Physicist Quotes

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

Wilhelm Röntgen

I think that physics is about escaping the prison of the received thoughts and searching for novel ways of thinking the world, about trying to clear a bit the misty lake of insubstantial dreams, which reflect reality like the lake reflects the mountains.

The increase of scientific knowledge lies not only in the occasional milestones of science, but in the efforts of the very large body of men who with love and devotion observe and study nature.

The plan of salvation as stated in the Bible can be seen through observation of the universe around us.

Hugh Ross (astrophysicist)

I thank God humbly and sincerely. God, who has visited us with many trials, and led us like the Israelites of old from place to place without any certain abode, bless, we beseech Thee, our return home, and mercifully grant that the afflictions and anxieties of that long probation may bear fruit in a more self-denying and godly life ; and that we may have our hearts fixed on a yet more abiding resting-place, eternal in the heavens, for Jesus Christ's sake.'

James David Forbes

My friend devotes himself to his life, whenever he can find the spare time. His motto is: 'Don't just sit there: live!' So he's too busy to stand, to walk, to do anything, except to live. He even refused to kiss a girl, when invited, on the grounds that it was time again to be living. Schedules are sacred to him.

Marvin L. Cohen

International affairs must be completely permeated with scientific methodology and a democratic spirit, with a fearless weighing of all facts, views, and theories, with maximum publicity of ultimate and intermediate goals, and with a consistency of principles.

Andrei Sakharov

In this respect, the history of science, like the history of all civilization, has gone through cycles.

At least 60% of the warming of the Earth observed since 1970 appears to be induced by natural cycles which are present in the solar system. A climatic stabilization or cooling until 2030-2040 is forecast by the phenomenological model.

Nicola Scafetta

Astronomers are very brave and bold, and make vast assumptions based on very little data. Very clever, though. In Dennis Brian

Arthur Leonard Schawlow

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

Alexander Markovich Polyakov

Life proceeds from life, and from nothing but life.

William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin

Quantum theory is stunningly successful. Not a single one of the theory's predictions has ever been shown wrong. One-third of our economy depends on products based on it. However, the worldview demanded by quantum theory is not only stranger than we might suppose, it's stranger than we can suppose.

Bruce Rosenblum

The facts which our theories enable us to discover, subsist and are linked together long after these theories have disappeared. Out of the materials of former edifices overthrown, new dwellings are constantly being reconstructed.

Lucien Poincaré

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.

Getting up any cliff is like a physics problem — you just got to hold on, try everything, and stick with it.

There is no concept in the whole field of physics which is more difficult to understand than is the concept of entropy, nor is there one which is more fundamental.

We are going to become Gods, period. If you don't like it, get off. You don't have to contribute, you don't have to participate but if you are going to interfere with me becoming a God, you're going to have trouble. There'll be warfare.

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)

It is not easy to be sure whether the crucial idea is really one's own or has been unconsciously assimilated in talks with others.

William Lawrence Bragg

It was Einstein who had introduced almost all the revolutionary ideas underlying quantum theory, and who saw first what these ideas meant. His ultimate rejection of quantum theory was akin to Dr. Frankenstein's shunning of the monster he had originally created for the betterment of mankind. Had Einstein not done so, in all likelihood he would be seen as the father of the modern theory.

A. Douglas Stone

Great physics does not automatically imply complicated mathematics!

Martinus J. G. Veltman

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

The problem of transmitting scientific knowledge is a very difficult business.

Jack Steinberger

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.