Howard AikenWhen one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.
Alexander Graham BellThe region of the mysterious is rapidly shrinking.
J.D. BernalAn independant reality in the ordinary physical sense can neither be ascribed to the phenomenon nor to the agencies of observation.
Niels BohrResearch is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing
Wernher von BraunMen occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.
Winston ChurchillI did not like the man [Niels Bohr] when you showed him to me, with his hair all overhis head...
Winston ChurchillThere are no physicists in the hottest parts of hell, because the existence of a "hottest part" implies a temperature difference, and any marginally competent physicist would immediately use this to run a heat engine and make some other part of hell comfortably cool. This is obviously impossible.
Richard DavissonIt is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.
Arthur Conan DoyleThere ain't no rules around here. We're trying to accomplish something.
Thomas EdisonWere this thinking not in the framework of scientific work, it would be considered paranoid. In scientific work, creative thinking demands seeing things not seen previously, or in ways not previously imagined; and this necessitates jumping off from 'normal' positions, and taking risks by departing from reality. The difference between the thinking of the paranoid patient and the scientist comes from the latter's ability and willingness to test out his fantasies or grandiose conceptualizations through the systems of checks and balances science has established -- and to give up those schemes that are shown not to be valid on the basis of these scientific checks. It is specifically because science provides such a framework of rules and regulations to control and set bounds to paranoid thinking that a scientist can feel comfortable about taking the paranoid leaps. Without this structuring, the threat of such unrealistic, illogical, and even bizarre thinking to overall thought and personality organization in general would be too great to permit the scientist the freedom of such fantasying.
Bernice EidusonAs far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
Albert EinsteinI want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details.
Albert EinsteinIt is the theory which decides what we can observe
Albert EinsteinThe eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.
Albert EinsteinThe secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources
Albert EinsteinNo amount of experiments can ever prove me right; a single experiment may at anytime prove me wrong.
Albert EinsteinEverything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler.
Albert EinsteinReality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
Albert EinsteinImagination is more important than knowledge.
Albert EinsteinHow can he possibly be humble? He hasn't done anything yet.
Albert EinsteinEiniger Dreck stinkt nicht - "my shit doesn't stink"
Albert Einstein... it is impossible to explain honestly the beauties of the laws of nature in away that people can feel, without their having some deep understanding of mathematics. I am sorry, but this seems to be the case.
Richard FeynmanThat is the logical tight-rope on which we have to walk if we wish to interpret nature.
Richard FeynmanThe game I play is a very interesting one. It's imagination in a straightjacket, which is this: that it has to agree with the known laws of physics. ... It requires imagination to think of what's possible, and then it requires an analysis back, checking to see whether it fits, whether its allowed, according to what's known, okay?
Richard FeynmanThe theoretical broadening which comes from having many humanities subjects on the campus is offset by the general dopiness of the people who study these things ...
Richard FeynmanI am going to tell you what nature behaves like. If you will simply admit that maybe she does behave like this, you will find her a delightful, entrancing thing. Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, 'But how can it be like that?' ...Nobody knows how it can be like that.
Richard FeynmanScience is a way to teach how something gets to be known, what is not known, to what extent things are known (for nothing is known absolutely), how to handle doubt and uncertainty, what the rules of evidence are, how to think about things so that judgments can be made, how to distinguish truth from fraud, and from show.
Richard FeynmanWhat is necessary 'for the very existence of science', and what the characteristics of nature are, are not to be determined by pompous preconditions, they are determined always by the material with which we work, by nature herself. We look, and we see what we find, and we cannot say ahead of time successfully what it is going to look like. The most reasonable possibilities often turn out not to be the situation. If science is to progress, what we need is the ability to experiment, honesty in reporting results -- the results must be reported without somebody saying what they would like the results to have been -- and finally -- an important thing -- the intelligence to interpret the results. An important point about this intelligence is that it should not be sure ahead of time what must be. ... In fact, it is necessary for the very existence of science that minds exist which do not allow that nature must satisfy some preconceived conditions.
Richard FeynmanIf, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generation of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis, that all things are made of atoms -- little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another. In that one sentence, you will see, there is an enormous amount of information about the world, if just a little imagination and thinking are applied.
Richard FeynmanFaced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.
John Kenneth GalbraithDick [Feynman]'s method is this. You write down the problem. You think very hard. Then you write down the answer.
Murry Gell-MannDo not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model.
Vincent van GoghIn science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withold provisional assent". I suppose that apples may start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.
Stephen Jay GouldThe universe is not only queerer that we suppose but queerer than we can suppose.
J.B.S. HaldaneNature allows only experimental situations to occur which can be described within the framework of the formalism of quantum mechanics
Werner HeisenbergGenius begins great works; labor alone finishes them.
Joseph JoubertMistakes are the portals of discovery.
James JoyceTruth in science can be defined as the working hypothesis best suited to open the way to the next better one
Konrad LorentzRest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmer of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.
Sir J. LubbockThe true logic of this world is in the calculus of probabilities.
James Clerk MaxwellOne of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries.
A. A. MilneA good simulation, be it a religious myth or scientific theory, gives us a sense of mastery over experience. To represent something symbolically, as we do when we speak or write, is somehow to capture it, thus making it one's own. But with this appropriation comes the realization that we have denied the immediacy of reality and that in creating a substitute we have but spun another thread in the web of our grand illusion.
Heinz R. PagelsFor quite a while I have set for myself the rule if a theoretician says 'universal' it just means pure nonsense.
Wolfgang PauliDo not become archivists of facts. Try to penetrate to the secret of their occurrence, persistently search for the laws which govern them.
Ivan PavlovThe foolish reject what they see, not what they think; the wise reject what they think, not what they see.
Huang PoYou should never bet against anything in science at odds of more than about 10-12 to 1.
Ernest RutherfordDiscovery is seeing what everybody else has seen, and thinking what nobody else has thought.
Albert Szent-GyorgiThere is a time for scientists and movie stars and those who have flown the atlantic to restrain their opinions lest they be taken more seriously than they should be.
Edward TellerThe Universe is built on a plan the profound symmetry of which is somehow present in the inner structure of our intellect.
Paul ValeryA physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms.
George WaldRational argument can be defeated by refusing to argue rationally.
Steven WeinbergIt is not always easy even for scientists to tell whether their theories are made valid because they accord with reality, or because they accord with other scientists and funding agencies.
Benjamin WoolleyHe who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.
Chinese proverbUnfalsifiable propositions are not amenable to any method at all. If there were, then religions would be able to find a way to resolve internal conflicts over differing versions of their unfalsifiables without resorting to schism, excommunication, torture, or jihad. In science, however, there are no permanent schisms, because there is a recognized final court of appeal, namely the universe itself.
Anon.Nature abhors second order differential equations
Anon.
Document last updated on 11/24/94.