Werner Heisenberg - Understanding Quotes

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The physicist may be satisfied when he has the mathematical scheme and knows how to use for the interpretation of the experiments. But he has to speak about his results also to non-physicists who will not be satisfied unless some explanation is given in plain language. Even for the physicist the description in plain language will be the criterion of the degree of understanding that has been reached.

Werner Heisenberg
Whenever we proceed from the known into the unknown we may hope to understand, but we may have to learn at the same time a new meaning of the word "understanding."

Werner Heisenberg
However the development proceeds in detail, the path so far traced by the quantum theory indicates that an understanding of those still unclarified features of atomic physics can only be acquired by foregoing visualization and objectification to an extent greater than that customary hitherto. We have probably no reason to regret this, because the thought of the great epistemological difficulties with which the visual atom concept of earlier physics had to contend gives us the hope that the abstracter atomic physics developing at present will one day fit more harmoniously into the great edifice of Science.

Werner Heisenberg
Take from your scientific work a serious and incorruptible method of thought, help to spread it, because no understanding is possible without it. Revere those things beyond science which really matter and about which it is so difficult to speak.

Werner Heisenberg
As facts and knowledge accumulate, the claim of the scientist to an understanding of the world in a certain sense diminishes.

Werner Heisenberg
Science progresses not only because it helps to explain newly discovered facts, but also because it teaches us over and over again what the word "understanding" may mean.

Werner Heisenberg
We try to understand the phenomena and, in doing so, we realize that all understanding begins with recognising similarities or regularities in the phenomena.

Werner Heisenberg