History of Initial Rejection and Later Publication
Fermi first submitted his "tentative" theory of beta decay to the famous science journal Nature, which rejected it for being "too speculative." Nature later admitted the rejection to be one of the great editorial blunders in its history. Fermi then submitted the paper to Italian and German publications, which accepted and published it in 1933 in those languages, but it did not appear at the time in a primary publication in English (Nature finally belatedly republished Fermi's report on beta decay in English on January 16, 1939).
Fermi found the initial rejection of the paper so troubling that he decided to take some time off from theoretical physics, and do only experimental physics. This would lead shortly to his famous work with activation of nuclei with slow neutrons.
Read more about this topic: Fermi's Interaction
Famous quotes containing the words history of, history, initial, rejection and/or publication:
“Like their personal lives, women’s history is fragmented, interrupted; a shadow history of human beings whose existence has been shaped by the efforts and the demands of others.”
—Elizabeth Janeway (b. 1913)
“There is a constant in the average American imagination and taste, for which the past must be preserved and celebrated in full-scale authentic copy; a philosophy of immortality as duplication. It dominates the relation with the self, with the past, not infrequently with the present, always with History and, even, with the European tradition.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)
“For those parents from lower-class and minority communities ... [who] have had minimal experience in negotiating dominant, external institutions or have had negative and hostile contact with social service agencies, their initial approaches to the school are often overwhelming and difficult. Not only does the school feel like an alien environment with incomprehensible norms and structures, but the families often do not feel entitled to make demands or force disagreements.”
—Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)
“In his very rejection of art Walt Whitman is an artist. He tried to produce a certain effect by certain means and he succeeded.... He stands apart, and the chief value of his work is in its prophecy, not in its performance. He has begun a prelude to larger themes. He is the herald to a new era. As a man he is the precursor of a fresh type. He is a factor in the heroic and spiritual evolution of the human being. If Poetry has passed him by, Philosophy will take note of him.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“An action is the perfection and publication of thought. A right action seems to fill the eye, and to be related to all nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)