Talk:Enrico Fermi/Archive 2

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Rejection of neutrino paper by Nature
In The Last Man Who Knew Everything (Basic Books, 2017) David N. Schwartz writes “Segrè reports that soon after this holiday Fermi presented the paper to the British journal Nature, because the group at Via Panisperna had decided, following the rise of Hitler in Germany, to boycott German publications even though they remained the most prestigious in the field. According to Segrè, Nature rejected the paper, a reviewer claiming that it was too “speculative.” In response, Fermi sent the paper to the Italian journal Nuovo Cimento and the German Zeitschrift für Physik, both of which published it. This story is so central to the legend of the paper that Wikipedia reports Nature later publicly regretted having rejected it as one of its most egregious editorial errors. In fact, no such public statement of regret can be found in any back issues of Nature. It is unfortunately impossible to review Nature’s archives to find the rejection letter written by the reviewer, because all records were destroyed in a move to new offices several decades ago. Some historians question the entire story. They observe that at that time Nature accepted only short notes on these types of subjects and was certainly not a forum for a detailed presentation of new quantum field theories. A more logical British publication would have been the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, which had published all of Dirac’s seminal papers on QED and would have been a logical place for Fermi to submit the beta decay paper. These historians suggest that he may have wanted his German counterparts, particularly people like Born, Heisenberg, and of course Pauli himself, to read the paper first. A white lie—that he had tried but failed to get it published by Nature—would get him off the hook with his young colleagues who were so opposed to publishing anything in German journals and still achieve his main objective.“ If this is not enough to change the article, is it enough to at least add a qualification? EighteenFiftyNine (talk) 12:28, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
 * The footnote in this article sources the rejection quote to Luisa Bonolis. I will check the reference when I return. But there is no mention of an any statement of regret in this article or the one on beta decay .  Hawkeye7   (discuss)  20:54, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
 * It's in the Fermi's interaction article. The story of the article's rejection, which is in Segrè, was attributed thence to Abraham Pais, and Nature admitting its mistake to Frank Close. I will check all of these. (It would help if Schwartz could cite his sources.)   Hawkeye7   (discuss)  06:54, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

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Citizenship
On Fermi's citizenship status, it states him as being a dual citizen of Italy and USA since 1944 until his death. In Italian nationality law, it states that any Italian national who naturalizes as a citizen of a foreign country before 15 August 1992 would automatically lose his or her Italian citizenship. I am interested on knowing how he was able to maintain his Italian citizenship unless it was an error that was never caught. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scarslayer01 (talk • contribs) 16:42, 25 August 2018 (UTC)


 * He became a US citizen in 1944, surrendering his Italian citizenship. Corrected the infobox, which was likely a typo.  Hawkeye7   (discuss)  22:52, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Book of Life?
I am a mobile browser and when I checked what the featured article was for today, I saw this:

Enrico Fermi Italian Physicist www.bookoflifeall.com [save icon] Save for later

That can’t be right? After opening and closing the article it said the start of the article like it should’ve. This isn’t just some glitch. I think there’s been tampering with the app or article, but I’m not very knowledgeable on how that stuff works, just thought I should put this out there [Pranav Reddy 08:08, 10 December 2018 (UTC)]
 * This was vandalism, and it has been removed. – Jonesey95 (talk) 09:09, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Long intro
Wait wait. There is MOS:LEAD. The intro has four paragraphs (good) and 900 words, and 60 wikilinks (a sea of blue to me). Is not that a bit much for a lede? Don't we want to catch readers, even laypeople, when this is on Main Page? -DePiep (talk) 22:11, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * It's a level 4 vital article. He did a great deal. I was asked to expand the lead when it went through GA in 2013. We wrote an abbreviated version for the TFA blurb.   Hawkeye7   (discuss)  22:59, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't deny GA status, I responded to today's lede as is. To me (a heavily interested layman ;-) ), it is not inviting. -DePiep (talk) 23:06, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * It has FA status now. What I meant was that if someone has a suggestion, I will normally implement it; but if two people have conflicting suggestions, then I wait until a consensus starts to emerge. Did you read the rest of the article? If I was writing it today it would be more technical, with more physics. Should you feel like reviewing a physics article, I have Mars cycler up for GA.  Hawkeye7   (discuss)  02:41, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
 * What do you mean "two people with conflicting suggestions"? I say: the current lede is no a WP:LEDE. -DePiep (talk) 01:55, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I've edited the lede. -DePiep (talk) 23:34, 7 December 2018 (UTC)


 * I've restored the bit about his wife, without which fleeing Italy makes no sense, and the bit about him being at Los Alamos during the war. To WP:Physics, his notability is the neutrino and beta decay; to MilHist, it is the Manhattan Project and the Super.  Hawkeye7   (discuss)  00:04, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Nah. "Racist Law" (caps!) says enough. This is the lede. Details should be in body text. -DePiep (talk) 00:41, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Since exact dob/death are in the infobox all right, I have removed the dates (not years) from 1st sentence. -DePiep (talk) 00:47, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
 * That is prohibited. (MOS:OPENPARABIO) The dates are required to be in the lead, which stands independent of the infobox, which may be omitted.  Hawkeye7   (discuss)  00:57, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Partial bullshit. The link you give does not say anythnig about infobox data. -DePiep (talk) 01:12, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
 * "Partial bullshit"? Be careful. DePiep is reminded to engage in good faith discussion, and to communicate clearly, with other editors about any contentious edits he might make or consider making, and to consider other editors' concerns with respect. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:53, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah. And still I am free to say that the Fermi lede is way too long. -DePiep (talk) 21:48, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
 * The established lead is fine. MOS is a guideline where occasional exceptions may apply and Fermi was most definitely an exception. Comparing the quantity of text and links in the lead with those in the body shows that there is no problem with the lead. Johnuniq (talk) 02:58, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Let me disagree, . There is no reason to have an exception for Fermi. The lede had 900 words! and a sea of blue links! and detailed paragraphs!, including indirect references!. No. Compare: before my edits. I still don't get why my cleaning up edits would be unacceptable. DePiep (talk) 22:00, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
 * (the version my OP was about "Long intro", is now live/current). -DePiep (talk) 22:28, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
 * The lead is about 10% of the article. That seems reasonable to me as a starting place. 's edits removed too much, including all of the prose about Fermi's legacy in the last paragraph.
 * I agree with DePiep that the prose in the lead could be tightened a bit, but reducing it to the extent proposed by DePiep is too extreme. I am an experienced copy editor; if other editors here are willing, I will be happy to take a look at the lead to see where it could be made more concise without removal of important summary information. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:34, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Being "10%" is irrelevant. Blanket reversal of dozens individual edits is amateuristic and unacceptable use of 'authority'.  -DePiep (talk) 23:17, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
 * As history shows, I made some two dozen sensible edits. -DePiep (talk) 23:40, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
 * detailed paragraphs! -- goodness, what next? MPS1992 (talk) 00:10, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Please,, take a leave. We are talking FA lede here, not personal jabbing. -DePiep (talk) 00:31, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree with Jonesey95 that a modest trimming may be OK but that DePiep went way too far. If Jonesey95 and/or DePiep can work on a much more modest tightening, we might converge.  Otherwise, leave the longer version, which is actually a really good lead. Dicklyon (talk) 00:18, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
 * If you would like a copy-edit of the lead, please ping me or drop me a line on my talk page. Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:20, 9 December 2018 (UTC)


 * (ec) re Hi. Detailed paragraphs have no place in a lede (with 900 words, 60 wikilinks). Nor has a sea of blue links. May I note that so far you have not contibuted, just rambled & (ab)used authority? Straight question: what was wrong with any of my edits, that required absolute reversal? -DePiep (talk) 00:22, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm OK with the lede as it is now. I don't have a problem if the consensus disagrees with that. MPS1992 (talk) 00:36, 9 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Al together now. I claimed that the lede is "Too long" (OP), e.g. comprising 900 words and 60 wikilinks. I made some two dozens of edits in the lede, some of which were disputed/reverted (all right). But I see no argument that each and every edit/proposal/change is to be reverted (as MPS1992 did). Today, the lede still has those flaws: 900 words, 60 wl's etc. MPS1992's edits, behaviour & comments (here) do not help. For starters, version could be . -DePiep (talk) 01:00, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
 * The point is that you don't have consensus that the length and number of links are "flaws" here. And if we could focus on content instead of behaviour we'd likely converge more readily. Dicklyon (talk) 01:03, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
 * As I read MPS1992, that was not the issue. Their total revert included non-controversial/undisputed edits (like, ), effectively shutting down development. -DePiep (talk) 18:18, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Minor copy-edit of the lead, with questions
Following up on my offer above and a request on my User talk page, I have performed what I believe is a minimally invasive copy-edit of the lead, and I have some questions and opinions. I think those are all of my notes at this point. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:16, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
 * 1) It seems somewhat weak to say "He was on hand when..." in the lead. If he had an important role, let's say what that role was. Otherwise, his presence at these events could probably be minimized in the lead.
 * 2) Is it important to say in the lead that "he speculated that cosmic rays arose when material was accelerated by magnetic fields in interstellar space"? The article's body says essentially the same thing, but not much more. I think that if his speculation turned out to be correct and served as a building block to our understanding of physics, the article should say that. If his speculation was just a speculation, this clause should probably be removed from the lead.
 * 3) Are all of the items named for Fermi that are listed in the lead of relatively equal notability/importance? We don't want a laundry list in the lead section, so if there are one ore more items in the list that are of lesser importance, it/they could be removed.
 * 4) Is there anything else in the lead section that seems to be considerably less notable or important compared to the rest? I am not a subject-matter expert.

Here we go:
 * 1) I find "human-created" a bit awkward. Is "artificial" really that big a word? (We could link to the Wiktionary.) "On hand" means that he supervised the startup. X-10 went fine; B Reactor was a minor crisis. (What could possibly go wrong anyhow?)
 * 2) I'm not certain that the cosmic rays need to be mentioned in the lead. It was a major focus of physicists in the early post-war years. And yes, he was indeed correct. The main body though, should be updated to include more material about this. At the moment it brings it up mainly due to Fermi's conflict with Teller. Fermi got along well with everyone - a serious character flaw. He opposed the development of the Super, which he had worked on during the war, and again after the decision was taken to proceed over his moral objections. (If I had to pick a group at Los Alamos that most closely resembled the misfits in Mahanttan, it would be Teller's Super group.)
 * 3) There's a whole article, List of things named after Enrico Fermi! Too many to name in the infobox, but we wanted to name some. We picked the four most notable.
 * 4) I didn't want to give too much prominence in the lead to the Nobel Prize, given that it is not what he is most famous for, being awarded for something later proven to be an error.
 * 5) I wanted to keep the bit about it being Laura who was the target of the racial laws, not Enrico, who was a member of the fascist party, something which is rather more controversial in Italy than in the US. (In retrospect, the laws were not enforced in Italy, and she probably would have been okay up to the point when Italy was occupied by the Germans in 1943, at which point she would have been in serious trouble.) She's called "Laura Capon" in the lead because it is not the custom in Italy to adopt your husband's name, so she only became known as Laura Fermi when she moved to the US.
 * Hawkeye7  (discuss)  02:38, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the response. The reason I went for "human-created" instead of "artificial" is that the chain reaction was real, not fake, which was the sense of "artificial" that popped into my head when I read the sentence. I would have gone with "man-made", but I'm a modern person, so that was out. Perhaps there is a better word; if not, artificial is fine with me. I will leave it to the subject-matter experts here to adjust the other content as needed. The prose in the lead is fine right now, and the length seems proportionate, as I have said above. The goal of the lead is to summarize the article and hit all of the most notable points of Fermi's life, work, and legacy. If you make sure it does that, it's fine. – Jonesey95 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:23, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
 * There was a minor debate about "artificial" on the Chicago Pile-1 article. Back when Earth was younger, its uranium was richer, and nuclear reactions could occur naturally in uranium deposits. I thought nobody would be confused, but the consensus was to note that CP-1 was the first man-made reactor. This was carried over into this article.  Hawkeye7   (discuss)  21:03, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Relevances
Nobel prize: 4th sentence, 2nd half (while sentence 2 = gossip). People with Nobel prize: 100's. People having an element named after them: ~20. Here: fermium only mentioned in last sentence. -DePiep (talk) 01:32, 12 December 2018 (UTC)


 * The Nobel Prize is not Fermi's main claim to fame, and it was awarded for the creation of transuranic elements, that turned out to not be the case. The second sentence is not gossip, but how he is remembered. The obscure chemical element is listed as one of the four most notable things named after Fermi. The category for people with chemical elements named after them was deleted.  Hawkeye7   (discuss)  01:44, 12 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Both nobel prize and element naming are peer-reviewed decisions, and have (also because of that) a high regard. If the error in his Nobel-awarded research is that devastating or contradicting (I doubt), that fact should have been added to the lede. Anyway, it is not his own "claim to fame", it is bestowed by others. "He has been called ..." less so: an opinion. Fermiun being an "obscure" element is quite an uninformed opinion (by an editor) wrt Fermi and his profession -- the topic of this article. Removal of the category is no signal of (un)importance, but of WP:CATDEF. - DePiep (talk) 08:25, 13 December 2018 (UTC)


 * The Nobel Prizes are nor peer reviewed. Swedish and foreign members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Nobel Committee for Physics, Nobel Laureates in Physics, and physics professors in Scandinavia, are invited to nominate candidates. The decision is taken by the Nobel Committee. The prize gets its prestige from the monetary size of the prize, and the esteem of past prize winners like Einstein and Fermi. Chemical elements are named by the IUPAC Inorganic Chemistry Division. Discoverers proposed names and these are ratified by the IUPAC.   Hawkeye7   (discuss)  10:44, 13 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Agree. Am late to this but I don't see what is wrong with the lead or the article. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 17:29, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I meant to say and suggest: "peer reviewed" as in 'scrutinised by outsiders while mainting an objectivity'.
 * You are completely wrong wrt the IUPAC naming process (and still that is more "peer-reviewed"-like that you think).
 * Now technically you can have your point (one of two), but what stands is my main point you did not address: outside opinions should not precede peer-based honours. But alas, since you think a Nobel price is about money, and obituary impressionate talk is more important, I'll have to leave you with this. -DePiep (talk) 21:47, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Acquiesced or "reluctantly agreed"?
In my opinion "reluctantly agreed" is correct and expressed in plain English, which is important. I understand that "acquiesced" may sound smarter, but readability really matters. However, my sources were ignored, and eventually deleted:

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/acquiesce, https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/acquiesce, https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/acquiesce, https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/acquiesce, https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/acquiesce, https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/acquiesce, https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/american/acquiesce

I naively believed that sources are important. Vikom (talk) 20:07, 9 March 2019 (UTC) I want sources from the books on Fermi that you claim to have read if you want to change the meaning in the article. "Acquiesced" is plain English; it is an accurate and concise summation of the sources. We have an educational mission, and that trumps any concerns about "readability". Hawkeye7  (discuss)  20:34, 9 March 2019 (UTC) Not only is "acquiesce" not a plain English word, but - according to the List of plain English words and phrases - should be replaced by "agree". In the Cambridge dictionary:
 * agree is marked as A2 level
 * acquiesce is not marked at all because it's level is even higher than the top level (C2)

You wrote:

> "Acquiesced" (...) is an accurate and concise summation of the sources.

Do you have any source for it? If not, then my version is as valid as yours.

> We have an educational mission, and that trumps any concerns about "readability".

First of all, we are not Wikiversity, but even if we had an educational mission, then readability would still have sense because explaining anything using complex or rare vocabulary does not help education. Just the opposite - the reader may get discouraged. If you want to convey your readers some information, do it as simple as possible. But if you want to make them more intelligent by teaching them complex vocabulary, then you have a big problem. Intelligent people aren't intelligent because they have large vocabularies, they have large vocabularies because they are intelligent. Vikom (talk) 01:18, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Please don't drag Trump into everything. EEng 00:08, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
 * From last weeks' paper: Acquiescence to Trump is now Republicans' defining trait  Hawkeye7   (discuss)  06:24, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
 * From "Himmler Papers Shed Light on Personal Life of a Nazi" (NYT, Jan. 26, 2014): "In 1929 he wrote of his loyalty to Hitler, telling his wife, 'Believe me, if Hitler tells me to shoot my mother — I’ll do that.
 * Followup ("Headlines Today and Yesterday" Department): "Melania Trump makes second visit to border immigration centers" vs. "Himmler's letters revealed: 'I'm going to Auschwitz. Kisses'&#8202;". (Historical note: Himmler's wife's name was MAGA.)
 * EEng 11:09, 11 March 2019 (UTC)


 * 'Agree' is a better word than 'acquiesce'. It is more common, simpler, and more easily understood. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:26, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I always thought that for people with a limited English vocabulary there is Wikipedia in simple English. If someone does not know the meaning of a word there is google, or a good old vocabulary, and in a couple of seconds he learns the meaning of an unknown word. I am an Italian native speaker, so my English vocabulary is much narrower than that of a native speaker, but I never felt myself discouraged because on English Wikipedia someone used a strange (for me) word: on the contrary, I felt myself enriched, since I learned something new. Maybe this happens because I am intelligent? ;-) Who knows...All jokes aside, I think that "acquiesce" here is perfectly adequate, also because the word "reluctant" appears already in the beginning of the sentence, and word repetitions in the same sentence are bad style, in English as in Italian. Alex2006 (talk) 08:17, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I will enrich you: ;-)
 * "myself" in "I felt myself enriched" is completely unnecessary.
 * "smaller vocabulary" is much more common than "narrower vocabulary"
 * Vikom (talk) 15:04, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
 * What a great attitude about learning something new, Alex. That aside, "agreed" is not a synonym for "acquiesced" and, as Alex also points out, we've already used "reluctant" in the sentence. "Acquiesce" is the right word here and should stay. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 08:59, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree that "acquiesced" is better than "reluctantly agreed" in the context. (My mother tongue is not English either.) Roger Hui (talk) 16:24, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
 * It's like saying "I prefer apples to oranges". Please, tell us why, like HEADBOMB did. To paraphrase Alex2006: Do you feel enriched with more sophisticated vocabulary? By the way, guess what Hawkeye7 found in the sources. Vikom (talk) 01:57, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
 * It's always good to hear other points of view. I've rechecked the sources, and "reluctantly agreed" is supported by Segré; but I almost certainly passed over it for the reasons of style as Alex has stated. Laura Capon says "yielded". (Although a native speaker, I too frequently look up unfamiliar words when I come across them.)  Hawkeye7   (discuss)  20:11, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Wow, good job. I'm very impressed. Thanks.Vikom (talk) 01:57, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, I checked Segre via GoogleBooks before my post above to confirm it was indeed the right term -- "reluctantly agreed" would work meaning-wise but as we all know now, is repetitive; I guess I could yield to "yielded" if the consensus is that it's easier to understand than "acquiesced" but still prefer the latter... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:04, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
 * So my intuition is not bad;-) Thanks.Vikom (talk) 01:57, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Readability really matters, and that's why commonly used words are better, at least here, in Wikipedia. But if you have a blog, then feel free to use even the most fancy and sophisticated words. Maybe you just want to sound smart and don't care how many readers you have. If you write: "He was too astute to acquiesce to the proffer", it may seem smart to many people, but how many, even native English speakers, will understand you? You have every right to do so, but not here. Here you should write something like "He was too smart to accept the proposal". Is it bad English? Information in every language is coded by means of codes, called words. Sometimes many different codes convey the same information. We call them synonyms. Just because you know more synonyms than other people doesn't make you a genius. Humans don't have to compete with hard disks in computers - we are better in other areas.

But even if you know all the specialized vocabulary of some field doesn't mean that you actually understand anything. Let me give you an example. I know a girl, that graduated in physics, and she knows lots of highly specialized words, including the language of quantum mechanics. She can easily impress outsiders, but not me. For example, she thinks that a heating element in a kettle may well be placed at the top, and water would be brought to a boil equally fast, by analogy to convection in... stars. Of course there is convection in stars, but does she understand how it works? She doesn't even know that hot water, being less dense, rises. In other words, she has no idea about convection, let alone quantum mechanics and stars.

To get back to the subject. I've heard the word "acquiesce" only once in the past five years, though I listen a lot. Besides, the correlation between spelling and pronunciation is exceptionally low, even for the English language.

I see that you all have a problem with repetitive "reluctant". Here is a simple solution:

(...) his parents were reluctant to let him move away from home for four years while attending it, but in the end they agreed.

Of course they agreed reluctantly, not enthusiastically. Why? Because they were reluctant. It is as clear as day.

Another solution is to replace "reluctant" with some synonym, e.g.:

(...) his parents were not eager to let him move away from home for four years while attending it, but in the end they reluctantly agreed.

Vikom (talk) 01:12, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

only reluctantly allowed
The article reads:

(...) his parents only reluctantly allowed him to live in the school's free lodgings (...)

I understand that the word "only" was used to emphasize something. But what exactly? In this context it can suggest many different things. For example:
 * 1) The parents didn't do anything else, except they reluctantly allowed (...)
 * 2) The parents had more reasons to worry about their son
 * 3) The son had been expecting full acceptance and felt disappointed

If you have a source for any of the above items, please, cite it. Otherwise, the word "only" should be deleted.

PS. Thank you for the elimination of the word "acquiesce". If I could, I would eradicate it from the whole Wikipedia ;-) Vikom (talk) 01:30, 15 March 2019 (UTC)


 * We've already mentioned the sources are Emilio Segrè and Laura Capon, per the references in the article. Look them up. Fermi's parents' reasons are given; that having lost one son they didn't want another leaving home, and saw no reason for him to do so, given that there was a perfectly good university in Rome.  Hawkeye7   (discuss)  02:00, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
 * It means 4. The parents did it only with reluctance. EEng 03:20, 15 March 2019 (UTC)


 * So you are suggesting that they could have done it also with other emotions like love, empathy, anxiety, etc., but instead, they did it only with reluctance. I think that you are adding your own interpretation, which is unnecessary and misleading because the parents probably did feel love, empathy, and anxiety. We should give the reader facts, not interpretations of those facts, even if some interpretation may seem obvious. Vikom (talk) 16:32, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
 * That could be a bumper sticker: "Parents do it with reluctance"  Hawkeye7   (discuss)  04:40, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Also as a badge;-) Vikom (talk) 16:32, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Given the current scandal, and since this is a physics article, I'm thinking something more along the lines of "Parents [something] admittance" but without coffee the wheels aren't turning. E<b style="color: blue;">Eng</b> 09:26, 15 March 2019 (UTC)


 * You misunderstand the role of only. The full sentence is
 * Having lost one son, his parents only reluctantly allowed him to live in the school's lodgings for four years.
 * In other words, they were unable to do it without reluctance; only with reluctance could they do it. The only makes the Having lost one son the reason for the reluctance; without the only the first bit becomes, instead, the reason for the eventual allowing e.g.
 * After Fermi begged and pleaded, his parents reluctantly allowed him to live in the school's lodgings for four years.
 * <b style="color: red;">E</b><b style="color: blue;">Eng</b> 20:12, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
 * That's not correct though; Amidei did the convincing.  Hawkeye7   (discuss)  22:21, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
 * :P <b style="color: red;">E</b><b style="color: blue;">Eng</b> 05:39, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
 * At first I felt stupid because I realized that I had overestimated my language skills in English. But now I am happy because your (very clear and logical) explanation was very important to me. You helped me a lot. Thank you :-) Vikom (talk) 04:34, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Happy to be of help. It's a subtle point. <b style="color: red;">E</b><b style="color: blue;">Eng</b> 05:39, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Child prodigy
We may wish to add the material located at. The sourcing is iffy, but if it can be improved it warrants a mention and adding to the child prodigy category, as someone attempted to do. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 20:39, 1 May 2019 (UTC)


 * The List of child prodigies cites something when he was 17 years old. While passing the difficult entrance exam to Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa was exceptional, so did every other student there. Deriving and solving the partial differential equation for a vibrating rod, applying Fourier analysis, was awesome but... the same article defines a child prodigy as "a person under the age of ten who produces meaningful output in some domain to the level of an adult expert performer" and that is not the case here. I'd really like to see a source that explicitly calls him a child prodigy.  Hawkeye7   (discuss)  22:47, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

I read that "As a child, Fermi idolised his older and apparently more gifted brother, who died in his teens". So it may have been his brother who was a child prodigy... [Source: https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/01/enrico-fermi-nuclear-physicist-and-childish-practical-joker/] Brienanni (talk) 06:13, 2 May 2019 (UTC)