Memorable quotes in the history of physics

[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.

 

[pines-demon]

On turbulence:

I am an old man now, and when I die and go to heaven there are two matters on which I hope for enlightenment. One is quantum electrodynamics and the other is turbulence in fluids. And about the former, I am really rather optimistic.

–Horace Lamb (1932 address British Association for the Advancement of Science, I could not find it)

There is a physical problem that is common to many fields, that is very old, and that has not been solved. It is not the there is a problem of finding new fundamental particles, but something left over from a long time ago... over a hundred years. Nobody in physics has been able to analyze it satisfactorily in spite of its importance to the sister sciences. It is the analysis of circulating or turbulent fluids.

–Richard Feynman (The Feynman Lectures on Physics, vol. 1, chapter 3)