German Physicist Quotes

The exact sciences also start from the assumption that in the end it will always be possible to understand nature, even in every new field of experience, but that we may make no a priori assumptions about the meaning of the word understand.

Werner Heisenberg

Concerning the intimate nature of heat, or of electricity, etc., I know nothing, any more than I know the intimate nature of any matter whatsoever, or of anything else.

Julius von Mayer

In Physics... as in every other science, common sense alone is not supreme; there must also be a place for Reason.

The careful experiments of Joule, who developed heat in various ways by the application of mechanical force, establish almost to a certainty, not only the possibility of increasing the quantity of heat, but also the fact that the newly-produced heat is proportional to the work expended in its production.

Rudolf Clausius

Probably in most education systems in a sense we are stuck with the disciplines as we created them last, last century and before that.

Horst Ludwig Störmer

The physicist in preparing for his work need three things, mathematics, mathematics, and mathematics.

Wilhelm Röntgen

Human beings are organisms capable of manipulating internal representations of the world by means of concrete operations and can transcend the bounds of their biologically given perceptions. They can liberate themselves and construct a view of reality that conflicts with intuition, yet gives a true, more encompassing view.

A physicist must be able to saw with a file and to file with a saw.

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.

On a double-log plot, my grandmother fits on a straight line.

Fritz Houtermans

All our suffering comes from a deficiency to stand up for our beliefs.

Doing physics is much more enjoyable than just learning it. Maybe 'doing it' is the right way of learning, at least as far as I am concerned.

Generally speaking it is better, where possible in natural science, to study objects of research independently of the accidents of their historical development.

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.

There are many examples in physics showing that higher precision revealed new phenomena, inspired new ideas, or confirmed or dethroned well-established theories.

The twofold nature of light as a light-wave and as a light-quantum is thus extended to electrons and, further, to atoms: their wave-nature is asserting itself more and more, theoretically and experimentally, as concurrent with their corpuscular nature.

Arnold Sommerfeld

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!

A simple calculation shows that from the classical theory follows that we should find a broadening of the beam with the maximum intensity on the place of the beam without field. However, from the quantum theory follows that we should find there no intensity at all, and deflected molecules on both sides. The beam should split up in two beams corresponding to the two orientations of the magnet. The experiment decided in favor of the quantum theory.