If you walk along the street you will encounter a number of scientific problems. Of these, about 80 per cent are insoluble, while 19ยฝ per cent are trivial. There is then perhaps half a per cent where skill, persistence, courage, creativity and originality can make a difference. It is always the task of the academic to swim in that half a per cent, asking the questions through which some progress can be made.
Hermann Bondi... an opportunity to allow the bees in one's bonnet to buzz even more noisily than usual.
Hermann BondiWe find no sense in talking about something unless we specify how we measure it; a definition by the method of measuring a quantity is the one sure way of avoiding talking nonsense.
Hermann BondiReligion divides us, while it is our human characteristics that bind us to each other.
Hermann BondiThe landscape has been so totally changed, the ways of thinking have been so deeply affected, that it is very hard to get hold of what it was like beforeโฆ It is very hard to realize how total a change in outlook Isaac Newton has produced.
Hermann Bondi