From: William Edmondson (w.h.edmondson_at_cs.bham.ac.uk)
Date: Sat Jan 08 2005 - 15:29:22 PST
Hi Paul
Stephen Webb's book has it that Fermi posed his question in 1950, and
that he was at Los Alamos that summer. The people at lunch with Fermi
were Teller, Herbert York, and Emil Konopinksi.
But maybe that information is suspect too?
Cheers
William
Dr. H. Paul Shuch wrote:
> LARRY KLAES posted:
>
>> Enrico Fermi, an atomic scientist back in the 1940s once posed a
>> question to a group of like scientists when the discussion turned to
>> extraterrestrial life. "So where is everybody?"
>
>
> Actually, that was in the early 1950s, at Los Alamos. I heard the
> story second-hand from Edward Teller, who was at that lunch.
> According to Dr. Teller, Dr. Fermi's exact words (without preamble or
> explanation) were simply, "Where are they?"
> The circumstances surrounding the Fermi Paradox are detailed in
> one of my columns: <http://www.setileague.org/askdr/hungary.htm>.
> There is, however, an historical inaccuracy in my account. I was
> informed by one of Szilard's graduate students that he was not in fact
> at Los Alamos at the time, so he could not have uttered the quote
> attributed to him by McPhee. So, the comment about Hungarians, if
> actually made, must have come from one of the several other Hungarian
> scientists who were there at the time. (Teller? Wigner? Von Neumann?
> Sadly, none of them is still here to ask.)
>
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