20th-century Physicist Quotes

Scientific collaborations are akin to marriages, or temporary marriages. Their breakup is not unlike a divorce and rarely avoids acrimony.

The scientist or engineer—like every other human being—bears also the responsibility of being a useful member of his community...and should speak on issues which can be addressed with competence—including joining hands with other citizens when called to tasks of peace.

Lee Alvin DuBridge

The influence of science on men's lives comes in two rather different ways — one through the ideas themselves, and the other through their material consequences.

George Paget Thomson

Ideas, like large rivers, never have just one source. Just as the waters of a river near its mouth is composed largely of the waters of many tributaries, so an idea, in its final form, is composed largely of later additions.

Science is a special kind of explanation of the things we see around us. It starts with a problem and curiosity. Something strikes the scientist as odd. It doesn't fit in with the usual explanation. Maybe harder thinking or more careful observation will resolve the problem. If it remains apuzzle, it stimulates the scientist's imagination.

A certain ounce of arrogance is not essential in carrying forward an idea. In talking about the device with others, surprising now number of people who either were quite negative and had reasons to suggest it would not function as described or claimed that it would be of little interest and no better than some already existing device.

Neither physical science nor psychology can ever 'explain' human consciousness. To me then, human consciousness lies outside science, and it is here that I seek the relationship between God and man.

Nevill Francis Mott

Individual curiosity, often working without practical ends in mind, has always been a driving force for innovation.

Frederick Seitz

History, including that of evolution, is just "one damned thing after another." We can explain in hindsight what has happened, but we cannot predict what will happen in the future. The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard expressed the same view in his famous phrase "Life is understood backwards, but must be lived forwards.

I know quite clearly what I want out of my life. Life and my emotions are the only things I am conscious of. I love the consciousness of life and I want as much of it as I can get. But the span of one's life is limited. What comes after death no one knows. Nor do I care. Since, therefore, I cannot increase the content of life by increasing its duration, I will increase it by increasing its intensity. Art, music, poetry and everything else … I do have this one purpose — increasing the intensity of my consciousness of life.

Good physics can be done if we have a good shop. … Given a good shop and good measurement equipment a sound physicist can do wonderful work.

The gravitational force is the oldest force known to man and the least understood.

Peter van Nieuwenhuizen

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a completely ad hoc plot device.

Formerly an anti-Semite was somebody who hated Jews because they were Jews and had a Jewish soul. But nowadays an anti-Semite is somebody who is hated by Jews.

Concepts like these can seem remote, until you explain with analogies taken from everyday life. But unfortunately some ideas do not lend themselves to familiar analogies.

Science is the locomotive that drives our civilization.

Nicholas Metropolis

According to my attempts to understand them, reality is systematically denied in the Copenhagen interpretation in order to circumvent consistency problems (such as Is the electron really a wave or a particle?). If there is no reality, one does not need a consistent description!

If the Easter pilgrims in Piazza San Pietro were to represent the carriers in a metal, then an insulator would resemble the Antarctic with one solitary traveler. In the abundance of carriers there is an enormous gap between conductors and insulators.

The world will soon start to run out of conventionally produced, cheap oil…. We [will] start to run out of all fossil fuels by the end of this century.

David Goodstein

In electron microscopy, the difficulties took considerably more time to surmount, and therefore the doubters held the field for a longer period. I can, however, also confirm from my own experience the observation of my colleagues that the doubt of the others has the advantage of leaving the field uncrowded. Mostly, this is understood only much later, in the beginning one is very disappointed.

Astronomers are very brave and bold, and make vast assumptions based on very little data. Very clever, though. In Dennis Brian

Arthur Leonard Schawlow

We don't know where breakthroughs will come from and there is no guarantee that they will come from a popular area which is currently drawing a lot of attention. I think the natural pattern is that something new, something which no one was paying attention to before appears when there is a bottleneck. It would be a serious mistake to nip things like this in the bud.

Makoto Kobayashi

The problem of transmitting scientific knowledge is a very difficult business.

Jack Steinberger

Nature is as it is because this is the only possible nature consistent with itself.

The constant questioning of our values and achievements is a challenge without which neither science nor society can remain healthy.

Aage Niels Bohr