Archive for the ‘Physicist’ Category

Niels Bohr

If anybody says he can think about quantum physics without getting giddy, that only shows he has not understood the first thing about them.
Niels Bohr

Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think.
Niels Bohr

An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field.
Niels Bohr

Every great and deep difficulty bears in itself its own solution. It forces us to change our thinking in order to find it.
Niels Bohr

No, no, you’re not thinking; you’re just being logical.
Niels Bohr

Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.
Niels Bohr

Technology has advanced more in the last thirty years than in the previous two thousand. The exponential increase in advancement will only continue. Anthropological Commentary The opposite of a trivial truth is false; the opposite of a great truth is also true.
Niels Bohr

An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes, which can be made, in a very narrow field.
Niels Bohr

It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how Nature is. Physics concerns what we say about Nature.
Niels Bohr

Einstein, stop telling God what to do!
Niels Bohr

The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.
Niels Bohr

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.
Niels Bohr

A physicist is just an atom’s way of looking at itself.
Niels Bohr

We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough.
Niels Bohr

When it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images.
Niels Bohr

Your theory is crazy, but it’s not crazy enough to be true.
Niels Bohr

Every sentence I utter must be understood not as an affirmation, but as a question.
Niels Bohr

How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress.
Niels Bohr

John S. Bell

It is difficult for me to believe that quantum mechanics, working very well for currently practical set-ups, will nevertheless fail badly with improvements in counter efficiency.
John S. Bell

James Van Allen

These days, it’s really been uninteresting except when disasters occur.
James Van Allen

We had an erector set, and I was an avid fan of Popular Mechanics and Popular Science magazines.
James Van Allen

Our family was very fond of the University of Iowa. We thought it was a good place to go.
James Van Allen

John Arbuthnot

Biography is one of the new terrors of death.
John Arbuthnot

Law is a bottomless pit.
John Arbuthnot

All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies.
John Arbuthnot