Best Physics Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 26

“God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically.”

“A sound Physics of the Earth should include all the primary considerations of the earth's atmosphere, of the characteristics and continual changes of the earth's external crust, and finally of the origin and development of living organisms. These considerations naturally divide the physics of the earth into three essential parts, the first being a theory of the atmosphere, or Meteorology, the second, a theory of the earth's external crust, or Hydrogeology, and the third, a theory of living organisms, or Biology.”

“Considered as a mere question of physics, (and keeping all moral considerations entirely out of sight,) the appearance of man is a geological phenomenon of vast importance, indirectly modifying the whole surface of the earth, breaking in upon any supposition of zoological continuity, and utterly unaccounted for by what we have any right to call the laws of nature.”

Source: A Discourse on the Studies of the University of Cambridge

“I have tried to read philosophers of all ages and have found many illuminating ideas but no steady progress toward deeper knowledge and understanding. Science, however, gives me the feeling of steady progress: I am convinced that theoretical physics is actual philosophy. It has revolutionized fundamental concepts, e.g., about space and time (relativity), about causality (quantum theory), and about substance and matter (atomistics), and it has taught us new methods of thinking (complementarity) which are applicable far beyond physics.”

“In physics we deal with states of affairs much simpler than those of psychology and yet we again and again learn that our task is not to investigate the essence of things-we do not at all know what this would mean&mash;but to develop those concepts that allow us to speak with each other about the events of nature in a fruitful manner.”

Knows Mean States Science Speak Deals Knowledge Psychology Events Concepts Tasks Essence Affair Simplicity Physics Again And Again

Author:Niels Bohr

“Modern physics has changed nothing in the great classical disciplines of, for instance, mechanics, optics, and heat. Only the conception of hitherto unexplored regions, formed prematurely from a knowledge of only certain parts of the world, has undergone a decisive transformation. This conception, however, is always decisive for the future course of research.”

Source: Philosophical problems of quantum physics

“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.”

“Unless the structure of the nucleus has a surprise in store for us, the conclusion seems plain — there is nothing in the whole system of laws of physics that cannot be deduced unambiguously from epistemological considerations.”

“It is of great advantage to the student of any subject to read the original memoirs on that subject, for science is always most completely assimilated when it is in the nascent state.”

States Science Subjects Students Advantage Accounts Originals Physics Memoir

Book:A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism

Source: A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism

“It is unreasonable to expect science to produce a system of ethics-ethics are a kind of highway code for traffic among mankind-and the fact that in physics atoms which were yesterday assumed to be square are now assumed to be round is exploited with unjustified tendentiousness by all who are hungry for faith; so long as physics extends our dominion over nature, these changes ought to be a matter of complete indifference to you.”

Source: Psycho-analysis and Faith: The Letters of Sigmund Freud & Oskar Pfister

“Science has been seriously retarded by the study of what is not worth knowing and of what is not knowable.”

Has Beens Science Knowing Study Accounts Physics Retarded

Author:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Science is the attempt to make the chaotic diversity of our sense-experience correspond to a logically uniform system of thought.”

Science Diversity Accounts Physics Uniforms Chaotic Enquiry

Book:Out of My Later Years: The Scientist, Philosopher, and Man Portrayed Through His Own Words

Source: Out of My Later Years: The Scientist, Philosopher, and Man Portrayed Through His Own Words

“The fact that Science walks forward on two feet, namely theory and experiment, is nowhere better illustrated than in the two fields for slight contributions to which you have done me the great honour of awarding the the Nobel Prize in Physics for the year 1923. Sometimes it is one foot that is put forward first, sometimes the other, but continuous progress is only made by the use of both-by theorizing and then testing, or by finding new relations in the process of experimenting and then bringing the theoretical foot up and pushing it on beyond, and so on in unending alterations.”

“From all we have learnt about the structure of living matter, we must be prepared to find it working in a manner that cannot be reduced to the ordinary laws of physics. And that not on the ground that there is any 'new force' or what not, directing the behaviour of the single atoms within a living organism, but because the construction is different from anything we have yet tested in the physical laboratory.”

Life Different Matter Law Science Force Behavior Ordinary Structure Prepared Physics Atoms Construction Organisms Be Prepared Tested Laboratory Laws Of Physics Living Organisms

Author:Erwin Schrodinger

“I learnt to distrust all physical concepts as the basis for a theory. Instead one should put one's trust in a mathematical scheme, even if the scheme does not appear at first sight to be connected with physics. One should concentrate on getting interesting mathematics.”

Ifs Should Firsts Doe Science Interesting Theory Concepts Sight Bases Mathematics Connected Physics Mathematical Schemes Distrust

Author:Paul Dirac

“It is going to be necessary that everything that happens in a finite volume of space and time would have to be analyzable with a finite number of logical operations. The present theory of physics is not that way, apparently. It allows space to go down into infinitesimal distances, wavelengths to get infinitely great, terms to be summed in infinite order, and so forth; and therefore, if this proposition [that physics is computer-simulatable] is right, physical law is wrong.”

Ifs Way Happens Law Science Order Term Space Numbers Theory Computer Infinite Distance Physics Operations Logical Volume Propositions Finite Time And Space Wavelength Finite Number

Author:Richard P. Feynman

“Their minds sang with the ecstatic knowledge that either what they were doing was completely and utterly and totally impossible or that physics had a lot of catching up to do.”

Mind Science Impossible Theory Physics Catching Ecstatic Catching Up

Book:The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Source: The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“What I remember most clearly was that when I put down a suggestion that seemed to me cogent and reasonable, Einstein did not in the least contest this, but he only said, 'Oh, how ugly.' As soon as an equation seemed to him to be ugly, he really rather lost interest in it and could not understand why somebody else was willing to spend much time on it. He was quite convinced that beauty was a guiding principle in the search for important results in theoretical physics.”

“Good applied science in medicine, as in physics, requires a high degree of certainty about the basic facts at hand, and especially about their meaning, and we have not yet reached this point for most of medicine.”

Facts Hands Science Degrees Medicine Physics Certainty Applied Science

Author:Lewis Thomas

“It is the facts that matter, not the proofs. Physics can progress without the proofs, but we can't go on without the facts ... if the facts are right, then the proofs are a matter of playing around with the algebra correctly.”

Ifs Matter Facts Science Progress Goes On Proof Physics Algebra Playing Around

Author:Richard P. Feynman

“As modern physics started with the Newtonian revolution, so modern philosophy starts with what one might call the Cartesian Catastrophe. The catastrophe consisted in the splitting up of the world into the realms of matter and mind, and the identification of 'mind' with conscious thinking. The result of this identification was the shallow rationalism of l' esprit Cartesien, and an impoverishment of psychology which it took three centuries to remedy even in part.”

Source: The Act of Creation

“If physics leads us today to a world view which is essentially mystical, it returns, in a way, to its beginning, 2,500 years ago... This time, however, it is not only based on intuition, but also on experiments of great precision and sophistication, and on a rigorous and consistent mathematical formalism.”

Ifs World Way Years Today Science Views Return Years Ago Mathematics Intuition Physics Experiments Mathematical Consistent Mystical Precision Sophistication World View

Author:Fritjof Capra

“Someday someone will write a pathology of experimental physics and bring to light all those swindles which subvert our reason, beguile our judgement and, what is worse, stand in the way of any practical progress. The phenomena must be freed once and for all from their grim torture chamber of empiricism, mechanism, and dogmatism; they must be brought before the jury of man's common sense.”

“The prediction of nuclear winter is drawn not, of course, from any direct experience with the consequences of global nuclear war, but rather from an investigation of the governing physics.”

War Science Courses Consequence Direct Experience Winter Nuclear Physics Experiments Investigation Predictions Governing Nuclear War Nuclear Winter

Author:Carl Sagan

“I think that the discovery of antimatter was perhaps the biggest jump of all the big jumps in physics in our century.”

Thinking Bigs Science Century Discovery Physics Antimatter

Book:Gesammelte Werke

Source: Gesammelte Werke

“In the history of physics, there have been three great revolutions in thought that first seemed absurd yet proved to be true. The first proposed that the earth, instead of being stationary, was moving around at a great and variable speed in a universe that is much bigger than it appears to our immediate perception. That proposal, I believe, was first made by Aristarchos two millenia ago ... Remarkably enough, the name Aristarchos in Greek means best beginning.”

“Just by studying mathematics we can hope to make a guess at the kind of mathematics that will come into the physics of the future... If someone can hit on the right lines along which to make this development, it may lead to a future advance in which people will first discover the equations and then, after examining them, gradually learn how to apply them... My own belief is that this is a more likely line of progress than trying to guess at physical pictures.”

People Ifs Trying Firsts Kind May Science Belief Lines My Own Study Progress Development Discovery Mathematics Physics Equations Examining Studying Mathematics

Author:Paul Dirac

“Let us keep the discoveries and indisputable measurements of physics. But ... A more complete study of the movements of the world will oblige us, little by little, to turn it upside down; in other words, to discover that if things hold and hold together, it is only by reason of complexity, from above.”

Ifs World Littles Reason Together Science Turns Study Movement Discovery Physics Complexity Measurement Upside Down

Book:The Phenomenon of Man

Source: The Phenomenon of Man

“There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement.”

Science Discovery Remains Physics Precise Measurement Nothing New New Discoveries All That Remains Discovery In Science

Author:Lord Kelvin

“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.”

“When asked ... [about] an underlying quantum world, Bohr would answer, 'There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract quantum physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about Nature.'”

Thinking World Science Nature Natural Answers Concern Tasks Physics Abstract Description Quantum Quantum Physics Quantum Theory

Author:Niels Bohr

“We may as well cut out group theory. That is a subject that will never be of any use in physics.”

Wells May Use Science Cutting Groups Subjects Theory Mathematics Physics

Author:James Jeans

“It was basic research in the photoelectric field-in the photoelectric effect that would one day lead to solar panels. It was basic research in physics that would eventually produce the CAT scan. The calculations of today's GPS satellites are based on the equations that Einstein put to paper more than a century ago.”

Today Science Effects Century Fields Produce One Day Paper Research Cat Physics Equations Calculations Satellites Gps Solar Panels Basic Research

Author:Barack Obama

“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.”

“Tapestries are made by many artisans working together. The contributions of separate workers cannot be discerned in the completed work, and the loose and false threads have been covered over. So it is in our picture of particle physics.”

Has Beens Made Together Science Research Workers Physics Contribution Working Together Covered Thread Particles Tapestry Artisans Particle Physics Completed Work

Author:Sheldon Lee Glashow

“[T]he yeoman's work in any science, and especially physics, is done by the experimentalist, who must keep the theoreticians honest.”

Done Science Honest Research Physics Yeoman

Author:Michio Kaku

“The biggest advantage to believing in God is you don't have to understand anything, no physics, no biology. I wanted to understand.”

Believe Wanted Religion Atheism Advantage Physics Biology Believe In God

Author:James D. Watson

“One does not have to appeal to God to set the initial conditions for the creation of the universe, but if one does He would have to act through the laws of physics.”

Ifs Doe Law Religion Universe Atheism Conditions Creation Physics Appeals Initials Laws Of Physics Creation Of The Universe

Author:Stephen Hawking

“Physics filled me with awe, put me in touch with a sense of original causes. Physics brought me closer to God. That feeling stayed with me throughout my years in science. Whenever one of my students came to me with a scientific project, I asked only one question, 'Will it bring you nearer to God?'”

Years Feelings Causes Atheism Students Projects Originals Filled Physics Awe

Author:Isidor Isaac Rabi

“Nothing is done. Everything in the world remains to be done or done over. The greatest picture is not yet painted, the greatest play isn't written, the greatest poem is unsung. There isn't in all the world a perfect railroad, nor a good government, nor a sound law. Physics, mathematics, and especially the most advanced and exact of the sciences are being fundamentally revised. . . Psychology, economics, and sociology are awaiting a Darwin, whose work in turn is awaiting an Einstein.”

Source: The autobiography of Lincoln Steffens: abridged

“The universe and the Laws of Physics seem to have been specifically designed for us. If any one of about 40 physical qualities had more than slightly different values, life as we know it could not exist: Either atoms would not be stable, or they wouldn't combine into molecules, or the stars wouldn't form heavier elements, or the universe would collapse before life could develop, and so on...”

Ifs Knows Has Beens Different Seems Form Law Values Universe Stars Quality Evolution Elements Physics Atoms Stable Collapse Molecules Laws Of Physics Different Values

Author:Stephen Hawking

“Sci-fi has never really been my bag. But I do believe in a lot of weird things these days, such as synchronicity. Quantum physics suggests it's possible, so why not?”

Believe Physics These Days Bags Why Not Sci Fi Quantum Quantum Physics Synchronicity Weird Things

Author:John Cleese

“At the moment I'm doing this space movie, so I'm obsessed with physics and space travel. I know three months down the line it's gone. Then I'll be able to superficially say stuff about space.”

Knows Moments Able Three Stuff Lines Space Gone Months Travel Physics Obsessed Funny Travel Three Months Space Travel Space Movie

Author:Cillian Murphy

“My final remark to young women and men going into experimental science is that they should pay little attention to the speculative physics ideas of my generation. After all, if my generation has any really good speculative ideas, we will be carrying these ideas out ourselves.”

Ifs Men Should Littles Ideas Young Science Pay Attention Generations Men And Women Finals Physics Experiments Young Women Remarks My Generation Perl Experimental Science

Author:Martin Lewis Perl

“In the progressive growth of astronomy, physics or mechanical science was developed, and when this had been, to a certain degree, successfully cultivated, it gave birth to the science of chemistry.”

Science Certain Growth Birth Degrees Physics Astronomy Progressive Chemistry

Book:The Development of Chemistry, 1789-1914: Familiar letters on chemistry

Source: The Development of Chemistry, 1789-1914: Familiar letters on chemistry

“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

“Geology differs from physics, chemistry, and biology in that the possibilities for experiment are limited.”

Science Differences Possibility Physics Experiments Biology Chemistry Geology

Author:Reinout Willem van Bemmelen

“It is an old saying, abundantly justified, that where sciences meet there growth occurs. It is true moreover to say that in scientific borderlands not only are facts gathered that [are] often new in kind, but it is in these regions that wholly new concepts arise. It is my own faith that just as the older biology from its faithful studies of external forms provided a new concept in the doctrine of evolution, so the new biology is yet fated to furnish entirely new fundamental concepts of science, at which physics and chemistry when concerned with the non-living alone could never arrive.”

“Realizing how often ingenious speculation in the complex biological world has led nowhere and how often the real advances in biology as well as in chemistry, physics and astronomy have kept within the bounds of mechanistic interpretation, we geneticists should rejoice, even with our noses on the grindstone (which means both eyes on the objectives), that we have at command an additional means of testing whatever original ideas pop into our heads.”

“Observations not only disturb what is to be measured, they produce it.”

Produce Physics Observation Quantum Physics

Author:Pascual Jordan

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