Werner Heisenberg - Nature Quotes

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Natural science, does not simply describe and explain nature; it is part of the interplay between nature and ourselves

Werner Heisenberg
What we observe is not nature itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning. Our scientific work in physics consists in asking questions about nature in the language that we possess and trying to get an answer from experiment by the means that are at our disposal.

Werner Heisenberg
The subject matter of research is no longer nature in itself, but nature subjected to human questioning.

Werner Heisenberg
We have to remember that what we observe is not nature herself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.

Werner Heisenberg
Since the measuring device has been constructed by the observer... we have to remember that what we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning.

Werner Heisenberg
If nature leads us to mathematical forms of great simplicity and beauty—by forms I am referring to coherent systems of hypothesis, axioms, etc.—to forms that no one has previously encountered, we cannot help thinking that they are "true," that they reveal a genuine feature of nature... You must have felt this too: The almost frightening simplicity and wholeness of relationships which nature suddenly spreads out before us and for which none of us was in the least prepared.

Werner Heisenberg
I remember discussions with Bohr which went through many hours till very late at night and ended almost in despair; and when at the end of the discussion I went alone for a walk in the neighbouring park I repeated to myself again and again the question: Can nature possibly be so absurd as it seemed to us in these atomic experiments?

Werner Heisenberg
Science no longer confronts nature as an objective observer, but sees itself as an actor in this interplay between man and nature. The scientific method of analysing, explaining, and classifying has become conscious of its limitations.... Method and object can no longer be separated.

Werner Heisenberg
The assumption [is] that in the end it will always be possible to understand nature, even in every new field of experience, but that we may make no a priori assumptions about the meaning of the word "understand."

Werner Heisenberg
The mathematical formulas indeed no longer portray nature, but rather our knowledge of nature.

Werner Heisenberg
If nature leads to mathematical forms of great simplicity and beauty — to forms that no one has previously encountered — we cannot help thinking that they are true and that they revealed genuine features of Nature.

Werner Heisenberg
Almost every progress in science has been paid by a sacrifice, for almost every new intellectual achievement previous positions and conceptions had to be given up. Thus, in a way, the increase of knowledge and insight diminishes continually the scientist's claim to "understand" nature.

Werner Heisenberg
In fact, our ordinary description of nature, and the idea of exact laws, rests on the assumption that it is possible to observe the phenomena without appreciably influencing them.

Werner Heisenberg
The exact sciences also start from the assumption that in the end it will always be possible to understand nature, even in every new field of experience, but that we may make no a priori assumptions about the meaning of the word understand.

Werner Heisenberg