Physics Quotes
421 quotes
"The important thing is to not stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day.—"Old Man's Advice to Youth: 'Never Lose a Holy Curiosity.'"LIFE Magazine (2 May 1955) p. 64"
"In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded."
"Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry..."
"Photons have mass? I didn’t even know they were Catholic."
"Physics isn't the most important thing. Love is."
"It is often stated that of all the theories proposed in this century, the silliest is quantum theory. In fact, some say that the only thing that quantum theory has going for it is that it is unquestionably correct."
"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?"
"The Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose."
"Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it."
"And a new philosophy emerged called quantum physics, which suggest that the individual’s function is to inform and be informed. You really exist only when you’re in a field sharing and exchanging information. You create the realities you inhabit."
"Energy is neither created nor destroyed. It just changes shape."
"The death of God left the angels in a strange position."
"The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the starsDid wander darkling in the eternal space."
"There is a philosophy that says that if something is unobservable -- unobservable in principle -- it is not part of science. If there is no way to falsify or confirm a hypothesis, it belongs to the realm of metaphysical speculation, together with astrology and spiritualism. By that standard, most of the universe has no scientific reality -- it's just a figment of our imaginations."
"Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else."
"Energy is liberated matter, matter is energy waiting to happen."
"He needs "space"and "time,"as if this were physics and not a human relationship."
"The time has come to realise that an interpretation of the universe—even a positivist one—remains unsatisfying unless it covers the interior as well as the exterior of things; mind as well as matter. The true physics is that which will, one day, achieve the inclusion of man in his wholeness in a coherent picture of the world."
"One possibility is: God is nothing but the power of the universe to organize itself."
"If you see an antimatter version of yourself running towards you, think twice before embracing."
"Indubitably, Magick is one of the subtlest and most difficult of the sciences and arts. There is more opportunity for errors of comprehension, judgement and practice than in any other branch of physics."
"The very nature of the quantum theory ... forces us to regard the space-time coordination and the claim of causality, the union of which characterizes the classical theories, as complementary but exclusive features of the description, symbolizing the idealization of observation and description, respectively."
"All creation necessarily ends in this: Creators, powerless, fleeing from the things they have wrought."
"...quantum mechanics—the physics of our world—requires that you hold such pedestrian complaints in abeyance."
"Define the word exist, and you'll know whether God exists."
"The laws of physics is the canvas God laid down on which to paint his masterpiece"
"Order is heaven's first law."
"Mathematics is the cheapest science. Unlike physics or chemistry, it does not require any expensive equipment. All one needs for mathematics is a pencil and paper."
"It took less than an hour to make the atoms, a few hundred million years to make the stars and planets, but five billion years to make man!"
"There's no obvious reason to assume that the very same rare properties that allow for our existence would also provide the best overall setting to make discoveries about the world around us. We don't think this is merely coincidental. It cries out for another explanation, an explanation that... points to purpose and intelligent design in the cosmos."
"The people who actually make the advances in theoretical physics don't think in these categories that the philosophers and the historians of science subsequently invent for them"
"There is no problem more difficult to solve than that created by ourselves."
"The highest court is in the end one’s own conscience and conviction—that goes for you and for Einstein and every other physicist—and before any science there is first of all belief."
"Credentials are like potential energy, the compliments of a name on paper, in documents, word of mouth, but faith is like kinetic energy, the motion and the force that which is witnessed. Hence in the end it is the faith rather than the credentials that really takes you places."
"Why is it so difficult for us to think in relative terms? Well, for the good reason that human nature loves absoluteness, and erroneously considers it as a state of higher knowledge."
"Subjectivity is strange to Science, while Relativity is an objective part of it."
"Much later, when I discussed the problem with Einstein, he remarked that the introduction of the cosmological term was the biggest blunder he ever made in his life. But this 'blunder,' rejected by Einstein, is still sometimes used by cosmologists even today, and the cosmological constant denoted by the Greek letter Λ rears its ugly head again and again and again."
"...I am not, however, militant in my atheism. The great English theoretical physicist Paul Dirac is a militant atheist. I suppose he is interested in arguing about the existence of God. I am not. It was once quipped that there is no God and Dirac is his prophet."
"It’s hard to build models of inflation that don't lead to a multiverse. It’s not impossible, so I think there’s still certainly research that needs to be done. But most models of inflation do lead to a multiverse, and evidence for inflation will be pushing us in the direction of taking [the idea of a] multiverse seriously."
"Maybe knowledge is as fundamental, or even more fundamental than [material] reality."
"The only thing that interests the physicist is finding out on what assumptions a framework of things can be constructed which will enable us to know how to use them mechanically. Physics, as I have said on another occasion, is the technique of techniques and the ars combinatoria for fabricating machines. It is a knowledge which has scarcely anything to do with comprehension."
"Both [Quine and Feyerabend] want to revise a version of positivism. Quine started with the Vienna Circle, and Feyerabend with the Copenhagen school of quantum mechanics. Both the Circle and the school have been called children of Ernst Mach; if so, the philosophies of Feyerabend and Quine must be his grandchildren."
"It is curious that the human mind could blindly accept an infinite speed but had reservations to accept a finite one, simply because it was too large!"
"When we say two bodies 'touch', what we mean (without knowing it) is that both electromagnetic fields are interacting to avoid physical interpenetration and ... that happens well before subatomic particles touch!"
"Time runs independently of us, and we cannot comprehend the flow of time. Time is a category in itself."
"The more we delve into quantum mechanics the stranger the world becomes; appreciating this strangeness of the world, whilst still operating in that which you now consider reality, will be the foundation for shifting the current trajectory of your life from ordinary to extraordinary."
Kevin Michel, Moving Through Parallel Worlds To Achieve Your Dreams
"The particles that are the very building blocks of all things, are in all possible locations until observation/measurement causes them to choose a specific position."
Kevin Michel, Moving Through Parallel Worlds To Achieve Your Dreams
"Whether we like it or not, modern ways are going to alter and in part destroy traditional customs and values."
Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science
"Love is a chemical reaction,But it cannot be fully understood or defined by science.And though a body cannot exist without a soul,It too cannot be fully understood or defined by science.Love is the most powerful form of energy,But science cannot decipher its elements.Yet the best cure for a sick soul is love,But even the most advanced physicianCannot prescribe it as medicine.INCOMPLETE SCIENCE by Suzy Kassem"
Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
"In modern physics, there is no such thing as "nothing." Even in a perfect vacuum, pairs of virtual particles are constantly being created and destroyed. The existence of these particles is no mathematical fiction. Though they cannot be directly observed, the effects they create are quite real. The assumption that they exist leads to predictions that have been confirmed by experiment to a high degree of accuracy."
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