Physicist Quotes

I would like to emphasize strongly my belief that the era of computing chemists, when hundreds if not thousands of chemists will go to the computing machine instead of the laboratory for increasingly many facets of chemical information, is already at hand. There is only one obstacle, namely that someone must pay for the computing time.

Robert S. Mulliken

Ask anyone today working on foundational questions in quantum theory and you are likely to hear that there is still no consensus on many of these questions—all the while, of course, everybody seems to be in perfect agreement on how to apply the quantum formalism when it comes to making experimental predictions.

Maximilian Schlosshauer

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.

The way that the background fields generates mass is rather like the way in which when light passes through a transparent medium like glass or water, it gets slowed down. It no longer travels with the fundamental velocity of light c. And that's the way to think of the generation of mass.

There is, perhaps, no scientific inquiry more full of human interest, than the study of the nature of heat, and the manner in which matter in general is affected by it. No branch of physical science is so intimately connected with the everyday occupations of life, and, consequently, none of them interests mankind more closely.

Thomas Preston (scientist)

We should note that this latter type of shift was successfully amplified to a considerable extent by Russian physicists using the intense light of a ruby laser whose wavelength is close to that of a transition of the potassium atom.

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

Alvin M. Weinberg

From the point of view of the physicist, a theory of matter is a policy rather than a creed; its object is to connect or co-ordinate apparently diverse phenomena, and above all to suggest, stimulate and direct experiment. It ought to furnish a compass which, if followed, will lead to observer further and further into previously unexplored regions.

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

Attaching a Creator to the boundary is metaphysical skullduggery.

So long as you live and in whatever circumstances the kaleidoscope of life may place you, think for yourself and act in accordance with the conclusions of that thinking; avoid so far as possible drifting with the current of the mob or being too easily influenced by the outward manifestation of things. Take your own look beneath the surface and don't trust others to look for you. If you will follow this rule consistently, I am sure you will keep out of much trouble, will make the most out of your life and, what is more, will contribute most of value to the community life.

Frank B. Jewett

I shall lose no time in repeating and extending these experiments, being satisfied that the grand agents of nature are by the Creator's fiat indestructible, and that whatever mechanical force is expended an exact equivalent of heat is always obtained.

James Prescott Joule

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

Frank N. von Hippel

Science aims at a vigorous adult, intelligent, serpentlike wisdom, and active interference with the course of nature; religion aims at a meek, receptive, child-hearted attitude of dovelike resignation to the Divine will.

Astrophysicists have the formidable privilege of having the largest view of the Universe; particle detectors and large telescopes are today used to study distant stars, and throughout space and time, from the infinitely large to the infinitely small, the Universe never ceases to surprise us by revealing its structures little by little.

Jean-Pierre Luminet

The more I think the more bewildered I become.

Charles Galton Darwin

All our civilization is based on inventions; before invention, men lived on fruits and nuts and pine cones and slept in caves.

Reginald Fessenden

A scientist has the additional responsibility that comes with being a specialist: explaining science to the public, advising of its usefulness and benefits, and warning of its dangers and disadvantages. This is the responsibility of any specialist.

People who get Nobel prizes aren't necessarily the most imaginative of people. People who sometimes find a system, develop a system, do very useful work.

The results of my observations are best explained by the assumption that a radiation of very great penetrating power enters our atmosphere from above...

Victor Francis Hess

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

A patent is a legal analog of sticky fly paper: it attracts some of the lowest forms of life.

David L. Webster

The theory of quanta is similar to other victories in science; for some months you smile at it, and then for years you weep.

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

Peter van Nieuwenhuizen

Physicists have learned that certain questions cannot be asked, not because the level of our knowledge does not yet permit us to find the answer, but because such an answer simply isn't stored in nature.