St. Cloud State University - Physics and Astronomy Club
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Fun Physics Quotes Niels Bohr | Ernest Rutherford | Albert Einstein | Richard Feynman We'll imagine that the box is made of a material that has no effect on any electric fields; it is of the same breed as the massless rope, the frictionless incline, and the free college education. I think physicists are the Peter Pans of the human race. They never grow up and they keep their curiosity. Physicists define stress as force per unit area. The rest of humanity defines stress as physics. I don't like it, and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it. Some people feel that life is not challenging enough all by itself, and feel that they should make life more difficult for themselves since they have it so easy. The best way to do this, of course, is to major in physics. 
Niels Bohr Never express yourself more clearly than you think. A physicist is just an atom's way of looking at itself. An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field. Einstein, stop telling God what to do! Every sentence I utter must be understood not as an affirmation, but as a question. Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real. If anybody says he can think about quantum physics without getting giddy, that only shows he has not understood the first thing about them. If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't understood it yet. There are trivial truths and the great truths. The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true. Your theory is crazy, but it's not crazy enough to be true. 
Ernest Rutherford All of physics is either impossible or trivial. It is impossible until you understand it, and then it becomes trivial. All science is either physics or stamp collecting. If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment. The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine. 
Albert Einstein Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy. The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits. Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction. The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking. Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal. Equations are more important to me, because politics is for the present, but an equation is something for eternity. If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut. Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat. If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it? The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. 
Richard Feynman Things on a very small scale [like electrons] behave like nothing that you have any direct experience about. They do not behave like waves, they do not behave like particles, they do not behave like clouds, or billiard balls, or weights on springs, or like anything that you have ever seen. It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong Nobody understands quantum theory. I think I can safely say that nobody understands Quantum Mechanics Physicists like to think that all you have to do is say, these are the conditions, now what happens next? We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress. Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so that each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry. We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on. I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy. There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers. You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird... So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing -- that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool. |