Enrico Fermi — "Young man, I am not trying to shake your faith in God, but in the physicists."
Young man, I am not trying to shake your faith in God, but in the physicists.
Get This Quote & Author's Image Illustrated On:
Click any product to generate a realistic preview. Up to 3 at a time.
* Initial load can take up to 90 seconds — revising the preview in another color is nearly instant.
Kitchen
Apparel
Other
More from Enrico Fermi
"The bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives."
"We must always strive to use our knowledge for the betterment of humanity, and not for its destruction."
"Oh, anything with a probability of less than 20%."
"The greatest tragedy of science is the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact."
"The future is uncertain, but it is also full of possibilities."
Verification
Unverifiable
Found in 1 providers: grok
1 source checked
Understanding this quote
What it means
Trust should be calibrated carefully: don't assume experts have all the answers. Fermi playfully warns that physicists — including himself — make mistakes, overstate certainty, and deserve scrutiny. He's urging intellectual independence and skepticism toward authority figures, not religious doubt. The real risk isn't questioning God; it's blindly deferring to credentialed experts who are themselves fallible and routinely wrong.
Relevance to Enrico Fermi
Fermi embodied rigorous skepticism — his famous estimation techniques existed precisely to check assumptions, including those of fellow physicists. Having built the first nuclear reactor in 1942 and worked alongside Manhattan Project scientists prone to overconfidence, he knew experts failed routinely. His dry wit was legendary among Chicago students, and this line captures his habit of undercutting scientific arrogance with humor.
The era
After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, physicists commanded extraordinary public reverence. The late 1940s and early 1950s saw nuclear scientists treated as near-prophets shaping Cold War policy and public imagination. Yet physicists bitterly debated hydrogen bomb development, radiation risks, and arms control. Fermi, working at Chicago from 1945 until his 1954 death, watched confident experts contradict one another, making skepticism toward his own profession entirely warranted.
AI-generated insights based on extensive research and information for context. Factual errors? Email [email protected].