Nick Herbert Quotes

23 Sourced Quotes

One of the best-kept secrets of science is that physicists have lost their grip on reality.

Nick Herbert
Although most physicists today place the probability of the existence of tachyons only slightly higher than the existence of unicorns, research into the properties of these hypothetical FTL [faster than light] particles has not been entirely fruitless.

Nick Herbert
The world is one substance. As satisfying as this discovery may be to philosophers, it is profoundly distressing to physicists as long as they do not understand the nature of that substance. For if quantum stuff is all there is and you don't understand quantum stuff, your ignorance is complete.

Nick Herbert
The gist of Bell's theorem is this: no local model of reality can explain the results of a particular experiment.

Nick Herbert
Quantum physics emerged from the Stone Age with an embarrassment of riches - three quantum theories, each claiming to explain the world. As it turned out, all three were right.

Nick Herbert
One of the curious features of modern physics is that in spite of its overwhelming success in explaining a vast range of of physical phenomena from quark to quasar, it fails to give us a single metaphor for how the universe really works.

Nick Herbert
Physicists, for all their odd notions, are basically a conservative lot.

Nick Herbert
Bell himself managed to devise such a proof which rejects all models of reality possessing the property of "locality". This proof has since become known as Bells theorem. It asserts that no local model of reality can underlie the quantum facts. Bell's theorem says that reality must be non-local.

Nick Herbert
Non-local influences do not diminish with distance. They are as potent at a million miles as at a millimeter.
Non-local influences act instantaneously. The speed of their transmission is not limited by the velocity of light.
A non-local interaction links up one location with another without crossing space, without decay, and without delay. A non-local interaction is, in short, unmediated, unmitigated, and immediate.

Nick Herbert
Physicists continue to debate whether Bell's theorem is airtight or not. However, the real question is not whether Bell can prove beyond doubt that reality is non-local, but whether the world is in fact no-local.

Nick Herbert
If a friend in Texas seals a silver coin in one envelope and a gold coin in another and mails the envelopes to Tokyo and London, the instant you open you envelope in Japan you know the contents of my envelope in England. But opening your letter causes no physical change in England (faster-than-light or otherwise) but merely involves a change in your knowledge concerning something happening far away and outside your control.

Nick Herbert
The pragmatist regards any theory as a mere mathematical machine for generating numbers which he then compares with experiment. A pragmatist is concerned with results, not reality. The pragmatist refuses on principle to speculate about deep reality, such a concept being meaningless from his point of view. Pragmatism is an intelectually safe but ultimately sterile philosophy.

Nick Herbert
The simplicity of Bell's proof opens it to everyone, not just physicists and mathematicians.

Nick Herbert
Although mathematics originates in the human mind, its remarkable effectiveness in explaining the world does not extend to the mind itself. Psychology has proved unusually resistant to the mathematization that works so well in physics.

Nick Herbert
Legendary King Midas never knew the feel of silk or a human hand after everything he touched turned to gold. Humans are stuck in a similar Midas-like predicament: we can't directly experience the true texture of reality because everything we touch turns to matter.

Nick Herbert
Physicists cannot explain atoms to their children, not because we are ignorant but because we know too much.

Nick Herbert
A universe that displays local phenomena but upon a non-local reality is the only sort of world consistent with known facts and Bell's proof.

Nick Herbert
Most everywhere, most of the time, the world dwells in an unmeasured state.

Nick Herbert
Though today's quantum theory shows no sign of weakness, someday it may collapse.

Nick Herbert
The entire visible universe, what Bishop Berkley called "the mighty frame of the world," rests ultimately on a strange quantum kind of being no more substantial than a promise.

Nick Herbert
Strictly speaking, there are no "measurements" in the world, only correlations.

Nick Herbert
So minuscule is the scale of quantum events compared to the actions of everyday life that it's a wonder humans ever found out about the quantum world at all.

Nick Herbert
No local reality can explain the type of world we live in.

Nick Herbert