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Quote by Nicolaas Bloembergen

“As was the case for Nobel's own invention of dynamite, the uses that are made of increased knowledge can serve both beneficial and potentially harmful ends. Increased knowledge clearly implies increased responsibility. We reject the notion advocated in some quarters that man should stop eating from the tree of knowledge, as if that were humanly possible.”

Quote by Nicolaas Bloembergen

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Nicolaas Bloembergen
Nicolaas Bloembergen

Nicolaas Bloembergen is a renowned physicist born on March 11, 1920 in the Netherlands. He made significant contributions to quantum optics and laser physics, and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1981 for his pioneering work in laser spectroscopy. more

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“Equations seem like treasures, spotted in the rough by some discerning individual, plucked and examined, placed in the grand storehouse of knowledge, passed on from generation to generation. This is so convenient a way to present scientific discovery, and so useful for textbooks, that it can be called the treasure-hunt picture of knowledge.”

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“If physicists could not quote in the text, they would not feel that much was lost with respect to advancement of knowledge of the natural world. If historians could not quote, they would deem it a disastrous impediment to the communication of knowledge about the past. A luxury for physicists, quotation is a necessity for historians, indispensable to historiography.”

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