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:
“The history of any nation follows an undulatory course. In the trough of the wave we find more or less complete anarchy; but the crest is not more or less complete Utopia, but only, at best, a tolerably humane, partially free and fairly just society that invariably carries within itself the seeds of its own decadence.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“America is the only nation in history which, miraculously, has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization.”
—Attributed to Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929)
“Capital is a result of labor, and is used by labor to assist it in further production. Labor is the active and initial force, and labor is therefore the employer of capital.”
—Henry George (1839–1897)
“All rejection and negation indicates a deficiency in fertility: fundamentally, if only we were good plowland we would allow nothing to go unused, and in every thing, event, and person we would welcome manure, rain, or sunshine.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Of all human events, perhaps, the publication of a first volume of verses is the most insignificant; but though a matter of no moment to the world, it is still of some concern to the author.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)