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| Olle Häggström |
To be conservative in one’s assumptions is a much-celebrated virtue in science, but the term carries an ambiguity that deserves highlighting.
In 1939, at Columbia University in New York and just six years after he had come up with the crucial idea of a neutron-induced nuclear chain reaction, Hungarian-born phycisist Leo Szilard worked with his colleague Enrico Fermi on trying to make the chain reaction happen, to enable harvesting the energy contained in the nucleus, possibly leading to the creation of the atomic bomb. Szilard later reflected on his disagreement with Fermi over how to think about the possible outcomes of their work:
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