Robert H. Gray
In 2016, Gray published an article in "Scientific American" about the Fermi paradox, which claims that if extraterrestrials existed, we would see signs of them on Earth, because they would certainly colonize the galaxy by interstellar travel. Gray argues that the Fermi paradox, named after Nobel Prize-winning physicist Enrico Fermi, does not accurately represent Fermi's views. Gray states that Fermi questioned the feasibility of interstellar travel, but did not say definitively whether or not he thought extraterrestrials exist.
Enrico Fermi
Fermi received numerous awards in recognition of his achievements, including the Matteucci Medal in 1926, the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1938, the Hughes Medal in 1942, the Franklin Medal in 1947, and the Rumford Prize in 1953. He was awarded the Medal for Merit in 1946 for his contribution to the Manhattan Project. Fermi was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1950. The Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence, known as the "Temple of Italian Glories" for its many graves of artists, scientists and prominent figures in Italian history, has a plaque commemorating Fermi. In 1999, "Time" named Fermi on its list of the top 100 persons of the twentieth century. Fermi was widely regarded as an unusual case of a 20th-century physicist who excelled both theoretically and experimentally. The historian of physics, C. P. Snow, wrote that "if Fermi had been born a few years earlier, one could well imagine him discovering Rutherford's atomic nucleus, and then developing Bohr's theory of the hydrogen atom. If this sounds like hyperbole, anything about Fermi is likely to sound like hyperbole".