Niels Bohr - Description Quotes

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In our description of nature the purpose is not to disclose the real essence of the phenomena but only to track down, so far as it is possible, relations between the manifold aspects of our experience.

Niels Bohr
The very nature of the quantum theory... forces us to regard the space-time coordination and the claim of causality, the union of which characterizes the classical theories, as complementary but exclusive features of the description, symbolizing the idealization of observation and description, respectively.

Niels Bohr
What is it that we humans depend on? We depend on our words... Our task is to communicate experience and ideas to others. We must strive continually to extend the scope of our description, but in such a way that our messages do not thereby lose their objective or unambiguous character … We are suspended in language in such a way that we cannot say what is up and what is down. The word "reality" is also a word, a word which we must learn to use correctly.

Niels Bohr
For objective description and harmonious comprehension it is necessary in almost every field of knowledge to pay attention to the circumstances under which evidence is obtained.

Niels Bohr
We must, therefore, be prepared to find that further advance into this region will require a still more extensive renunciation of features which we are accustomed to demand of the space time mode of description.

Niels Bohr