History Memorable quotes in the history of physics

[martinbn]

This one by David Hilbert perhaps reveals that he lived in another, maybe more simple, time:

"A mathematical theory is not to be considered complete until you have made it so clear that you can explain it to the first man whom you meet on the street."
---- David Hilbert (1862-1943)

I'd like to see him explain the Standard Model, or "just" QED or QCD to even a smart John or Jane Doe. I suspect it would end in frustration, if not outright violence.

Well, these are not mathematical theories, and he only said that you can explain it to the first person, not that this person should be able to understand it.

 

[sbrothy]

Well, these are not mathematical theories, and he only said that you can explain it to the first person, not that this person should be able to understand it.

Yeah OK. bad examples, I admit. But if "explain to X" doesn't mean "making X understand", then what does it mean? Performing a monologue?

 

[Hornbein]

Yeah, it's not impossible to have a good exchange with a religious person, but talking to some of them is like discussing reality with a psychotic. Which reminds me of this qoute:

"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and wont change the subject."
---- Winston Churchill

Not a physics one, I know, but kinda applicable anyway. Sadly I might say.

And now I'm on the non-physics ones this one is my absolute favorite:

"
-- You Sir, will either die upon the gallows or of a social disease.
-- That depends, Sir, on whether I embrace your principles or your mistress.
"

This one's been attributed to so many people I'm not sure who's the correct one. See e.g.:

Origin of above quote

The article says Samuel Foote replying to the 4th Earl of Sandwich.

These bon mots always get streamlined and if uttered by the nonfamous are then misattributed to others if more fame. I'm all right with that. One of the misattributed repliers here is John Wilkes, quite a character.

He was a member of the Knights of St Francis of Wycombe, also known as the Hellfire Club or the Medmenham Monks, and was the instigator of a prank that may have hastened its dissolution. The club had many distinguished members, including John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich and Sir Francis Dashwood. Wilkes reportedly brought a mandrill, dressed in a cape and horns and his natural features made even more striking with daubs of phosphorus, into the rituals performed at the club, producing considerable mayhem among the inebriated initiates.[7]

Wilkes was notoriously ugly, being called the ugliest man in England at the time. He possessed an unsightly squint and protruding jaw, but he had a charm that carried all before it. He boasted that it "took him only half an hour to talk away his face", though the duration required changed on the several occasions Wilkes repeated the claim. He also declared that "a month's start of his rival on account of his face" would secure him the conquest in any love affair.

My fave is "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions." It was actually "Hell is paved with good intentions," spoken by Samuel Johnson. Back in those days before telephones people socialized at dinner parties. If like Samuel one could come up with such zingers off the cuff one could eat out every night. If you were a true social lion you could visit five such gatherings in a single night.

In the early days of the telephone such communication was considered rude. The form of a polite request was to take the trouble to show up at someone's house unannounced and present your card. The butler might untruthfully inform you that Misses Higginbotham was not at home. Should you be received then you would be escorted to the parlor, a sort of decompression chamber where you cooled your heels while the host or hostess dressed for the occasion. The mansion of a well-healed socialite would include a ballroom, put to good use as often as 'twas practical.

In London the mail was delivered four or five times a day. When visiting new lands it was essential to carry letters of recommendation in order to gain entrance to higher circles. Circulating there were charming con men and characters such as Franz Mesmer, Benjamin Franklin, Friedrich Nietzsche, or young Albert Einstein. Scandalous love affairs were frowned upon but secretly approved of as delectable grist for the rumor mill. The real rule was that while unmarried women must remain chaste, after having been wedded and produced a male heir then anything was fair game. Lustful women would marry so that once having done their duty they could join in on the fun.

In in the Vienna of Austria-Hungary the maid was expected to introduce male progeny into the art of love. Nobel Prize winner Eric Kandel personally experienced this in the 1920's. Hey, I'm on topic.

More on John Wilkes may be viewed at https://science1arts2and3politics.substack.com/p/history-meet-john-wilkes

 

[sbrothy]

The article says Samuel Foote replying to the 4th Earl of Sandwich.

These bon mots always get streamlined and if uttered by the nonfamous are then misattributed to others if more fame. I'm all right with that. One of the misattributed repliers here is John Wilkes, quite a character.




My fave is "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions." It was actually "Hell is paved with good intentions," spoken by Samuel Johnson. Back in those days before telephones people socialized at dinner parties. If like Samuel one could come up with such zingers off the cuff one could eat out every night. If you were a true social lion you could visit five such gatherings in a single night.

In the early days of the telephone such communication was considered rude. The form of a polite request was to take the trouble to show up at someone's house unannounced and present your card. The butler might untruthfully inform you that Misses Higginbotham was not at home. Should you be received then you would be escorted to the parlor, a sort of decompression chamber where you cooled your heels while the host or hostess dressed for the occasion. The mansion of a well-healed socialite would include a ballroom, put to good use as often as 'twas practical.

In London the mail was delivered four or five times a day. When visiting new lands it was essential to carry letters of recommendation in order to gain entrance to higher circles. Circulating there were charming con men and characters such as Franz Mesmer, Benjamin Franklin, Friedrich Nietzsche, or young Albert Einstein. Scandalous love affairs were frowned upon but secretly approved of as delectable grist for the rumor mill. The real rule was that while unmarried women must remain chaste, after having been wedded and produced a male heir then anything was fair game. Lustful women would marry so that once having done their duty they could join in on the fun.

In in the Vienna of Austria-Hungary the maid was expected to introduce male progeny into the art of love. Nobel Prize winner Eric Kandel personally experienced this in the 1920's. Hey, I'm on topic.

More on John Wilkes may be viewed at https://science1arts2and3politics.substack.com/p/history-meet-john-wilkes

Sorry for taking this thread completely off track. I'm not going to link to Wikipedia but documentation for this should be ease to find (if not so simple to understand):

What I've come to understand is that in Japan house numbering goes by architectural technicalities, so have virtually nothing to do with geography. Imagine delivering post in Japan! The first few times must be a nightmare!

 

[Hornbein]

What I've come to understand is that in Japan house numbering goes by architectural technicalities, so have virtually nothing to do with geography. Imagine delivering post in Japan! The first few times must be a nightmare!

Japanese side streets don't have names. Instead each city is divided into sections of maybe 30 blocks. Each block has a number. There isn't any particular pattern to this number. Then there is a secondary number for the house which doesn't necessarily have a pattern either. Sometimes there will be a sign with a map that has all the block numbers and even the names of the inhabitants of each house. But how does anyone find the sign?

I can attest that the inhabitants can't deal with it either, even if the place you are looking for is only a few blocks away. Such an orderly nation with this random system....

 

[sbrothy]

Japanese side streets don't have names. Instead each city is divided into sections of maybe 30 blocks. Each block has a number. There isn't any particular pattern to this number. Then there is a secondary number for the house which doesn't necessarily have a pattern either. Sometimes there will be a sign with a map that has all the block numbers and even the names of the inhabitants of each house. But how does anyone find the sign?

I can attest that the inhabitants can't deal with it either, even if the place you are looking for is only a few blocks away. Such an orderly nation with this random system....

Yeah, it's quite a contrast to the picture one ordinarily have of Japan.

 

[Hornbein]

Yeah, it's quite a contrast to the picture one ordinarily have of Japan.

It IS an extremely orderly nation. Sometimes it's hard to believe unless you experience it personally.

 

[Hornbein]

Well, these are not mathematical theories, and he only said that you can explain it to the first person, not that this person should be able to understand it.

Yeah OK. bad examples, I admit. But if "explain to X" doesn't mean "making X understand", then what does it mean? Performing a monologue?

I guess the idea is that you have to be able to make someone understand it. It's OK to chose the ideal understander. Conversely, if you cannot explain it to the ideal understander then likely you yourself do not have a clear understanding (or are just plain old wrong).

Right now I'm using ChatGPT to write a computer program that will do hypergeometry. With AI the whole game is describing clearly what I want.

 

[sbrothy]

I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree. I don't think

"[...] the first man whom you meet on the street [...]"

sounds like choosing the ideal understander.

 

[fresh_42]

I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree. I don't think

"[...] the first man whom you meet on the street [...]"

sounds like choosing the ideal understander.

I think Hilbert was right. His quotation means, either you can describe your theory by the crucial elements that led to the results, or you haven't understood the crucial elements yourself. He certainly didn't mean to explain all technical elements of QED or QCD.

 

[sbrothy]

No, as I admitted the physical angle was a bad example and not really mathematics at all, but still:

"[...] the first man whom you meet on the street [...]"

still doesn't sound to me as you're allowed to pick a specific person to explain it to. And by explain I'm still of the opinion that it means conveying understanding.

But as I'll be the first to admit, you guys are so much smarter than me, so I'll let you have this one. Write it up to my lack of formal education. I really really don't want to get into a real discussion with you guys. I can easily see where that will be going.

 

[sbrothy]

Although it's not that I don't understand your point. I just found it a funny, if not outright preposterous claim.

 

[sbrothy]

[...] Your true role is to pretend that you believe in it. [...]

And one can only speculate as to just how many merely went through the motions out of peer-pressure / social orthodoxy.

 

[pines-demon]

I saw this three in Lancaster & Blundell, chapter on QED scattering:

An alleged scientific discovery has no merit unless it can be explained to a barmaid

–Ernest Rutherford

I myself am neither an experimentalist nor a real mathematician; my theory stops at the Schrödinger equation.What I’ve done in this subject is to look at the evidence, do calculations on the back of an envelope and say to the theoretician ‘if you apply your techniques to this problem, this is how it will come out’ and to the experimentalists just the same thing.'

– Nevill Mott

With his wife and two sons, Dr. Compton lives in Chicago in a big brick house filled with souvenirs of their world tour. He does not know the taste of hard liquor, almost never smokes, always offers a cigaret to women visitors. He plays such a bang-up game of tennis that he sometimes has a hard time finding worthy opponents. Several times a month he puts in an evening of mandolin-playing with three friends. When his graduate students have finished an examination, he likes to dine them and take them to the theatre.

– Time, about Arthur Compton

I could not confirm Rutherford's quote , but here are the sources for Mott and Compton:

• Nevil Mott, Electron in Glass, Nobel Ceremony Lecture (1977)
• Science: Cosmic Clearance, Time (1936)

 

[sbrothy]

I have this book, and it contains a facsimile (plus a fair copy, since Einstein had terrible handwriting) with a letter from Einstein as a response to Popper's book. There is an interesting comment about quantum physics:

Einstein was definitely no friend of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle!

Edit: I think it is the same book, but I'm not sure. Mine is "Logik der Forschung" (Logic of Resaerch). And I was surprised that Einstein didn't use Sütterlin.

Einstein may have been a little set in his ways or reluctant to accept truths which may not have been so obvious as they are to us in 20-20 hindsight, but he sure is eminently quotable too.

 

[Hornbein]

I have this book, and it contains a facsimile (plus a fair copy, since Einstein had terrible handwriting) with a letter from Einstein as a response to Popper's book. There is an interesting comment about quantum physics:

Einstein may have been a little set in his ways or reluctant to accept truths which may not have been so obvious as they are to us in 20-20 hindsight, but he sure is eminently quotable too.

Albert Einstein funded the Einstein prize, which seems not to have survived. The first one went to Julian Schwinger for quantum field theory (shared with Kurt Goedel) so I don't see that E hated the field.

 

[pines-demon]

Albert Einstein funded the Einstein prize, which seems not to have survived. The first one went to Julian Schwinger for quantum field theory (shared with Kurt Goedel) so I don't see that E hated the field.

Which Einstein Prize?

 

[DaveE]

Which Einstein Prize?

This one I guess.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein_Award

Not funded by Einstein.

"The winner was selected by a committee (the first of which consisted of Einstein, Oppenheimer, von Neumann, and Weyl) of the Institute for Advanced Study, which administered the award."

 

[symbolipoint]

Yeah OK. bad examples, I admit. But if "explain to X" doesn't mean "making X understand", then what does it mean? Performing a monologue?

The value would be in knowing how to explain, but not in the listener ability to understand.

 

[sbrothy]

Good point. I stand corrected. My claim was just that perhaps "our" theories" have become so complex that their proofs (if not their statements) will take an extraordinarily patient listener.

The abc conjecture for example.

Then again maybe I'm just a bad listener and/or nowhere near as smart as I'd like to think.

Let's put the thread back on track. Again I'm sorry for derailing it.

 

[pines-demon]

The abc conjecture for example.

Nobody has the time or patient to read Mochizuki's proof. He has also been particularly rude about it.

 

[fresh_42]

Nobody has the time or patient to read Mochizuki's proof. He has also been particularly rude about it.

In 2018, Jakob Stix and Peter Scholze announced that they had identified a fundamental gap in Mochizuki's proof. Mochizuki continues to adhere to his proof without addressing the objections.

 

[sbrothy]

Answering both your posts you're kinda proving my point. But I thought we were trying to get the thread back on track!

 

[fresh_42]

Answering both your posts you're kinda proving my point. But I thought we were trying to get the thread back on track!

Here we go.

An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field.

Did we have this already?

 

[sbrothy]

I was (and am) joking. I already admitted my inadequacy, but I have a hard time not kicking a ball rolling into my reach. Please for god's sake don't take me seriously (as if you'd ever).

 

[fresh_42]

I was (and am) joking. I already admitted my inadequacy, but I have a hard time not kicking a ball rolling into my reach. Please for god's sake don't take me seriously (as if you'd ever).

I do. Danish is an official local language in Germany, and I like our minorities.

But I got your point: "Better to lose a good friend than a bad joke."

 

[sbrothy]

I do. Danish is an official local language in Germany, and I like our minorities.

But I got your point: "Better to lose a good friend than a bad joke."

I have absolutely no idea how to reply to that. Is it sarcasm? Are you taking me for a ride? Are you a potential friend I lost for a cheap joke? I told you I'm not that smart.

 

[fresh_42]

I have absolutely no idea how to reply to that. Is it sarcasm? Are you taking me for a ride? Are you a potential friend I lost for a cheap joke? I told you I'm not that smart.

No sarcasm. I only wanted to say that I have a positive attitude towards our neighbors, and since 1992, in particular, Denmark. That was a Hollywood-like story! I still grin when I think back on it.

Edit: Just in case you're too young to remember. This is what I meant.

 

[fresh_42]

Back to quotes. Ok, Voltaire wasn't specifically a physicist, but what I just read is to good to not quoting it:

As Voltaire lay on his deathbed, he was asked to renounce the devil. His reply: "Now is probably not a good time to make enemies."

 

[pines-demon]

In 2018, Jakob Stix and Peter Scholze announced that they had identified a fundamental gap in Mochizuki's proof. Mochizuki continues to adhere to his proof without addressing the objections.

But now we have K. Joshi claiming that both Scholze-Stix and Mochizuki were wrong and that he solved everything, talk about drama.

 

[sbrothy]

No sarcasm. I only wanted to say that I have a positive attitude towards our neighbors, and since 1992, in particular, Denmark. That was a Hollywood-like story! I still grin when I think back on it.

Edit: Just in case you're too young to remember. This is what I meant.

Oh no I remember it vividly. "Thanks" to the war in former Yugoslavia (which took somewhat of the pixie dust out of it) we got a chance and made the most of it, but honestly It brings a smile to my face too. For all the wrong reasons I must admit. But it fits beautifully into the fairy tale narrative we Danes like to fit into our national story vis-á-vis H. C. Andersen.

 

[fresh_42]

Oh no I remember it vividly. "Thanks" to the war in former Yugoslavia (which took somewhat of the pixie dust out of it) we got a chance and made the most of it, but honestly It brings a smile to my face too. For all the wrong reasons I must admit. But it fits beautifully into the fairy tale narrative we Danes like to fit into our national story vis-á-vis H. C. Andersen.

I love the part when the players are gathered from around the world by telephone calls because they have already been on vacation. Then, some players have even been seen at a local burger restaurant, nothing you would expect from a professional sports diet. This "take-it-easy" and see how far we can get attitude was great, besides the obvious underdog theme for not having qualified.

 

[sbrothy]

Hah. yeah, I forgot about that. Embarrassing and funny. But yeah, the fact that no one took them seriously worked perfectly to "our" (read: their) advantage. Good stuff. I'm sure every Dane knows exactly where he/she were in the final. No comparisons intended!

 

[sbrothy]

The handball overlordish thing is just absurd though. Then again it's not my favorite sport to say the least.