Popular quotes about Physics! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 2
physics explains everything, which we know because anything physics cannot explain does not exist, which we know because whatever exists must be explicable by physics, which we know because physics explains everything. There is something here of the mystical.
David Bentley HartWe, however, want to become those we are--human beings who are new, unique, incomparable, who give themselves laws, who create themselves. To that end we must become the best learners and discoverers of everything that is lawful and necessary in the world: we must become physicists in order to be able to be creators in this sense--while hitherto all valuations and ideals have been based on ignorance of physics or were constructed so as to contradict it. Therefore: long live physics! And even more so that which compels us to turn to physics--our honesty!
Friedrich NietzscheThe problem is that modern fundamental physics is so far from you and me. The mathematics has become so much more complicated that you need at least 10 years to understand it. Fundamental physics has advanced so far from the understanding of most people that there is really a big disconnect.
Yuri MilnerThe universe does not exist 'out there,' independent of us. We are inescapably involved in bringing about that which appears to be happening. We are not only observers. We are participators. In some strange sense, this is a participatory universe. Physics is no longer satisfied with insights only into particles, fields of force, into geometry, or even into time and space. Today we demand of physics some understanding of existence itself.
John P. Wheeler IIII regard physics as that subset of magic that works fairly reliably. I regard magick, in the traditional sense, as a kind of physics that we strive to understand and render more reliable. So it all comes down to the same thing, a quest to understand and manipulate the world with a self-consistent and coherent theory .
Peter J. CarrollI thought physics could be done to the glory of God, till I saw there wasnโt any God at all and that physics was more interesting anyway. The Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake, thatโs all.
Philip PullmanBohrโs standpoint, that a space-time description is impossible, I reject a limine. Physics does not consist only of atomic research, science does not consist only of physics, and life does not consist only of science. The aim of atomic research is to fit our empirical knowledge concerning it into our other thinking. All of this other thinking, so far as it concerns the outer world, is active in space and time. If it cannot be fitted into space and time, then it fails in its whole aim and one does not know what purpose it really serves.
Erwin SchrodingerThe main thesis of mind-physics holds that consciousness and matter are both manifestations of a more primary entity, and that the processes of manifestation exhibit equivalent invariances for both consciousness and matter. When the program for mind-physics is complete the subject-object dichotomy of modal logic, the polarity of concept-percept, and the antagonism between morality and technology will all come to an end. Then the non-repeatable experiment will be understood to be more primary than the traditional repeatable experiment.
Paul LaffoleyIn case you haven't noticed, they're moving a lot faster. I don't know about the laws of physics on your planet, but where I come from an object moving at subclass speed can't catch up to one running at starclass. But if you know something about turbines, thrusters and engines, quantum or classical physics that I've somehow missed, then please enlighten me. - Caillen Dagan to Desideria Denarii
Sherrilyn KenyonAnd the actual achievements of biology are explanations in terms of mechanisms founded on physics and chemistry, which is not the same thing as explanations in terms of physics and chemistry.
Michael PolanyiScience seems to be at war with itself.... Naive realism leads to physics, and physics, if true, shows naive realism to be false. Therefore naive realism, if true, is false; therefore it is false.
Bertrand RussellWhenever I want to represent or depict the official version, I will refer to them as 'mathematicians' or 'mathematical physicists' or idiots or something like that. There are no physicists in mainstream 'Physics.' From Newton to Einstein to Hawking, they are all just mathematicians as far as Science and Physics are concerned.
Bill GaedeI don't. We've had three technological revolutions that have changed the course of human history, all driven by physics. In the first, the industrial revolution, physicists developed Newtonian mechanics and thermodynamics, which gave us the steam engine and machine power. The second technological revolution was the electricity revolution. That gave us radio, television, and telecommunications. Then, physicists developed the laser and the transistor.
Michio KakuMy personal background is actually very unusual for the kind of career I chose. I didnยt meet anyone who had ever done physics in my life. I grew up in the Himalayan forests. My father was a forest conservator, which meant that if I wasnยt in school I was in the forests with him. That has been very largely responsible for my ecological inclinations.
Vandana Shiva...60 advocates of unorthodox therapies whose credentials are given in the ACS book (above).(:) Of these 60, thirty-nine or almost two-thirds, hold...medical degrees from such universities as Harvard, Illinois, Northwestern, Yale, Dublin, Oxford, or Toronto. Two are osteopaths. 3...also hold...(PhD's)....scientific....reputable....8 others received PhD's in such fields as chemistry, physiology, bacteriology, parasitology, or medical physics, from...Yale, Johns Hopkins, UC Berkeley, Columbia, and NYU. Thus over 75%...are medical doctors or doctors of philosophy in scientific areas.
Ralph W. MossThink of color, pitch, loudness, heaviness, and hotness. Each is the topic of a branch of physics
Benoit MandelbrotIf all of mathematics disappeared, physics would be set back by exactly one week.
Richard P. FeynmanNevertheless, all of us who work in quantum physics believe in the reality of a quantum world, and the reality of quantum entities like protons and electrons.
John PolkinghorneI think the really cool and compelling thing about math and physics is that it opens up entry to all these hypotheticals - or at least, it gives you the language to talk about them. But at the same time, if a scenario is completely disconnected from reality, it's not all that interesting.
Randall MunroeComputer science is not as old as physics; it lags by a couple of hundred years. However, this does not mean that there is significantly less on the computer scientist's plate than on the physicist's: younger it may be, but it has had a far more intense upbringing!
Richard P. FeynmanAn X-wing fighter flies like an airplane. If you look at the physics, it's actually quite impossible.
Jon SpaihtsAll of physics is either impossible or trivial. It is impossible until you understand it, and then it becomes trivial.
Ernest RutherfordPhysics is really nothing more than a search for ultimate simplicity, but so far all we have is a kind of elegant messiness.
Bill BrysonI quite like the transitions of being an actor, because you get to explore these little pockets of life. So if you're playing a builder you get to know about building, if you're playing a scientist or a physician or something you get to know about physics. And similarly with this world I like exploring their culture, that very sort of upper middle class, addictive... that's part of the reason I love it.
Matt SmithWhen we form heart-centered beliefs within our bodies, in the language of physics we're creating the electrical and magnetic expression of them as waves of energy, which aren't confined to our hearts or limited by the physical barrier of our skin and bones. So clearly we're speaking to the world around us in each moment of every day through a language that has no words: the belief-waves of our hearts.
Gregg BradenIf in physics there's something you don't understand, you can always hide behind the uncharted depths of nature. You can always blame God. You didn't make it so complex yourself. But if your program doesn't work, there is no one to hide behind. You cannot hide behind an obstinate nature. If it doesn't work, you've messed up.
Edsger DijkstraThe new physics provides a modern version of ancient spirituality. In a universe made out of energy, everything is entangled; everything is one.
Bruce H. LiptonAssessing existence while failing to embrace the insights of modern physics would be like wrestling in the dark with an unknown opponent.
Brian GreeneThere may be organic life out there, or maybe machines created by long-dead civilizations, but any signals, even if they are difficult to decode, would tell us that the concepts of logic and physics are not limited to the hardware in human skulls, and will transform our view of the universe.
Martin ReesThe flaw is the business plan - digging up and burning way more carbon than physics says we can deal with. So, I suppose it's some kind of mid-point between writing them nice letters asking them to stop and figuring out a way to take down the entire system- which I don't have any idea how to do.
Bill McKibbenThe seemingly insuperable difficulties of deep-space travel suggest an intention to keep us fixed at home in our own solar system, and the physical nature of our part of the Universe, as well as the basic rules of physics and chemistry, have a warning look about them, like barriers designed to isolate intelligent life. This means that for us, unlike the situation for humble microorganisms, deep-space travel is probably a stark impossibility.
Fred HoyleThe fact that modern physics, the manifestation of an extreme specialization of the rational mind, is now making contact with mysticism, the essence of religion and manifestation of an extreme specialization of the intuitive mind, shows very beautifully the unity and complementary nature of the rational and intuitive modes of consciousness; of the yang and the yin.
Fritjof CapraThe creation of Physics is the shared heritage of all mankind. East and West, North and South have equally participated in it.
Abdus SalamOne of the most beautiful hypotheses ever propounded in physics is ... the Dynamical Theory of Gases
Simon NewcombThe fact that science led me to spiritual insight is appropriate because the latest discoveries in physics and cell research are forging new links between the worlds of Science and Spirit. These realms were split apart in the days of Descartes centuries ago. However, I truly believe that only when Spirit and Science are reunited will we be afforded the means to a better world.
Bruce H. LiptonFourier's theorem is not only one of the most beautiful results of modern analysis, but it may be said to furnish an indispensable instrument in the treatment of nearly every recondite question in modern physics.
Lord KelvinThe test of science is not whether you are reasonableโthere would not be much of physics if that was the caseโthe test is whether it works. And the great point about Newtonโs theory of gravitation was that it worked, that you could actually say something about the motion of the moon without knowing very much about the constitution of the Earth.
Hermann BondiWe could call order by the name of God, but it would be an impersonal God. There's not much personal about the laws of physics.
Stephen HawkingThe science behind Interstellar is interesting, because some of it is absolutely real astrophysics and orbital mechanics, some of it is theoretical physics, and some of it is completely Hollywood. When a science fiction movie is based on plausible science, it's really good.
Julie PayetteWhen I was a physics major in the late 1970s, my very few fellow female students and I had high hopes that women would soon stand equal with men in science. But progress has proved slower than many of us imagined.
Margaret WertheimIt is this breathtaking image [of] success that motivates us and motivates kids to follow and understand rocket science: to understand the importance of physics and math and, in many ways, to have that awe at exploration of the frontiers of the unknown.
Steve JurvetsonEven before string theory, especially as physics developed in the 20th century, it turned out that the equations that really work in describing nature with the most generality and the greatest simplicity are very elegant and subtle.
Edward WittenI started out as a molecules kid. In high school and early college I loved chemistry, but I gradually shifted toward physics, which seemed cleaner - odorless, in fact.
Leon M. LedermanA careful analysis of the process of observation in atomic physics has shown that the subatomic particles have no meaning as isolated entities, but can only be understood as interconnections between the preparation of an experiment and the subsequent measurement.
Erwin SchrodingerI myself believe that there will one day be time travel because when we find that something isn't forbidden by the over-arching laws of physics we usually eventually find a technological way of doing it.
David DeutschThe fact that Science walks forward on two feet, namely theory and experiment, is nowhere better illustrated than in the two fields for slight contributions to which you have done me the great honour of awarding the the Nobel Prize in Physics for the year 1923. Sometimes it is one foot that is put forward first, sometimes the other, but continuous progress is only made by the use of both-by theorizing and then testing, or by finding new relations in the process of experimenting and then bringing the theoretical foot up and pushing it on beyond, and so on in unending alterations.
Robert Andrews Millikan