomic bomb that Albert Einstein transmitted to FDR, leading to American development of the bomb.(See {624449}.) By the time the atomic bomb had been developed, Germany had surrendered and Szilard and others felt that there was no longer a need to beat the Germans to the development. So he went from the biggest enthusiast to the most serious opponent.
Fermi was the scientist who organized and planned the first controlled nuclear chain reaction as a part of the Manhattan Project and was one of the major scientific advisors to the Atomic Energy Commission until he, Oppenheimer, and several other scientists opposed the development of the Super (the name Edward Teller had given to the proposed hydrogen bomb). The scientists knew that we had and could make enough atomic bombs to destroy any nation and to make it doable with just a few bombs as opposed to many they saw as of little military
value. They further expected that the Russians and some others would be forced to keep up with us in an arms race and that the bomb would never be able to be used without retaliation in kind and the destruction of most of America. The politicians and military did not really believe that the Russians had the scientific capability to develop hydrogen weapons and some thought if we had them and no one else did, we could dictate a “pax Americana” to the world. Others feared that Russia or some other country would develop a hydrogen weapon and then dictate to us. We did have a monopoly on the Super for a few years and America never dictated to the rest of the world. When other countries developed the weapons, we entered the era of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).
Enrico Fermi was an Italian (later naturalized American) physicist and the creator of the world's first nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1. He has been called the "architect of the nuclear age" and the "architect of the atomic bomb". He was one of very few physicists to excel in both theoretical physics and experimental physics. Fermi was awarded the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on induced radioactivity by neutron bombardment and for the discovery of transuranium elements. With his colleagues, Fermi filed several patents related to the use of nuclear power, all of which were taken over by the US government. He made significant contributions to the development of statistical mechanics, quantum theory, and nuclear and particle physics.
