UNACCEPTABLE ODDS
Isidor Isaac Rabi is an American physicist who was born in Austria and has taught at Columbia University. He won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1944. Clifton Fadiman tells the story that Leo Szilard, who was anxious to enlist other physicists in determining whether fission could produce the neutrons needed for the release of atomic energy, sent Isidor Rabi to see the great Enrico Fermi at his home. Rabi went, saw Fermi, and reported to Szilard that Fermi had said, “Nuts!” Szilard was baffled so he accompanied Rabi to Fermi’s office and asked for an explanation of “Nuts!” Fermi explained that the possibility of a chain reaction (that would destroy the earth) resulting from the fission of uranium was remote. “What do you mean by ‘remote’?” asked Rabi. “Well, ten percent,” said Fermi. Leo Szilard never forgot Rabi’s quiet reply to this statement: “Ten percent is not a remote possibility if we may die of it.” Adapted from Clifton Fadiman’s The…
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