Physicist Quotes

We know that nature is described by the best of all possible mathematics because God created it.

Alexander Markovich Polyakov

The phenomenon of the production of motion by heat has not been considered in a sufficiently general way... It is necessary to establish proofs applicable not only to steam engines but to all other heat-engines, irrespective of the working substance and the manner in which it acts.

Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot

It must be confessed that the new quantum mechanics is far from satisfying the requirements of the layman who seeks to clothe his conceptions in figurative language. Indeed, its originators probably hold that such symbolic representation is inherently impossible. It is earnestly to be hoped that this is not their last word on the subject, and that they may yet be successful in expressing the quantum postulate in picturesque form.

H. Stanley Allen

We are quickly approaching the end of the millennium and the 'magical' year 2000. Many futurologists in the sixties thought science and technology would offer man unprecedented possibilities for solving his problems. The fall of the Iron Curtain and the implosion of the Eastern Block also created, just a, few years ago, grand expectations. The dream did not come true, however. Rather than ending up in a technological paradise and a peace-loving world, we woke up in a torn world with virtually unsolvable environmental problems and agonising social conditions.

The universe is popping all over the place.

To get information for myself and for others direct from nature gives me so much more satisfaction than to be always learning it from others and for myself alone.

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.

I think of physics as the liberal arts of technology. You understand the fundamental aspects of physics, and then you can learn the technology and understand how it relates to current world problems. I'm teaching the elementary physics that is most useful for someone who is trying to live in a technological world, to contribute to that world, and to make correct decisions.

Richard A. Muller

In quantum mechanics, we are not dealing with an arbitrary renunciation of a more detailed analysis of atomic phenomena, but with a recognition that such an analysis is in principle excluded.

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

We are not sufficiently astonished by the fact that any science may be possible.

Louis de Broglie

We may question, do the European policymakers act morally correct when they do not take serious attempts to prevent the arctic oil drilling.

Syksy Räsänen

I had vainly been seeking a description of consciousness within science; instead, what I and others have to look for is a description of science within consciousness. We must develop a science compatible with consciousness, our primary experience.

The phenomenon of chaos could have been discovered long, long ago. It wasn't, in part because this huge body of work on the dynamics of regular motion didn't lead in that direction. But if you just look, there it is.

Science is the locomotive that drives our civilization.

Nicholas Metropolis

Since we find it difficult to make a suitable model of a certain type, Nature must find it difficult too. This argument neglects the possibility that Nature may be cleverer than we are. It even neglects the possibility that we may be cleverer tomorrow than we are today.

The modern history of instruments and the patterns of their use may lack the glamour of the history of our over arching theoretical constructs. Nonetheless, these bubbling, sparking, clanking devices remain the weft and the warp of physics.

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

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

Aage Niels Bohr

Attaching a Creator to the boundary is metaphysical skullduggery.

This heat [developed after fission stops in a reactor] is like the still thrashing tail of a dead dragon.

Frank N. von Hippel

The more I think the more bewildered I become.

Charles Galton Darwin

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

Scientific theories are not overthrown; they are expanded, refined, and generalized.

People fear their hidden selves, afraid that they will burst out.

Gregory Benford