In the following question, two statements and five

Solution

Statement I talks about 'Fermi's opinion about direct detection of wisps of matter'; statement II talks about 'no one other than Fermi' having the same opinion. It is also noticed that both these statements are negative. Thus, a connector is needed that can connect the subjects 'Fermi' and 'no one else' - and still result in a negative sentence.. Clearly, option (b) is the only valid choice here; its use [with a few modifications viz. 'no one' replaced with 'anyone' (as 'nor' already conveys the negative sense, so another negative word 'no one' replaced with 'anyone'); eliminating the predicate ('did not.. detected directly') in statement I) results in - 'Neither nor anyone else thought that such tiny wisps of matter could ever be detected directly.' - a perfectly meaningful sentence. Hence, option b) is correct.