Many people will tell you that an expert is someone who knows a great deal about the subject. To this I would object that one can never know much about any subject. I would much prefer the following definition: an expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in the subject, and how to avoid them.
Werner HeisenbergAn expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in his subject and how to avoid them.
Werner HeisenbergNot only is the Universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think.
Werner HeisenbergI think that the discovery of antimatter was perhaps the biggest jump of all the big jumps in physics in our century.
Werner HeisenbergThe world thus appears as a complicated tissue of events, in which connections of different kinds alternate or overlap or combine and thereby determine the texture of the whole.
Werner HeisenbergThe existing scientific concepts cover always only a very limited part of reality, and the other part that has not yet been understood is infinite.
Werner HeisenbergThe basic idea is to shove all fundamental difficulties onto the neutron and to do quantum mechanics in the nucleus.
Werner HeisenbergWhenever we proceed from the known to the unkown we may hope to understand, but we may have to learn at the same time a new meaning of the word 'understanding'
Werner HeisenbergWhere no guiding ideals are left to point the way, the scale of values disappears and with it the meaning of our deeds and sufferings, and at the end can lie only negation and despair. Religion is therefore the foundation of ethics, and ethics the presupposition of life.
Werner HeisenbergThe problems of language here are really serious. We wish to speak in some way about the structure of the atoms. But we cannot speak about atoms in ordinary language.
Werner HeisenbergWhat we observe is not nature itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning. Our scientific work in physics consists in asking questions about nature in the language that we possess and trying to get an answer from experiment by the means that are at our disposal.
Werner HeisenbergWhat we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.
Werner HeisenbergI believe that the existence of the classical "path" can be pregnantly formulated as follows: The "path" comes into existence only when we observe it.
Werner HeisenbergI think that modern physics has definitely decided in favor of Plato. In fact the smallest units of matter are not physical objects in the ordinary sense; they are forms, ideas which can be expressed unambiguously only in mathematical language.
Werner HeisenbergModern physics has changed nothing in the great classical disciplines of, for instance, mechanics, optics, and heat. Only the conception of hitherto unexplored regions, formed prematurely from a knowledge of only certain parts of the world, has undergone a decisive transformation. This conception, however, is always decisive for the future course of research.
Werner HeisenbergIt seems sensible to discard all hope of observing hitherto unobservable quantities, such as the position and period of the electron... Instead it seems more reasonable to try to establish a theoretical quantum mechanics, analogous to classical mechanics, but in which only relations between observable quantities occur.
Werner HeisenbergIn my paper the fact the XY was not equal to YX was very disagreeable to me. I felt this was the only point of difficulty in the whole scheme...and I was not able to solve it.
Werner HeisenbergEvery word or concept, clear as it may seem to be, has only a limited range of applicability.
Werner HeisenbergCan quantum mechanics represent the fact that an electron finds itself approximately in a given place and that it moves approximately with a given velocity, and can we make these approximations so close that they do not cause experimental difficulties?
Werner HeisenbergIt is probably true quite generally that in the history of human thinking the most fruitful developments frequently take place at those points where two different lines of thought meet.
Werner HeisenbergTherefore, the two processes, that of science and that of art, are not very different. Both science and art form in the course of the centuries a human language by which we can speak about the more remote parts of reality, and the coherent sets of concepts as well as the different styles of art are different words or groups of words in this language.
Werner HeisenbergNature allows only experimental situations to occur which can be described within the framework of the formalism of quantum mechanics
Werner Heisenberg...separation of the observer from the phenomenon to be observed is no longer possible.
Werner HeisenbergWhen I meet God, I am going to ask him two questions: Why relativity ? And why turbulence ? I really believe he will have an answer for the first.
Werner HeisenbergEven for the physicist the description in plain language will be a criterion of the degree of understanding that has been reached.
Werner HeisenbergWe will have to abandon the philosophy of Democritus and the concept of elementary particles. We should accept instead the concept of elementary symmetries.
Werner HeisenbergA consistent pursuit of classical physics forces a transformation in the very heart of that physics.
Werner Heisenberg[T]he atoms or elementary particles themselves are not real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts.
Werner HeisenbergThe solution of the difficulty is that the two mental pictures which experiment lead us to form - the one of the particles, the other of the waves - are both incomplete and have only the validity of analogies which are accurate only in limiting cases.
Werner HeisenbergThe Same organizing forces that have shaped nature in all her forms are also responsible for the structure of our minds.
Werner HeisenbergThe violent reaction on the recent development of modern physics can only be understood when one realises that here the foundations of physics have started moving; and that this motion has caused the feeling that the ground would be cut from science
Werner HeisenbergQuantum theory provides us with a striking illustration of the fact that we can fully understand a connection though we can only speak of it in images and parables.
Werner HeisenbergThe positivists have a simple solution: the world must be divided into that which we can say clearly and the rest, which we had better pass over in silence. But can anyone conceive of a more pointless philosophy, seeing that what we can say clearly amounts to next to nothing? If we omitted all that is unclear, we would probably be left completely uninteresting and trivial tautologies.
Werner HeisenbergThus, the more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known, and conversely.
Werner HeisenbergNature is made in such a way as to be able to be understood. Or perhaps I should put it-more correctly-the other way around, and say that we are made in such a way as to be able to understand Nature.
Werner HeisenbergIt is probably true quite generally that in the history of human thinking the most fruitful developments frequently take place at those points where two different lines of thought meet. These lines may have their roots in quite different parts of human nature, in different times or different cultural environments or different religious traditions: hence if they actually meet, that is, if they are at least so much related to each other that a real interaction can take place, then one may hope that new and interesting developments may follow.
Werner HeisenbergThe physicist may be satisfied when he has the mathematical scheme and knows how to use for the interpretation of the experiments. But he has to speak about his results also to non-physicists who will not be satisfied unless some explanation is given in plain language. Even for the physicist the description in plain language will be the criterion of the degree of understanding that has been reached.
Werner Heisenberg