Quotessence
Home / Topics / Physicist Quotes

Physicist Quotes

Browse 482 quotes about Physicist.

Related topics

SciencePhysicsIfsWorldMathematicsPeopleMathematicianUniverseTheoryThinkingTheoreticalMayHas BeensKnowsWayMathematicalScientistProblemQuantumRealityShouldChemistIdeasNuclearYearsLawMenBelieveLittlesSaidUnderstandingAtomsDoeFactsKnownWantMeanTryingDifferentInspirationalLooksMathMindOrderWellsChildrenEnergyExperimentsFieldsLanguageMatterParticlesQuantum PhysicsUltimateUsedAbleAsksCommonEconomistHappensImportantInterestKindLearningLifeMethodMovingNaturePastRealizingStudentsStudyTodayUseAstronomersAtheismBecomingBombsChemistryEquationsFeelsFundamentalsHumansImpossibleKnowledgeLevelsMadeMassMaterialsModernNumbersRealResultsSchoolScience PhysicsSeemsSimpleSolveSpiritualStillsmore

Physicist Quotes

“I believe that numbers and functions of Analysis are not the arbitrary result of our minds; I think that they exist outside of us, with the same character of necessity as the things of objective reality, and we meet them or discover them, and study them, as do the physicists, the chemists and the zoologists.”

ThinkingMindBelieveCharacterRealityI BelieveResultsNumbersStudyFunctionMathematicsObjectivesMathematicalAnalysisPhysicistArbitraryChemistObjective RealityZoologistMathematical Analysis
Author:Charles Hermite
Create image

“The physicist who states a law of nature with the aid of a mathematical formula is abstracting a real feature of a real material world, even if he has to speak of numbers, vectors, tensors, state-functions, or whatever to make the abstraction.”

IfsWorldRealStatesLawSpeakNumbersMaterialsFunctionAidsMathematicalFeaturesFormulasAbstractionPhysicistLaws Of NatureMaterial WorldVectors
Book:Philosophical Papers: Volume 1, Mathematics, Matter and Method
Create image

“Everything that you've learned: 'Make a lot of money, have a nice house'. But they never teach you at school how to relate, how to communicate with others, how to share values with others. ...They teach you how to make a living. You become an optometrist, he becomes a physicist, she becomes a structural engineer, he's an architect. In the future, none of that. Everybody is trained to be a generalist, so they understand different cultures, different values, how we get to be the way we are. So no-one can ever use you for war or killing anybody or hurting anybody”

WayDifferentWarUseSchoolValuesCultureHouseHurtTeachNiceShareKillingCommunicateRelateArchitectEngineersLots Of MoneyPhysicistDifferent CulturesNice HouseDifferent ValuesGeneralists
Author:Jacque Fresco
Create image

“It is a melancholy experience for a professional mathematician to find himself writing about mathematics. The function of a mathematician is to do something, to prove new theorems, to add to mathematics, and not to talk about what he or other mathematicians have done. Statesmen despise publicists, painters despise art-critics, and physiologists, physicists, or mathematicians have usually similar feelings: there is no scorn more profound, or on the whole more justifiable, than that of the men who make for the men who explain. Exposition, criticism, appreciation, is work for second-rate minds.”

MenWritingMindArtDoneWholeFeelingsHe ManProveCriticismFunctionMathematicsAddProfoundCriticsRateAppreciationPainterMelancholyDespiseMathematicianPhysicistScornStatesmenTheoremsSecond RatePublicistsArt Critic
Book:A Mathematician's Apology
Create image

“There is a philosophy that says that if something is unobservable -- unobservable in principle -- it is not part of science. If there is no way to falsify or confirm a hypothesis, it belongs to the realm of metaphysical speculation, together with astrology and spiritualism. By that standard, most of the universe has no scientific reality -- it's just a figment of our imaginations.”

IfsWayPhilosophyRealityTogetherScienceUniverseImaginationPrinciplesStandardsRealmsBelongingUnseenMetaphysicalHypothesisSpeculationPhysicistObservingAstrologySpiritualismFigments
Author:Leonard Susskind
Create image

“For almost half a century, Fermilab has occupied center stage as physicists have sought to understand the fundamental structure of the universe. The lab deserves a good history, and I'm happy to say that in this book it has one. The authors present a compelling, nuanced, and richly detailed account of the place from its beginnings to the present.”

BookUniverseHalfCenturyStageDeserveAccountsFundamentalsStructureCompellingPhysicistLabsHalf A CenturyCenter StageGood History
Author:James Trefil
Create image

“Physics is an otherworld thing, it requires a taste for things unseen, even unheard of- a high degree of abstraction... These faculties die off somehow when you grow up... profound curiosity happens when children are young. I think physicists are the Peter Pans of the human race... Once you are sophisticated, you know too much- far too much. Pauli once said to me, "I know a great deal. I know too much. I am a quantum ancient.".”

ThinkingKnowsHumansChildrenSaidHappensYoungDiesGrowsDealsRaceGrowing UpToo MuchTasteDegreesMathematicsProfoundCuriosityAncientPhysicsHuman RaceFacultyPeterQuantumSophisticatedUnseenAbstractionPhysicistUnheard
Author:Isidor Isaac Rabi
Create image

“Ordinary language is totally unsuited for expressing what physics really asserts, since the words of everyday life are not sufficiently abstract. Only mathematics and mathematical logic can say as little as the physicist means to say.”

LifeMeanLittlesLanguageOrdinaryLogicMathematicsEverydayMathPhysicsMathematicalAbstractEveryday LifePhysicistMathematical Logic
Book:The basic writings of Bertrand Russell, 1903-1959
Create image

“Many questions remain in the UFO controversy. Scientists ask how interstellar pilots could survive a trip of hundreds of years while cutting-edge physicists offer speculation of deep space wormholes and the use of zero point energy. For now, we could not do any better than to study MAJIC EYES ONLY and read the accounts of UFO crash retrievals and ponder what a reality that includes diverse intelligent life outside of our planet might mean for us and future generations.”

YearsMeanUseRealityMightEyeAsksEnergySpaceStudyCuttingGenerationsPlanetsOffersScientistAccountsIntelligentEdgesZeroPilotsDiverseCrashSpeculationPhysicistControversyOur PlanetFuture GenerationUfoPonderingCutting EdgeIntelligent LifeInterstellarDeep SpaceWormholes
Author:Jim Marrs
Create image

“We do not need to invent sustainable human communities. We can learn from societies that have lived sustainably for centuries. We can also model communities after nature's ecosystems, which are sustainable communities of plants, animals, and microorganisms. Since the outstanding characteristic of the biosphere is its inherent ability to sustain life, a sustainable human community must be designed in such a manner that its technologies and social institutions honor, support, and cooperate with nature's inherent ability to sustain life.”

LifeNeedsHumansSocialNatureCommunityAbilityAnimalTechnologySupportLearningSocietyCenturyHonorModelsInstitutionsPlantCharacteristicsSustainabilityInherentPhysicistOutstandingEcosystemsSustainingBiosphereSocial InstitutionsMicroorganisms
Author:Fritjof Capra
Create image

“Intellectual freedom is essential -- freedom to obtain and distribute information, freedom for open-minded and unfearing debate and freedom from pressure by officialdom and prejudices. Such freedom of thought is the only guarantee against an infection of people by mass myths, which, in the hands of treacherous hypocrites and demagogues, can be transformed into bloody dictatorship.”

PeopleHandsPoliticalFreedomInformationEssentialsMassIntellectualPrejudicePressureMythDebatePropagandaGuaranteesTransformedDictatorshipBloodyPhysicistHypocriteOpen MindedFreedom Of ThoughtInfectionTreacherousDissidentsDemagogueryIntellectual FreedomAccess To InformationDemagogy
Book:Progress, coexistence, and intellectual freedom
Create image

“In Paris, friend of Bequerel’s, a young physicist-chemist couple named Pierre and Marie Curie, began to scour the natural world for even more powerful chemical sources of X-rays. Pierre and Marie (then Maria Sklodowska, a penniless Polish immigrant living in a garret in Paris) had met at the Sorbonne and been drawn to each other because of a common interest in magnetism.”

WorldYoungInterestNaturalPowerfulCommonSourceCoupleMetsParisImmigrantsChemicalsRaysPhysicistNatural WorldPolishChemistMarieCommon InterestsMagnetism
Author:Siddhartha Mukherjee
Create image

“Ancient wisdom and quantum physicists make unlikely bedfellows: In quantum mechanics the observer determines (or even brings into being) what is observed, and so, too, for the Tiwis, who dissolve the distinction between themselves and the cosmos. In quantum physics, subatomic particles influence each other from a distance, and this tallies with the aboriginal view, in which people, animals, rocks, and trees all weave together in the same interwoven fabric.”

PeopleTogetherAnimalViewsTreeInfluenceRocksDistanceAncientDeterminePhysicsDistinctionCosmosQuantumFabricMechanicObserversPhysicistUnlikelyParticlesQuantum PhysicsQuantum MechanicsAboriginalAncient WisdomBedfellowsSubatomic Particles
Author:Huston Smith
Create image

“In the world of physics we watch a shadowgraph performance of the drama of familiar life. The shadow of my elbow rests on the shadow table as the shadow ink flows over the shadow paper. It is all symbolic, and as a symbol the physicist leaves it. ... The frank realisation that physical science is concerned with a world of shadows is one of the most significant of recent advances.”

WorldWatchesDramaPaperShadowConcernedFlowPerformancesTablesPhysicsSignificantFamiliarSymbolsRealizationFrankPhysicistInkSymbolicElbowsPhysical Science
Author:Arthur Eddington
Create image

“What is the origin of the urge, the fascincation that drives physicists, mathematicians, and presumably other scientists as well? Psychoanalysis suggests that it is sexual curiosity. You start by asking where little babies come from, one thing leads to another, and you find yourself preparing nitroglycerine or solving differential equations. This explanation is somewhat irritating, and therefore probably basically correct.”

WellsLittlesScienceOne ThingBabyScientistAskingCuriosityExplanationUrgesFinding YourselfMathematicianPreparingEquationsPhysicistPsychoanalysisIrritatingDifferential Equations
Book:Chance and Chaos
Create image

“A. Douglas Stone, a physicist who has spent his life using quantum mechanics to explore striking new phenomena, has turned his considerable writing skills to thinking about Einstein and the quantum. What he finds and makes broadly understandable are the riches of Einstein's thinking not about relativity, not about his arguments with Bohr, but about Einstein's deep insights into the quantum world, insights that Stone shows speak to us now with all the vividness and depth they had a century ago. This is a fascinating book, lively, engaging, and strong in physical intuition.”

ThinkingWorldWritingBookShowsSpeakStrongCenturySkillsArgumentStonesDepthInsightIntuitionRichesFascinatingQuantumEngagingMechanicPhysicistLivelyRelativityQuantum MechanicsVividnessWriting Skills
Author:Peter Galison
Create image

“Through experiments over the past few decades physicists have discovered matter to be completely mutable into other particles or energy and vice-versa and on a subatomic level, matter does not exist with certainty in definite places, but rather shows 'tendencies' to exist. Quantum physics is beginning to realise that the Universe appears to be a dynamic web of interconnected and inseparable energy patterns. If the universe is indeed composed of such a web, there is logically no such thing as a part. This implies we are not separated parts of a whole but rather we are the Whole.”

IfsDoeMatterWholeShowsPastUniverseEnergyLevelsDiscoveryExperiencePatternsVicesDecadesPhysicsExperimentsTendenciesCertaintyRealisingQuantumDefinitePhysicistParticlesVice VersaInseparableOver The PastQuantum PhysicsInterconnectedParts Of A Whole
Author:Barbara Brennan
Create image

“Does the engineer ever predict the acceleration of a given body from a knowledge of its mass and of the forces acting upon it? Of course. Does the chemist ever measure the mass of an atom by measuring its acceleration in a given field of force? Yes. Does the physicist ever determine the strength of a field by measuring the acceleration of a known mass in that field? Certainly. Why then, should any one of these roles be singled out as the role of Newton's second law of motion? The fact is that it has a variety of roles.”

ShouldDoeFactsBodyLawCoursesGivenForceActingKnownRolesFieldsMassDetermineVarietyAtomsEngineersPhysicistNewtonMeasuringChemistAccelerationLaws Of Motion
Author:Brian Ellis
Create image