Best Physicist Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 6

“If you don't make mistakes, you're not working on hard enough problems. And that's a big mistake.”

“Reality is what kicks back when you kick it. This is just what physicists do with their particle accelerators. We kick reality and feel it kick back. From the intensity and duration of thousands of those kicks over many years, we have formed a coherent theory of matter and forces, called the standard model, that currently agrees with all observations.”

Feels Years Matter Reality Science Force Theory Models Standards Agree Observation Kicks Agreement Intensity Physicist Particles Back When Duration

Book:Has Science Found God?: The Latest Results in the Search for Purpose in the Universe

Source: Has Science Found God?: The Latest Results in the Search for Purpose in the Universe

“The physicist is like someone who's watching people playing chess and, after watching a few games, he may have worked out what the moves in the game are. But understanding the rules is just a trivial preliminary on the long route from being a novice to being a grand master. So even if we understand all the laws of physics, then exploring their consequences in the everyday world where complex structures can exist is a far more daunting task, and that's an inexhaustible one I'm sure.”

“This is a huge step toward unraveling Genesis Chapter 1, Verse 1-what happened in the beginning. This is a Genesis machine. It'll help to recreate the most glorious event in the history of the universe.”

Helping Science Universe Steps History Happened Events Huge Machines Glorious Chapters Verses Physicist Beginning Genesis Recreation Unraveling

Author:Michio Kaku

“Nothing in physics seems so hopeful to as the idea that it is possible for a theory to have a high degree of symmetry was hidden from us in everyday life. The physicist's task is to find this deeper symmetry.”

Ideas Seems Science Theory Degrees Tasks Everyday Deeper Physics Hopeful Everyday Life Physicist Symmetry

Author:Steven Weinberg

“There is now a feeling that the pieces of physics are falling into place, not because of any single revolutionary idea or because of the efforts of any one physicist, but because of a flowering of many seeds of theory, most of them planted long ago.”

Long Ideas Feelings Science Fall Effort Pieces Theory Seeds Physics Revolutionary Long Ago Physicist Flowering Revolutionary Ideas

Author:Steven Weinberg

“A good deal of my research in physics has consisted in not setting out to solve some particular problem, but simply examining mathematical equations of a kind that physicists use and trying to fit them together in an interesting way, regardless of any application that the work may have. It is simply a search for pretty mathematics. It may turn out later to have an application. Then one has good luck. At age 78.”

“A physicist visits a colleague and notices a horseshoe hanging on the wall above the entrance. 'Do you really believe that a horseshoe brings luck?' he asks. 'No,' replies the colleague, 'but I've been told that it works even if you don't believe in it.'”

Ifs Believe Asks Belief Wall Luck Don't Believe Colleagues Physicist Entrances Hanging On Horseshoes

Author:Niels Bohr

“When chemists have brought their knowledge out of their special laboratories into the laboratory of the world, where chemical combinations are and have been through all time going on in such vast proportions,-when physicists study the laws of moisture, of clouds and storms, in past periods as well as in the present,-when, in short, geologists and zoologists are chemists and physicists, and vice versa,-then we shall learn more of the changes the world has undergone than is possible now that they are separately studied.”

“Man is slightly nearer to the atom than to the star. ... From his central position man can survey the grandest works of Nature with the astronomer, or the minutest works with the physicist. ... [K]nowledge of the stars leads through the atom; and important knowledge of the atom has been reached through the stars.”

Men Has Beens Important Science Stars Nature Position Astronomy Atoms Physicist Surveys Astronomers

Author:Arthur Eddington

“The chemists work with inaccurate and poor measuring services, but they employ very good materials. The physicists, on the other hand, use excellent methods and accurate instruments, but they apply these to very inferior materials. The physical chemists combine both these characteristics in that they apply imprecise methods to impure materials.”

Use Hands Science Poor Materials Method Instruments Excellence Very Good Excellent Characteristics Accurate Inferiors Physicist Measurement Measuring Chemist

Author:Wolfgang Ostwald

“I have been asked whether I would agree that the tragedy of the scientist is that he is able to bring about great advances in our knowledge, which mankind may then proceed to use for purposes of destruction. My answer is that this is not the tragedy of the scientist; it is the tragedy of mankind.”

May Has Beens Use Able Science Purpose Answers Knowledge Progress Mankind Destruction Scientist Tragedy Agree Physicist Advancement Inventor

Author:Leo Szilard

“Nature's economy shall be the base for our own, for it is immutable, but ours is secondary. An economist without knowledge of nature is therefore like a physicist without knowledge of mathematics.”

Science Knowledge Economy Mathematics Economist Physicist

Author:Carl Linnaeus

“Science itself is badly in need of integration and unification. The tendency is more and more the other way ... Only the graduate student, poor beast of burden that he is, can be expected to know a little of each. As the number of physicists increases, each specialty becomes more self-sustaining and self-contained. Such Balkanization carries physics, and indeed, every science further away, from natural philosophy, which, intellectually, is the meaning and goal of science.”

“Physicists only talk to physicists, economists to economists-worse still, nuclear physicists only talk to nuclear physicists and econometricians to econometricians. One wonders sometimes if science will not grind to a stop in an assemblage of walled-in hermits, each mumbling to himself words in a private language that only he can understand.”

Ifs Stills Sometimes Science Language Understanding Wonder Accounts Nuclear Economist Physicist Grind Hermits Assemblage

Book:Illustrating Economics: Beasts, Ballads and Aphorisms

Source: Illustrating Economics: Beasts, Ballads and Aphorisms

“Science makes people reach selflessly for truth and objectivity; it teaches people to accept reality, with wonder and admiration, not to mention the deep awe and joy that the natural order of things brings to the true scientist.”

People Reality Truth Science Joy Order Natural Accepting Wonder Teach Acceptance Scientist Accounts Awe Reaching Admiration Selfless Physicist Objectivity Natural Order Accepting Reality

Author:Lise Meitner

“After that cancellation [of the Superconducting Super Collider in Texas, after $2 billion had been spent on it], we physicists learned that we have to sing for our supper. ... The Cold War is over. You can't simply say "Russia!" to Congress, and they whip out their checkbook and say, "How much?" We have to tell the people why this atom-smasher is going to benefit their lives.”

People Life War Science Learning Cold Benefits Singing Congress Billions Russia Over You Texas Atoms Cold War Physicist Whips Supper Cancellation

Author:Michio Kaku

“Theoretical physicists accept the need for mathematical beauty as an act of faith... For example, the main reason why the theory of relativity is so universally accepted is its mathematical beauty.”

Needs Reason Science Accepting Example Theory Mathematics Accepted Mathematical Reason Why Physicist Theoretical Relativity Theories Of Relativity Mathematical Beauty

Author:Paul Dirac

“During the time that [Karl] Landsteiner gave me an education in the field of imununology, I discovered that he and I were thinking about the serologic problem in very different ways. He would ask, What do these experiments force us to believe about the nature of the world? I would ask, What is the most. simple and general picture of the world that we can formulate that is not ruled by these experiments? I realized that medical and biological investigators were not attacking their problems the same way that theoretical physicists do, the way I had been in the habit of doing.”

“I'm convinced that a controlled disrespect for authority is essential to a scientist. All the good experimental physicists I have known have had an intense curiosity that no Keep Out sign could mute. Physicists do, of course, show a healthy respect for High Voltage, Radiation, and Liquid Hydrogen signs. They are not reckless. I can think of only six who have been killed on the job.”

“In that memorable year, 1822: Oersted, a Danish physicist, held in his hands a piece of copper wire, joined by its extremities to the two poles of a Volta pile. On his table was a magnetized needle on its pivot, and he suddenly saw (by chance you will say, but chance only favours the mind which is prepared) the needle move and take up a position quite different from the one assigned to it by terrestrial magnetism. A wire carrying an electric current deviates a magnetized needle from its position. That, gentlemen, was the birth of the modern telegraph.”

“Sometimes the public says, 'What's in it for Numero Uno? Am I going to get better television reception? Am I going to get better Internet reception?' Well, in some sense, yeah. ... All the wonders of quantum physics were learned basically from looking at atom-smasher technology. ... But let me let you in on a secret: We physicists are not driven to do this because of better color television. ... That's a spin-off. We do this because we want to understand our role and our place in the universe.”

“If you want to be a physicist, you must do three things-first, study mathematics, second, study more mathematics, and third, do the same.”

Ifs Want Firsts Science Three Study Thirds Mathematics Physicist Three Things

Author:Arnold Sommerfeld

“Only mathematics and mathematical logic can say as little as the physicist means to say.”

Mean Littles Science Logic Mathematics Mathematical Physicist Mathematical Logic

Book:The basic writings of Bertrand Russell, 1903-1959

Source: The basic writings of Bertrand Russell, 1903-1959

“Most of us who become experimental physicists do so for two reasons; we love the tools of physics because to us they have intrinsic beauty, and we dream of finding new secrets of nature as important and as exciting as those uncovered by our scientific heroes. But we walk a narrow path with pitfalls on either side. If we spend all our time developing equipment, we risk the appellation of "plumber," and if we merely use the tools developed by others, we risk the censure of our peers for being parasitic.”

“Both the physicist and the mystic want to communicate their knowledge, and when they do so with words their statements are paradoxical and full of logical contradictions.”

Want Science Knowledge Communication Logic Communicate Statements Contradiction Logical Physicist Mystic Paradoxical

Author:Fritjof Capra

“It is quite true that many scientists, many physicists, maintain that the physical constants, the half dozen or so numbers that physicists have to simply assume in order to derive the rest of their understanding ... have to be assumed. You can't provide a rationale for why those numbers are there. Physicists have calculated that if any of these numbers was a little bit different, the universe as we know it wouldn't exist.”

Ifs Knows Littles Different Order Universe Bits Understanding Numbers Half Evolution Little Bit Scientist Assuming Dozen Physicist Rationale

Author:Richard Dawkins

“Some physicists solve that problem of the necessity of finely tuned physical constants ... by invoking the anthropic principle, saying, well, here we are, we exist, we have to be in the kind of universe capable of giving rise to us. That in itself is, I think, unsatisfying, and as John Lennox rightly says, some physicists solve that by the multiverse idea-the idea that our universe is just one of many universes.”

Thinking Giving Wells Kind Ideas Problem Universe Principles Evolution Capable Solve Just One Physicist Multiverse Anthropic Principle

Author:Richard Dawkins

“When you realize that the laws of nature must be incredibly finely tuned to produce the universe we see, that conspires to plant the idea that the universe did not just happen, but that there must be a purpose behind it.”

Ideas Reason Happens Law Purpose Universe Nature Realizing Behinds Produce Evolution Plant Theologian Physicist Laws Of Nature Everything Happens For A Reason Conspiring Anthropic Principle

Author:John Polkinghorne

“Science and religion...are friends, not foes, in the common quest for knowledge. Some people may find this surprising, for there's a feeling throughout our society that religious belief is outmoded, or downright impossible, in a scientific age. I don't agree. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if people in this so-called 'scientific age' knew a bit more about science than many of them actually do, they'd find it easier to share my views.”

“The Now is as it is because it cannot be otherwise. What Buddhists have always known, physicists now confirm: there are no isolated things or events. Underneath the surface appearance, all things are interconnected, are part of the totality of the cosmos that has brought about the form that this moment takes.”

Moments Form Known Events All Things Appearance Surface Buddhist Cosmos Free Will Isolated Physicist Totality Interconnected

Book:Stillness Speaks

Source: Stillness Speaks

“On a perfect planet such as might be acceptable to a physicist, one might predict that from its origin the diversity of life would grow exponentially until the carrying capacity, however defined, was reached. The fossil record on Earth, however, tells a very different story.”

Life Different Stories Might Earth Science Grows Perfect Records Planets Diversity Capacity Defined Acceptable Fossils Physicist Diversity Of Life

Author:Simon Conway Morris

“The brain is biology's greatest challenge. Perhaps in a sense it is the greatest challenge for science as a whole, beyond moon landings, the ultimate particles of the physicist and the depths of astronomical space.”

Whole Challenges Space Brain Moon Ultimate Depth Biology Physicist Particles Landing Moon Landing

Author:Steven Rose

“I am only a physicist with nothing material to show for my labours. I have never even seen the ionosphere, although I have worked on the subject for thirty years. That does show how lucky people can be. If there had been no ionosphere I would not have been standing here this morning.”

People Ifs Years Doe Has Beens Shows Science Morning Subjects Materials Lucky Standing Luck Thirty Labour Physicist Thirty Years

Author:Edward Victor Appleton

“Many applications of the coincidence method will therefore be found in the large field of nuclear physics, and we can say without exaggeration that the method is one of the essential tools of the modern nuclear physicist.”

Found Destiny Modern Fields Essentials Tools Method Nuclear Physics Application Coincidence Physicist Exaggeration Nuclear Physics

Author:Walther Bothe

“Women marry men hoping they will change. Men marry women hoping they will not.”

“If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations - then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation - well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.”

“The importance of group theory was emphasized very recently when some physicists using group theory predicted the existence of a particle that had never been observed before, and described the properties it should have. Later experiments proved that this particle really exists and has those properties.”

Should Science Existence Groups Theory Should Have Importance Property Experiments Observation Physicist Particles

Author:Irving Adler

“Some years ago John Kenneth Galbraith wrote in an essay on his efforts at writing a history of economics: 'As one approaches the present, one is filled with a sense of hopelessness; in a year and possibly even a month, there is now more economic comment in the supposedly serious literature than survives from the whole of the thousand years commonly denominated as the Middle Ages ... anyone who claims to be familiar with it all is a confessing liar.' I believe that all physicists would subscribe to the same sentiments regarding their own professional literature. I do at any rate.”

“When I took office, only high energy physicists had ever heard of what is called the Worldwide Web... Now even my cat has its own page.”

Energy Heard Internet Office Pages Cat Patriotic Physicist High Heels High Energy

Author:William J. Clinton

“For it is the same whether you take it that the Earth is in motion or the Sky. For, in both the cases, it does not affect the Astronomical Science. It is just for the Physicist to see if it is possible to refute it.”

Ifs Doe Earth Science Cases Sky Astronomy Physicist

Author:Abu Rayhan al-Biruni

“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.”

Ifs World Feels Past Science Lost Natural Knowledge Communication Luxury Historian Quotations Indispensable Physicist Advancement Natural World Impediments Historiography

Author:J. H. Hexter

“Until now, physical theories have been regarded as merely models with approximately describe the reality of nature. As the models improve, so the fit between theory and reality gets closer. Some physicists are now claiming that supergravity is the reality, that the model and the real world are in mathematically perfect accord.”

World Has Beens Real Reality Science Nature Perfect Theory Fit Models Mathematics Real World Physicist Accord

Book:Superforce

Source: Superforce

“The determination of the relationship and mutual dependence of the facts in particular cases must be the first goal of the Physicist; and for this purpose he requires that an exact measurement may be taken in an equally invariable manner anywhere in the world... Also, the history of electricity yields a well-known truth-that the physicist shirking measurement only plays, different from children only in the nature of his game and the construction of his toys.”

“A mathematician may say anything he pleases, but a physicist must be at least partially sane.”

May Truth Science Please Sane Mathematician Say Anything Physicist

Author:J. Willard Gibbs

“Over the last century, physicists have used light quanta electrons, alpha particles, X-rays, gamma-rays, protons, neutrons and exotic sub-nuclear particles for this purpose. Much important information about the target atoms or nuclei or their assemblage has been obtained in this way. In witness of this importance one can point to the unusual concentration of scattering enthusiasts among earlier Nobel Laureate physicists. One could say that physicists just love to perform or interpret scattering experiments.”

“The investigation of causal relations between economic phenomena presents many problems of peculiar difficulty, and offers many opportunities for fallacious conclusions. Since the statistician can seldom or never make experiments for himself, he has to accept the data of daily experience, and discuss as best he can the relations of a whole group of changes; he cannot, like the physicist, narrow down the issue to the effect of one variation at a time. The problems of statistics are in this sense far more complex than the problems of physics.”

“The physicist can never subject an isolated hypothesis to experimental test, but only a whole group of hypotheses.”

Whole Science Groups Subjects Tests Experiments Isolated Hypothesis Physicist

Author:Pierre Duhem

“It is evident that an acquaintance with natural laws means no less than an acquaintance with the mind of God therein expressed.”

Mind Mean God Law Nature Natural Atheism Evident Physicist Acquaintance Natural Law

Author:James Prescott Joule

“At least this is the way I see it. I am a physicist. I also consider myself a Christian. As I try to understand the nature of our universe in these two modes of thinking, I see many commonalities and crossovers between science and religion. It seems logical that in the long run the two will even converge.”

Thinking Way Trying Long Two Seems Running Christian Universe Atheism Logical Long Runs Science And Religion Physicist Commonality Crossover

Author:Charles Hard Townes

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Physicist Quotes