Science Physics Quotes

Politics is more difficult than physics.

It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we say about nature.

There is only one science, physics: everything else is social work.

Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it.

It would be better for the true physics if there were no mathematicians on earth.

It was absolutely marvelous working for Pauli. You could ask him anything. There was no worry that he would think a particular question was stupid, since he thought all questions were stupid.

If anybody says he can think about quantum physics without getting giddy, that only shows he has not understood the first thing about them.

The faster you go, the shorter you are.

I was already sort of mixing my science physics enthusiasm with entertainment and directing and puppetry.

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

Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.

The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them.

I think physicists are the Peter Pans of the human race. They never grow up and they keep their curiosity.

Following Korzybski, I put things in probabilities, not absolutes... My only originality lies in applying this zetetic attitude outside the hardest of the hard sciences, physics, to softer sciences and then to non-sciences like politics, ideology, jury verdicts and, of course, conspiracy theory.

There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.

We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.

Physics is becoming so unbelievably complex that it is taking longer and longer to train a physicist. It is taking so long, in fact, to train a physicist to the place where he understands the nature of physical problems that he is already too old to solve them.

Physics is very muddled again at the moment; it is much too hard for me anyway, and I wish I were a movie comedian or something like that and had never heard anything about physics!

All science is either physics or stamp collecting.

If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations - then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation - well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.

If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare me a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German, and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only a boy playing on the seashore.

Our entire much-praised technological progress, and civilization generally, could be compared to an axe in the hand of a pathological criminal.

When I began my career as a cosmologist some twenty years ago, I was a convinced atheist. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that one day I would be writing a book purporting to show that the central claims of Judeo-Christian theology are in fact true, that these claims are straightforward deductions of the laws of physics as we now understand them. I have been forced into these conclusions by the inexorable logic of my own special branch of physics.

I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.

All of physics is either impossible or trivial. It is impossible until you understand it, and then it becomes trivial.

If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living

The great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong.

You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him find it within himself.

Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.

A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms.

Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.

When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty but when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.

I don't like it, and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it.

Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.

Physiology is the science which treats of the properties of organic bodies, animal and vegetable, of the phenomena they present, and of the laws which govern their actions. Inorganic substances are the objects of other sciences, - physics and chemistry.

Basic research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.

In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.

In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken..."

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

Science is simply common sense at its best.

If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?

In science, the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurs.

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'

Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it.