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Quotes by Physicist
"No endeavor that is worthwhile is simple in prospect; if it is right, it will be simple in retrospect."
28
"My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all."
28
"In order to make further progress, particularly in the field of cosmic rays, it will be necessary to apply all our resources and apparatus simultaneously and side-by-side; an effort which has not yet been made, or at least, only to a limited extent."
28
"In 1971 I returned to the University of Chicago as Professor of Physics."
28
"I'm pretty tenacious when it comes to problems."
27
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit."
27
"Many applications of the coincidence method will therefore be found in the large field of nuclear physics, and we can say without exaggeration that the method is one of the essential tools of the modern nuclear physicist."
27
"I do not keep up with the details of particle physics."
27
"There are relatively few experiments in atomic physics these days that don't involve the use of a laser."
26
"No matter how hard you try to teach your cat general relativity, you're going to fail."
26
"On what can we now place our hopes of solving the many riddles which still exist as to the origin and composition of cosmic rays? It must be emphasized here above all that to attain really decisive progress greater funds must be made available."
25
"Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future."
25
"According to well-known electrodynamic laws, an electron moving in a magnetic field is acted upon by a force which runs perpendicular to the direction of motion of the electron and to the direction of the magnetic field, and whose magnitude is easily determined."
25
"As you say, the way string theory requires all these extra dimensions and this comes from certain consistency requirements about how string should behave and so on."
25
"Strict conservation of energy in the elementary process had thus been confirmed also by a negative experiment."
25
"Some years ago, I wrote a book called the Emperor's New Mind and that book was describing a point of view I had about consciousness and why it was not something that comes about from complicated calculations."
24
"My father was a professor of civil engineering at MIT, and my mother taught high school English."
24
"We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special."
24
"The statesman shears the sheep; the politician skins them."
24
"It may well be said that the answer to the question: Of what do the cosmic rays in fact consist before they produce their familiar secondary radiation phenomena in the earth's atmosphere? can only be obtained from numerous measurements in the stratosphere."
24
"I studied chemical engineering. I was a good student, but these were the hard times of the depression, my scholarship came to an end, and it was necessary to work to supplement the family income."
24
"This means that the only function of nuclear weapons, while they exist, is to deter a nuclear attack."
24
"In the final analysis, the incident is seen as originating from an emotional expression of the frustration and anger of the proud people of China who had been subject to ever increasing oppression from without and decadent corruption from within."
24
"Theologians have a great problem because they're seeking to speak about God. Since God is the ground of everything that is, there's a sense in which every human inquiry is grist to the theological mill. Obviously, no theologian can know everything."
24
"It is more likely that more than a century will pass before we know the structure of the chemical atoms as thoroughly as we do our solar system."
24
"Many scientists will have to contribute to the solution of the great problem; they will have to follow up and measure all those phenomena in which the atomic structure is directly expressed."
23
"The application of a strong magnetic field enables the measurement of the energy of the most penetrating particles to be carried out, and the method may be capable of still further extension and improvement."
23
"A fact is a simple statement that everyone believes. It is innocent, unless found guilty. A hypothesis is a novel suggestion that no one wants to believe. It is guilty, until found effective."
Fact,
23
"It is no good getting furious if you get stuck. What I do is keep thinking about the problem but work on something else. Sometimes it is years before I see the way forward. In the case of information loss and black holes, it was 29 years."
23
"The emitters of the spectral series are without exception single atoms, not compounds of atoms."
23
"I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image."
23
"There is no greater impediment to progress in the sciences than the desire to see it take place too quickly."
23
"There are children playing in the streets who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago."
23
"Show me a genuine case of platonic friendship, and I shall show you two old or homely faces."
22
"I reverted easily to my wild state, that is experimentation."
22
"At present, too much theological thinking is very human-centered."
22
"The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness."
22
"Enthusiasm is followed by disappointment and even depression, and then by renewed enthusiasm."
22
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