Quantum Quotes

321 Sourced quotes

Relativity and... quantum... remain incomplete.... the main reason each is incomplete is the existence of the other. The mind calls for a third theory to unify all of physics, and for a simple reason. Nature is... "unified." …interconnected, in that everything interacts with everything else.

I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.

Richard Feynman

Trying to capture the physicists' precise mathematical description of the quantum world with our crude words and mental images is like playing Chopin with a boxing glove on one hand and a catcher's mitt on the other.

George Johnson (writer)

While most people... were seeking to modify the principles of either relativity or quantum theory, we surprised ourselves (and many other people) by succeeding in putting them together without modifying their principles.

We are trying to understand the implications of quantum mechanics. The subject is very old, but we are still learning.

Indeterminism does not confer freedom on us: I would feel that my freedom was impaired if I thought that a quantum mechanical trigger in my brain might cause me to leap into the garden and eat a slug

It seems to me that we must make a distinction between what is "objective" and what is "measurable" in discussing the question of physical reality, according to quantum mechanics. The state-vector of a system is, indeed, not measurable, in the sense that one cannot ascertain, by experiments performed on the system, precisely (up to proportionality) what the state is; but the state-vector does seem to be (again up to proportionality) a completely objective property of the system, being completely characterized by the results it must give to experiments that one might perform.

I said, "... it is quantum fiction." The first line of the story is "Which came first, the observer or the particle?" - and it goes from there.

Quantum physics is no longer an abstract theory for specialists. We must now absolutely include it in our education and also in our culture.

Claude Cohen-Tannoudji

To the many reporters who had turned up at her lecture at Strathclyde University soon after her husband was jailed for perjury:

Good morning, and a special welcome to those of you who are new to the field of quantum solar energy conversion.

In contrast to the arbitrarily complicated evolution of a (nonintegrable) classical system, all a quantum state ever does is move in circles.

Sean M. Carroll

He knew nothing accurately about any subject in the world, but he could clothe his ignorance in pontifical garments and give his confusion the accents of authority. He had a remarkable flair for discerning and elaborating the tiny quantum of popular knowledge on any matter.

Quantum mechanics—the physics of our world—requires that you hold such pedestrian complaints in abeyance.

In spite of the impressive success of quantum mechanics in describing atomic physics, it was immediately clear after its formulation that its relativistic extension was not free of difficulties.

Luis Álvarez-Gaumé

Rutherford did not pretend to understand quantum mechanics, but he understood that the Gamow formula would give his accelerator a crucial advantage. Even particles accelerated at much lower energies... would be able to penetrate into nuclei. Rutherford invited Gamow to Cambridge in January 1929... [They] became firm friends and Gamow's insight gave Rutherford the impetus to go full steam ahead with the building of his accelerator.

On further reflection, I now think that in arguing his case Bell exaggerated, oversimplified the historical development of both classical electrodynamics and quantum mechanics, and as a result arrived at a definition of "understanding" that may be too rigid in that it reflects a presumption - a prejudice, if you will - as to what constitutes physical reality.

In quantum theory, distance is inverse to energy, because you need particles of very high energy to probe very short distances. The inverse of the Planck energy is the Planck length.

Late in my senior year, I went through a crisis of doubt when my provisional girlfriend, a willowy physics major named Morgan Piziks, informed me at the end of our fourth date that anybody seriously in the question Why? should look not to philosophy but to the physical sciences—to cosmology, quantum mechanics, molecular biology, and the periodic table of the elements.
My mind went blank. Try as I might, I could contrive no riposte. I felt instinctively that Morgan's claim enjoyed the nontrivial virtue of being true.

James K. Morrow

In Newton's day the problem was to write something which was correct - he never had the problem of writing nonsense, but by the twentieth century we have a rich conceptual framework with relativity and quantum mechanics and so on. In this framework it's difficult to do things which are even internally coherent, much less correct. Actually, that's fortunate in the sense that it's one of the main tools we have in trying to make progress in physics. Physics has progressed to a domain where experiment is a little difficult... Nevertheless, the fact that we have a rich logical structure which constrains us a lot in terms of what is consistent, is one of the main reasons we are still able to make advances.

Since the 1950s, the key equation of quantum gravity has been called the Wheeler-DeWitt equation. Bryce DeWitt and John Wheeler wrote it down, but in all the time since then, no one had been able to solve it. We found we could solve it exactly, and in fact we found an infinite number of exact solutions.

The so-called mysteries of quantum mechanics are in its philosophical interpretation, not in its mathematics.

Victor J. Stenger

But how is one to make a scientist understand that there is something unalterably deranged about differential calculus, quantum theory, or the obscene and so inanely liturgical ordeals of the precession of the equinoxes.

Generally speaking, all the really great ideas of physics are really spin-offs of string theory... Some of them were discovered first, but I consider that a mere accident of the development on planet earth. On planet earth, they were discovered in this order [general relativity, quantum field theory, superstrings, and supersymmetry]... But I don't believe, if there are many civilizations in the universe, that those four ideas were discovered in that order in each civilization.

But, as we have seen, movement does not require a mover, and modern quantum mechanics has shown that not all effects require a cause. And even if they did, why would the Prime Mover need to be a supernatural anthropomorphic deity such as the Judeo - Christian God? Why could it not just as well be the material universe itself?

Victor J. Stenger

I waive the quantum o' the sin,
The hazard of concealing:
But, och! it hardens a' within,
And petrifies the feeling!