Thursday, July 21, 2005
Even Nobel Winners Get the Blues
Emilio,
I am getting rusty and old, I cannot follow the highbrow theory developed by Oppenheimer's pupils any more. I went to their seminar and was depressed by my inability to understand them. Only the last sentence cheered me up. It was: "And this is Fermi's theory of beta decay."
I am getting rusty and old, I cannot follow the highbrow theory developed by Oppenheimer's pupils any more. I went to their seminar and was depressed by my inability to understand them. Only the last sentence cheered me up. It was: "And this is Fermi's theory of beta decay."
-- Enrico Fermi
Enrico Fermi (September 29, 1901 – November 28, 1954) was an Italian physicist most noted for his work on beta decay, the development of the first nuclear reactor, and for the development of quantum theory. Fermi won the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on nuclear fission.
J. Robert Oppenheimer (April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American physicist of German-Jewish origin, and the scientific director of the Manhattan Project, the World War II effort to develop the first nuclear weapons, at the secret Los Alamos laboratory in New Mexico. Known colloquially as "the father of the atomic bomb", Oppenheimer lamented the weapon's killing power after it was used to destroy the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
J. Robert Oppenheimer (April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American physicist of German-Jewish origin, and the scientific director of the Manhattan Project, the World War II effort to develop the first nuclear weapons, at the secret Los Alamos laboratory in New Mexico. Known colloquially as "the father of the atomic bomb", Oppenheimer lamented the weapon's killing power after it was used to destroy the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
