Editing Fermi's interaction (section)

== History of initial rejection and later publication ==
Fermi first submitted his "tentative" theory of beta decay to the prestigious science journal ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]'', which rejected it "because it contained speculations too remote from reality to be of interest to the reader."<ref name="Close">{{cite book |title=Neutrino |last=Close |first=Frank |author-link=Frank Close |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=23 February 2012 |page=24 |isbn=978-0199695997 }}</ref><ref name="InwardBound">{{cite book|last1=Pais|first1=Abraham|title=Inward Bound|url=https://archive.org/details/inwardboundofmat00pais_0|url-access=registration|date=1986|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|isbn=0-19-851997-4|page=[https://archive.org/details/inwardboundofmat00pais_0/page/418 418]}}</ref> It has been argued that ''Nature'' later admitted the rejection to be one of the great editorial blunders in its history, but Fermi's biographer David N. Schwartz has objected that this is both unproven and unlikely.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Last Man Who Knew Everything. The Life and Times of Enrico Fermi, Father of the Nuclear Age |last=Schwartz |first=David N. |publisher=Basic Books |date=2017 |isbn=978-0465093120 }} Part II, Section 8, notes 60, 61, 63. According to Schwartz, it is not proven that there was a retraction by the magazine, since the archives relating to those years were lost during a move. He argues that it is even unlikely that Fermi seriously requested publication from the journal, since at that time ''Nature'' only published short notes on such articles, and was not suitable for the publication of even a new physical theory. More suitable, if anything, would have been the ''[[Proceedings of the Royal Society]]''.</ref> Fermi then submitted revised versions of the paper to [[italian language|Italian]] and [[german language|German]] publications, which accepted and published them in those languages in 1933 and 1934.<ref>
{{cite journal
 |last=Fermi |first=E.
 |year=1933
 |title=Tentativo di una teoria dei raggi β
 |journal=[[La Ricerca Scientifica]]
 |volume=2 |issue=12 
 |language=it
}}</ref><ref>
{{cite journal
 |last=Fermi |first=E.
 |year=1934
 |title=Tentativo di una teoria dei raggi β
 |journal=[[Il Nuovo Cimento]]
 |volume=11 |issue=1 |pages=1–19
 |bibcode=1934NCim...11....1F
 |doi=10.1007/BF02959820
 |s2cid=123342095
 |language=it
}}</ref><ref>
{{cite journal
 |last=Fermi |first=E.
 |year=1934
 |title=Versuch einer Theorie der beta-Strahlen. I
|journal=[[Zeitschrift für Physik]]
 |volume=88 |issue=3–4
 |pages=161
 |bibcode= 1934ZPhy...88..161F
 |doi= 10.1007/BF01351864
 |s2cid=125763380
 |language=de
}}</ref><ref name="Wilson">
{{cite journal
 |last=Wilson |first=F. L.
 |year=1968
 |title=Fermi's Theory of Beta Decay
 |url=http://microboone-docdb.fnal.gov/cgi-bin/RetrieveFile?docid=953;filename=FermiBetaDecay1934.pdf;version=1
 |journal=[[American Journal of Physics]]
 |volume=36 |issue=12 |pages=1150–1160
 |bibcode= 1968AmJPh..36.1150W
 |doi= 10.1119/1.1974382
|url-access=subscription
 }} Includes complete English translation of Fermi's 1934 paper in German</ref> The paper did not appear at the time in a primary publication in English.<ref name="Close"/>  An English translation of the seminal paper was published in the [[American Journal of Physics]] in 1968.<ref name="Wilson"/>

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 [[neutron temperature|activation of nuclei]] with slow neutrons.