Fermi first submitted his paper on beta decay to Nature, a leading English scientific journal, which rejected it as being too speculative. Partly due to this experience, Fermi changed his focus from theoretical to experimental physics. He was the leader of the group that created the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction, which served as a precursor to the atomic bomb. (p. 101)
좌절은 누구나 겪는다. 문제는 이를 어떻게 긍정적으로 승화시키느냐이다. 페르미의 베타붕괴에 관한 논문은 "too speculative", 즉 너무 추측이 많다고 게재 거절을 당했다. 저명한 과학자에게도 이런 일이 일어난다.