At the Fermi Foundation, we believe that some of the most valuable thinking skills are hiding in plain sight—and that traditional education often overlooks the brilliant minds that possess them. Our mission is to popularize Fermi estimation as both an educational tool and a lens for discovering untapped intellectual talent, while showing the world how this powerful approach to problem-solving shapes decisions in science, business, and everyday life.
Bringing Fermi Problems to Life Through Play
Fermi Poker: Where Logic Meets Luck
We've created Fermi Poker, an innovative game that transforms the cerebral art of estimation into an thrilling social experience. Players face classic Fermi problems—"How many golf balls would fit in a school bus?" or "What's the total weight of all the cars in New York City?"—but with a twist that would have delighted Fermi himself.
Just like in traditional poker, players must decide whether to bet on their estimates, bluff about their confidence, or fold when uncertainty runs high. The game combines the sober skill of logical reasoning with poker's psychological drama, creating moments of genuine suspense around questions that seem impossible to answer. When someone confidently bets on their estimation that there are "approximately 2.3 million pizza deliveries in Chicago each year," the tension becomes palpable—are they brilliant, or are they bluffing?
Fermi Poker proves that mathematical thinking doesn't have to be solitary or sterile. It can be social, exciting, and surprisingly addictive, introducing estimation skills to audiences who might never pick up a physics textbook.
Discovering Hidden Intellectual Talents
The Annual Fermi Competition: Beyond Traditional Metrics
Our flagship Annual Mathematical Fermi Competition serves a deeper purpose than crowning estimation champions. It's part of a comprehensive talent identification system designed to recognize intellectual gifts that traditional educational assessments often miss entirely.
The competition celebrates students who possess:
- Broad World Knowledge: Kids who absorb information from documentaries, conversations, observations, and experiences far beyond their textbooks
- Interdisciplinary Thinking: Young minds that naturally connect insights from history, science, economics, and culture to solve problems
- Comfort with Ambiguity: Students who thrive when problems don't have clear-cut answers and multiple approaches might all be valid
- Intuitive Reasoning: Those who can make logical leaps and educated guesses that prove remarkably accurate
These skills—curiosity about the world, comfort with uncertainty, and the ability to synthesize knowledge across domains—are increasingly valuable in our complex, rapidly changing world. Yet they're precisely the abilities that standardized tests struggle to measure and that traditional classrooms sometimes discourage.
Our competition winners often include students who may not be top performers in conventional academic settings but who demonstrate the kind of flexible, creative thinking that drives innovation. We provide recognition, prizes, and pathways for these young thinkers to develop their unique intellectual strengths.
Empowering Educators and Demonstrating Real-World Impact
Resources for Teachers
We develop comprehensive teacher resources that make Fermi problems accessible to educators at every level. Our materials include problem sets tailored to different age groups, facilitation guides that help teachers encourage creative thinking, and assessment rubrics that recognize the process of reasoning, not just the final answer.
We believe every classroom can become a laboratory for developing estimation skills, critical thinking, and intellectual confidence. Our resources help teachers create environments where students learn that they can tackle seemingly impossible questions with the knowledge they already possess.
Real-World Case Studies
Through our case study series, we document how professionals across industries use Fermi estimation in their daily work. From venture capitalists quickly assessing market sizes to environmental scientists estimating pollution impacts, from urban planners gauging infrastructure needs to emergency responders making resource allocation decisions under pressure—Fermi thinking shapes crucial decisions in the real world.
These case studies serve multiple purposes: they show students that estimation skills have genuine career value, they provide teachers with concrete examples to make problems relevant, and they demonstrate to parents and policymakers that these seemingly abstract exercises develop practical, transferable abilities.
A Vision for the Future
We envision a world where:
- Young people understand that they often know more than they think they do, and that creative reasoning can unlock answers to seemingly impossible questions
- Educators have tools to identify and nurture different types of intelligence, especially in students whose strengths don't align with traditional academic measures
- Problem-solving becomes more collaborative, playful, and socially engaging through games like Fermi Poker
- Society recognizes and values the kinds of broad, interdisciplinary thinking that our complex challenges demand
The Fermi Foundation carries forward Enrico Fermi's greatest teaching insight: that the most powerful learning happens when we engage actively with problems, think creatively about solutions, and develop the confidence to tackle questions that initially seem beyond our reach. In a world of infinite information but finite time, the ability to estimate, reason, and think systematically has never been more important.
We're not just teaching estimation—we're cultivating a generation of clear thinkers, creative problem-solvers, and confident questioners ready to tackle the challenges of tomorrow.