What Do These Famous Quotes Reveal About the Minds of Great Scientists?

[romsofia]

"No one knows what entropy really is, so in a debate you will always have the advantage."
John Von Neumann

 

[Auto-Didact]

In the end we are driven to search for what we hope will turn out to be the correct ontology of the world. After all, it is the desire to understand what reality is like that burns deepest in the soul of any true physicist. - Lucien Hardy

 

[Lord Jestocost]

But it did not turn out that way. To what appeared to be the simplest questions, we will tend to give either no answer or an answer which will at first sight be reminiscent more of a strange catechism than of the straightforward affirmatives of physical science. If we ask, for instance, whether the position of the electron remains the same, we must say "no"; if we ask whether the electron's position changes with time, we must say "no"; if we ask whether the electron is at rest, we must say "no"; if we ask whether it is in motion, we must say "no." The Buddha has given such answers when interrogated as to the conditions of a man's self after his death; but they are not familiar answers for the tradition of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century science.

J. Robert Oppenheimer in “Atom and Void: Essays on Science and Community”

 

[Auto-Didact]

Natural scientists believe that they free themselves from philosophy by ignoring it or abusing it. They cannot, however, make any headway without thought, and for thought they need thought determinations. But they take these categories unreflectingly from the common consciousness of so-called educated persons, which is dominated by the relics of long obsolete philosophies, or from the little bit of philosophy compulsorily listened to at the university (which is not only fragmentary, but also a medley of views of people belonging to the most varied and usually the worst schools), or from uncritical and unsystematic reading of philosophical writings of all kinds. Hence they are no less in bondage to philosophy, but unfortunately in most cases to the worst philosophy, and those who abuse philosophy most are slaves to precisely the worst vulgarized relics of the worst philosophers.
- Friedrich Engels

 

[Auto-Didact]

Each piece, or part, of the whole of nature is always merely an approximation to the complete truth, or the complete truth so far as we know it. In fact, everything we know is only some kind of approximation, because we know that we do not know all the laws as yet. Therefore, things must be learned only to be unlearned again or, more likely, to be corrected. … The test of all knowledge is experiment. Experiment is the sole judge of scientific “truth”.
- Richard Feynman

 

[Auto-Didact]

As Archimedes says, “It is easier to supply the proof when we have previously acquired, by the method, some knowledge of the questions than it is to find it without any previous knowledge.” In other words, by noodling around, playing with the Method, he gets a feel for the territory. And that guides him to a watertight proof.
This is such an honest account of what it’s like to do creative mathematics. Mathematicians don’t come up with the proofs first. First comes intuition. Rigor comes later. This essential role of intuition and imagination is often left out of high-school geometry courses, but it is essential to all creative mathematics.
- Steven Strogatz

 

[BillTre]

"Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution."
in the essay: Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.
by Theodosius Dabzhansky

An essay written to encourage the teaching of biological evolution in schools (vs. creationism).
Dobzhansky had religious beliefs, but was very important in producing the modern synthesis, which brought together:

• evolutionary thought (natural selection for particular nitches)
• genetics (including mutations; not understood in Darwin's time;
  Mendel was only rediscovered in 1900 (but first published in 1866, a few years after the Origin of Species!))
• population genetics (newly created)
• a better understanding of the Earth's geological and evolutionary history.

More modern (post modern synthesis) additions to evolutionary thought might include:

• an understanding of the importance of DNA (and molecular/cellular biology) in the evolutionary process (starts 1953)
• immense amounts of evolutionary data in DNA sequences
• understanding random genetic drift's effects on evolution
• generative processes: considering developmental processes and emergent (higher order) phenomena (that arise in the proper, larger scale environment) effects on the generation of biological structure

 

[Auto-Didact]

One should mention that a quantization of the gravitational field, which appears to be necessary for physical reasons, may be carried out without any new difficulties by means of a formalism wholly analogous to that applied here.
- Heisenberg and Pauli (1929, p. 3)

 

[Duplex]

"Einstein was a giant, his head was in the clouds while his feet were firmly on the ground. The rest of us must pick one."
- Richard Feynman

 

[Auto-Didact]

Operationalism is not sidestepping the need for philosophical analysis, but is itself just bad philosophy!
- Michael Redhead

 

[A M]

A person who never made a mistake, never tried anything new.

 

[A M]

-A.Einstein (as written in the title!)

 

[Klystron]

"Stupidity got us here. Why can't it get us out?"

--English translation of Latin vulgate attributed to Grand Master Bernard de Tremelay trapped inside the walls of Ascalon. Probably apocryphal but Bernard was well educated.

...a setback for Ascalon occurred in August when the besieged tried to burn down one of the crusader siege towers; the wind pushed the fire back against their own walls, causing a large section to collapse. According to William of Tyre, knights of the Order rushed through the breach without Baldwin's knowledge where Bernard de Tremelay and about forty of his Templars were killed by the larger Egyptian garrison. Their bodies were displayed on the ramparts and their heads were sent to the caliph in Cairo.

 

[PGaccount]

"raffiniert ist der hergott, aber boshaft ist er nicht" - A. Einstein.

 

[PGaccount]

"It was not the love of something or someone, the image and the symbol, the word and the pictures. It wasn't an emotion that fades and is cruel; the symbol, the word can be substituted but not the thing."

 

[Auto-Didact]

Where in the Schrödinger equation do you put the joy of being alive?
- Eugene Wigner

 

[Vanadium 50]

"How can one smile when one is thinking of the anomalous Zeeman effect?" - W. Pauli

 

[Vanadium 50]

"An inordinate fondness for beetles" - JBS Haldane.

 

[strangerep]

"How can one smile when one is thinking of the anomalous Zeeman effect?" - W. Pauli

"How can one smile when one is (trying to) work with W. Pauli?" - E. Stuckelberg.

 

[Auto-Didact]

If you make axioms, rather
than definitions and theorems, about the ‘measurement’ of anything else, then
you commit redundancy and risk inconsistency.
- John Bell 1982

 

[Auto-Didact]

Only, they [logicists and formalists] must commit it the day they wish to make any application of mathematics. This science has not as sole object the eternal contemplation of its own navel; it has to do with nature and some day it will touch it. Then it will be necessary to shake off purely verbal definitions and to stop paying oneself with words.
- Henri Poincaré

 

[Demystifier]

Quantum foundations is to quantum physics what mathematical analysis is to calculus.
- Hrvoje Nikolić

 

[Auto-Didact]

"So, ultimately, in order to understand nature it may be necessary to have a deeper understanding of mathematical relationships. But the real reason is that the subject is enjoyable, and although we humans cut nature up in different ways, and we have different courses in different departments, such compartmentalization is really artificial, and we should take our intellectual pleasures where we find them."

"There are many interesting phenomena … which involve a mixture of physical phenomena and physiological processes, and the full appreciation of natural phenomena, as we see them, must go beyond physics in the usual sense. We make no apologies for making these excursions into other fields, because the separation of fields, as we have emphasized, is merely a human convenience, and an unnatural thing. Nature is not interested in our separations, and many of the interesting phenomena bridge the gaps between fields."
- Richard Feynman, The Feynman Lectures

 

[Buzz Bloom]

Richard Feynman
"No one understands quantum mechanics"
https://www.quora.com/What-did-Rich...-he-said-No-one-understands-quantum-mechanics

 

[pinball1970]

There is no god and Paul Dirac is his prophet (Pauli)

 

[epenguin]

"How can one smile when one is (trying to) work with W. Pauli?" - E. Stuckelberg.

There is no god and Paul Dirac is his prophet (Pauli)

Re Pauli, I don't know which he is more famous for, his exclusion principle or his "not even wrong" put-down, but I came across an echo of the latter the other day in an article attacking Jordan Peterson (who I expect it would be taboo to discuss on this site):

"I don’t mean to say that all of what Peterson says is in the category of the “not even wrong.” Some of it is actually just wrong."https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/03/the-intellectual-we-deserve

 

[epenguin]

And the link that was supplied ^^^ to clarify the meaning of "not even wrong" yielded another quip by Pauli:
"What you said was so confused that one could not tell whether it was nonsense or not."

( Peierls, R. (1960). "Wolfgang Ernst Pauli, 1900–1958". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 5: 186. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1960.0014. )

 

[Auto-Didact]

In fact, QFT is just wrong! Quantum mechanics is all-encompassing. A correct theory must include quantum gravity and QFT is not up to the task.
- Sheldon Lee Glashow

 

[afcsimoes]

"So, ultimately, in order to understand nature it may be necessary to have a deeper understanding of mathematical relationships. But the real reason is that the subject is enjoyable, and although we humans cut nature up in different ways, and we have different courses in different departments, such compartmentalization is really artificial, and we should take our intellectual pleasures where we find them."

"There are many interesting phenomena … which involve a mixture of physical phenomena and physiological processes, and the full appreciation of natural phenomena, as we see them, must go beyond physics in the usual sense. We make no apologies for making these excursions into other fields, because the separation of fields, as we have emphasized, is merely a human convenience, and an unnatural thing. Nature is not interested in our separations, and many of the interesting phenomena bridge the gaps between fields."
- Richard Feynman, The Feynman Lectures

Hi Auto-Didact
I like your posts. You apears to me as a person with open mind and not slave of dogmas that can block scientific progress.
Do you know the work of a portuguese scientist that has developed a new way tward unification of relativity and quantum theory? If you are curious about please go to his professional profile at http://cfcul.fc.ul.pt/equipa/jcroca.php
Best regards

 

[Auto-Didact]

The open problems in the area of non-linear partial differential equations are very relevant to applied mathematics and science as a whole, perhaps more so than the open problems in any other area of mathematics, and this field seems poised for rapid development. It seems clear, however, that fresh methods must be employed.
- John Nash (1958)

 

[Auto-Didact]

Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things.
- Henri Poincaré

 

[BillTre]

So is biological taxonomy.

 

[Klystron]

"Eureka!" (Greek: "εὕρηκα", "I have found [it]!").

-- attributed to Archimedes of Syracuse

 

[jbriggs444]

"The most exciting phrase in science is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny ...'

-- Isaac Asimov

 

[Auto-Didact]

Every mathematician believes that he is ahead of the others. The reason none state this belief in public is because they are intelligent people.
-- Kolmogorov

 

[Auto-Didact]

So is biological taxonomy.

All science is either physics or stamp collecting.
-- Rutherford

 

[BillTre]

All science is either physics or stamp collecting.
-- Rutherford

 

[Auto-Didact]

The scientist does not study nature because it is useful to do so. He studies it because he takes pleasure in it, and he takes pleasure in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful it would not be worth knowing, and life would not be worth living.
- Henri Poincaré

 

[AlexCaledin]

" . . . there is a pleasure in recognizing old things from a new point of view."

- Richard Feynman, 1948 :

 

[DEvens]

“In physics the truth is rarely perfectly clear, and that is certainly universally the case in human affairs. Hence, what is not surrounded by uncertainty cannot be the truth.”

― Richard Feynman

 

[Auto-Didact]

Read Euler, read Euler. He is the master of us all.
- Laplace

 

[Mary Conrads Sanburn]

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

• James Peebles
• Michel Mayor
• Didier Queloz

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019 was awarded "for contributions to our understanding of the evolution of the universe and Earth's place in the cosmos" with one half to James Peebles "for theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology", the other half jointly to Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz "for the discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a solar-type star."

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2019/summary/

 

[epenguin]

Not by a scientist but in line with themes here:

To formulate general ideas is to change saltpeter into gunpowder.Formuler des idées générales, c'est changer le salpêtre en poudre.—A. DE MUSSET, Confessions d'un Enfant du Siecle,

 

[Klystron]

"Obvious is the most dangerous word in mathematics. "

-- Eric Temple Bell author of Men of Mathematics.

 

[waternohitter]

The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it. ― Neil deGrasse Tyson

 

[Andre]

...the central mystery of climate science. It is not a scientific mystery but a human mystery. How does it happen that a whole generation of scientific experts is blind to obvious facts?

Freeman Dyson

(Foreword to GWPF report #18 Goklany, I.M. 2015, Carbon dioxide, The good news)

 

[ThatGuyIS]

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
Albert Einstein

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
Albert Einstein

by definition it’s common for people to use the word logic versus common sense even those there’s an infinite amount of options to choose from through being irrational... While logic is a strict principle of choice(s)

 

[Auto-Didact]

Mathematics is too important to be abandoned to fanatic logicians.
- Benoit B. Mandelbrot

 

[sysprog]

If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.
Albert Einstein

If you cain't fix it with duct tape, then you ain't usin' enough duct tape.

 

[Auto-Didact]

It is by logic that we prove, but by intuition that we discover. To know how to criticize is good, to know how to create is better.
- Henri Poincaré