FERMI

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does Fermi mean? 

• FERMI (noun)
  The noun FERMI has 2 senses:

1. a metric unit of length equal to one quadrillionth of a meter

2. Italian nuclear physicist (in the United States after 1939) who worked on artificial radioactivity caused by neutron bombardment and who headed the group that in 1942 produced the first controlled nuclear reaction (1901-1954)

  Familiarity information: FERMI used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FERMI (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A metric unit of length equal to one quadrillionth of a meter

Classified under:

Nouns denoting quantities and units of measure

Synonyms:

femtometer; femtometre; fermi

Hypernyms ("fermi" is a kind of...):

metric linear unit (a linear unit of distance in metric terms)

Holonyms ("fermi" is a part of...):

micromicron; picometer; picometre (a metric unit of length equal to one trillionth of a meter)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Italian nuclear physicist (in the United States after 1939) who worked on artificial radioactivity caused by neutron bombardment and who headed the group that in 1942 produced the first controlled nuclear reaction (1901-1954)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

Enrico Fermi; Fermi

Instance hypernyms:

nuclear physicist (a physicist who specializes in nuclear physics)

 Context examples 

The infrared/gamma-ray connection led the authors to search for new blazar candidates among WISE infrared sources located within the positional uncertainties of Fermi's unidentified gamma-ray objects.

(WISE, Fermi Missions Reveal a Surprising Blazar Connection, NASA)

NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has discovered a faint but sprawling glow of high-energy light around a nearby pulsar.

(NASA’s Fermi Mission Links Nearby Pulsar’s Gamma-ray ‘Halo’ to Antimatter Puzzle, NASA)

Data from Fermi’s Large Area Telescope revealed enhanced gamma-ray emission from a well-known active galaxy at the time the neutrino arrived.

(NASA’s Fermi Traces Source of Cosmic Neutrino to Monster Black Hole, NASA)

NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope was also watching for changes in gamma-ray light from M87 during the EHT observations.

(Black Hole Image Makes History, NASA)

LIGO tells us there was a merger of compact objects, and Fermi tells us there was a short gamma-ray burst.

(NASA Missions Catch First Light from a Gravitational-Wave Event, NASA)

NuSTAR joins NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, and the High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) in Namibia, each with its own unique strengths, to better understand the evolution of these not-so-peaceful dead stars.

(Pulse of a Dead Star Powers Intense Gamma Rays, NASA)

About 1,000 Fermi sources remain unassociated with known objects at any other wavelength.

(WISE, Fermi Missions Reveal a Surprising Blazar Connection, NASA)

For the first time ever, scientists using NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have found the source of a high-energy neutrino from outside our galaxy.

(NASA’s Fermi Traces Source of Cosmic Neutrino to Monster Black Hole, NASA)

When Swift mission turned to the galaxy shortly after Fermi’s gamma-ray burst detection, it found a bright and quickly fading ultraviolet (UV) source.

(NASA Missions Catch First Light from a Gravitational-Wave Event, NASA)

For the past decade, cosmic ray measurements by Fermi, NASA’s Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02) aboard the International Space Station, and other space experiments near Earth have seen more positrons at high energies than scientists expected.

(NASA’s Fermi Mission Links Nearby Pulsar’s Gamma-ray ‘Halo’ to Antimatter Puzzle, NASA)