Quotes About Physics

It seems that every practitioner of physics has had to wonder at some point why mathematics and physics have come to be so closely entwined. Opinions vary on the answer. ..Bertrand Russell acknowledged..'Physics is mathematical not because we know so much about the physical world, but because we know so little.' ..Mathematics may be indispensable to physics, but it obviously does not constitute physics.

It is unreasonable to expect science to produce a system of ethics-ethics are a kind of highway code for traffic among mankind-and the fact that in physics atoms which were yesterday assumed to be square are now assumed to be round is exploited with unjustified tendentiousness by all who are hungry for faith; so long as physics extends our dominion over nature, these changes ought to be a matter of complete indifference to you.

I do not understand modern physics at all, but my colleagues who know a lot about the physics of very small things, like the particles in atoms, or very large things, like the universe, seem to be running into one queerness after another, from puzzle to puzzle.

The 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.

The first rule of world-building is available physics, which basically means that if you want it to feel real, it has to follow the same rules as this world, from gravity to how human behaviour works. If you have a fantasy element that doesnt obey the laws of physics, make sure that it has a fantasy explanation.

We have a closed circle of consistency here: the laws of physics produce complex systems, and these complex systems lead to consciousness, which then produces mathematics, which can then encode in a succinct and inspiring way the very underlying laws of physics that gave rise to it.

Mathematical physics is in the first place physics and it could not exist without experimental investigations.

The laws of history are as absolute as the laws of physics, and if the probabilities of error are greater, it is only because history does not deal with as many humans as physics does atoms, so that individual variations count for more.

In A Brief History Of Time I used the word "God" like Einstein did as a shorthand for the laws of physics. However, this is not what most people mean by God, so I have decided not to use the term. The laws of physics can explain the universe without the need for a God.

Goddard represented a unique combination of visionary dedication and technological brilliance. He studied physics because he needed physics to get to Mars. In reading the notebooks of Robert Goddard, I am struck by how powerful his exploratory and scientific motivations were - and how influental speculative ideas, even erroneous ones, can be on the shaping of the future.

Did chemistry theorems exist? No: therefore you had to go further, not be satisfied with the quia, go back to the origins, to mathematics and physics. The origins of chemistry were ignoble, or at least equivocal: the dens of the alchemists, their abominable hodgepodge of ideas and language, their confessed interest in gold, their Levantine swindles typical of charlatans and magicians; instead, at the origin of physics lay the strenuous clarity of the West-Archimedes and Euclid.

Physics is an organized body of knowledge about nature, and a student of it says that he is learning physics, not nature. Art, like nature, has to be distinguished from the systematic study of it, which is criticism.

Scientific realism in classical (i.e. pre-quantum) physics has remained compatible with the naive realism of everyday thinking on the whole; whereas it has proven impossible to find any consistent way to visualize the world underlying quantum theory in terms of our pictures in the everyday world. The general conclusion is that in quantum theory naive realism, although necessary at the level of observations, fails at the microscopic level.

The world of physics is essentially the real world construed by mathematical abstractions, and the world of sense is the real world construed by the abstractions which the sense-organs immediately furnish. To suppose that the "material mode" is a primitive and groping attempt at physical conception is a fatal error in epistemology.

We shouldn't be surprised that conditions in the universe are suitable for life, but this is not evidence that the universe was designed to allow for life. We 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.

It's amazing to me that not only can we put a probe around Saturn and get images of its moons, but our math and physics are so freaking accurate we can say, "Hey, you know what? On this date at this time if we turn Cassini that way we'll see a moon over 2 million kilometers away pass in front of another one nearly 3 million kilometers away." Every morning, I have a 50/50 chance of finding my keys. That kinda puts things in perspective.

Mathematics should be mixed not only with physics but with ethics.

Though we feel we can choose what we do, our understanding of the molecular basis of biology shows that biological processes are governed by the laws of physics and chemistry and therefore are as determined as the orbits of the planets.

Nevertheless, 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.

There are very few things that can be proved rigorously in condensed matter physics.

What we usually consider as impossible are simply engineering problems... there's no law of physics preventing them.

Most people have no concept of how an automatic transmission works, yet they know how to drive a car. You don't have to study physics to understand the laws of motion to drive a car. You don't have to understand any of this stuff to use Macintosh.

When it turned out that he could, Karou dropped to her knees to genuflect. "Gods of math and physics," she intoned, "I accept your gift of this clever fair-haired boy

The remarkable feature of physical laws is that they apply everywhere, whether or not you choose to believe in them. After the laws of physics, everything else is opinion.

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

Recent studies have considered the detection of a spaceship visiting our parish of the galaxy. In my opinion that last thought should bring a blush to every human cheek... Fecklessness might be the main theme of the aliens' report on the new-found source of radio pollution ... that emanates from beings who have mastered a lot of physics, chemistry and biology and yet let their children starve-while all around their planet the energy of their mother star runs to waste in a desert of space.

It is unnecessary to understand electromagnetic theory before wiring a lamp or to study physics in order to repair a pump. We count on our fingers and give no heed to the proliferating implications of the act.

Now that physics is proving the intelligence of the universe what are we to do about the stupidity of mankind? I include myself. I know that the earth is not flat but my feet are. I know that space is curved but my brain has been condoned by habit to grow in a straight line. What I call light is my own blend of darkness. What I call a view is my hand-painted trompe-l'oeil. I run after knowledge like a ferret down a ferret hole. My limitations, I call the boundaries of what can be known. I interpret the world by confusing other people's psychology with my own.

Everytime I think I want to be young again, I remember algebra and physics.

The 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.

Stuart needs "space" and "time," as if this were physics and not a human relationship.

Ultimately, my Ph.D. is in mathematical physics, focusing on quantum field theory and curved space-time, and I worked with Stephen Hawking.

One of the most beautiful hypotheses ever propounded in physics is ... the Dynamical Theory of Gases

There are relatively few experiments in atomic physics these days that don't involve the use of a laser.

Even 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.

A 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.

Politicians think that if matters look difficult, compromise is a good approach. Unfortunately, nature and the laws of physics cannot compromise - they are what they are.

Memories are not recycled like atoms and particles in quantum physics; they can be lost forever.

There are numerous daytime and night time photographs and videotapes of clearly non-human spacecraft from all over the world; these films and videotapes have been evaluated and deemed authentic by competent experts in optical physics and related fields.

When World War II came along, which was when I was a teenager, we all expected we would have anthrax bombs and this kind of stuff. We thought it would be a biological war. Fortunately it wasn't and, but it's because the danger is still there and by some miracle we escaped all that, so you never can tell what it going to happen, but biology certainly could be even worse than physics and chemistry.

Ronan didn't need physics. He could intimidate even a piece of plywood into doing what he wanted.

So great a contribution to physics was Two New Sciences that scholars have long maintained that the book anticipated Isaac Newton's laws of motion.

The development of physics, like the development of any science, is a continuous one.

A book on the new physics, if not purely descriptive of experimental work, must essentially be mathematical.

Good applied science in medicine, as in physics, requires a high degree of certainty about the basic facts at hand, and especially about their meaning, and we have not yet reached this point for most of medicine.

I am not talking to you from the point of view of just wishful thinking, or imaginary craziness. I'm talking to you from a deeper basic understanding - quantum physics really begins to point to this discovery, it says that you can't have a universe without mind entering into it, the mind is actually shaping the very thing that is being perceived.

What will be required to increase the quality of life and health is a coming together of technology and values, based on a scientific guiding principle that people can agree on. Securing a healthy global future requires this guiding principle to preserve freedom of spirit yet be as provable as the laws of physics. A guiding principle that addresses the meaning of life and is compelling enough to generate social cohesion and behaviors that serve the greater whole. After thirty years of investigation and research, it has become clear to me that the answer lies within the human heart.

Life is strong and fragile. It's a paradox... It's both things, like quantum physics: It's a particle and a wave at the same time. It all exists all together.