Niels Bohr Quotes About Science

Quotes about: Science

• A physicist is just an atom's way of looking at itself.

  Niels Bohr

  Science, Alaska, Atoms

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

  Niels Bohr

  Inspirational, Encouraging, Education

• 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

  Inspirational, Life, Science

• Your theory is crazy, but it's not crazy enough to be true.

  Niels Bohr

  Crazy, Science, Technology

  "First Philosophy: The Theory of Everything". Book by Spencer Scoular, 2007.

• The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth.

  Niels Bohr

  Truth, Science, Opposites

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

  Niels Bohr

  Science, Understanding, Selfless

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

• A visitor to Niels Bohr's country cottage, noticing a horseshoe hanging on the wall, teasing the eminent scientist about this ancient superstition. "Can it be true that you, of all people, believe it will bring you luck?'
  'Of course not,' replied Bohr, 'but I understand it brings you luck whether you believe it or not.'

  Niels Bohr

  Country, Wall, Believe

• When asked ... [about] an underlying quantum world, Bohr would answer, 'There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract quantum physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about Nature.'

  Niels Bohr

  Nature, Science, Thinking

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

  Niels Bohr

  Inspirational, Science, Thinking

  "Values of the Wise: Humanity's Highest Aspirations". Book by Jason Merchey, 2003.

• When it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry.

  Niels Bohr

  Science, Atoms, Language

  Niels Bohr's response to questions on the nature of language during his first meeting with Werner Heisenberg (Summer 1920), as quoted in "Discussions about Language", 1933, in Robert J. Pranger "Defense Implications of International Indeterminacy" (p. 11), 1972, and in Steve Giles "Theorizing Modernism: Essays in Critical Theory" (p. 28), 1993.

• Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it.

  Niels Bohr

  Science, Firsts, Physics

  "The Philosophical Writings of Niels Bohr, Volume IV: Causality and Complementarity" edited by Jan Faye and Henry J. Folse (1998); later quoted in Karen Michelle Barad "Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning" (p. 254), 2007.

• If you aren't confused by quantum mechanics, you haven't really understood it.

  Niels Bohr

  Confused, Science, Mechanic

• When searching for harmony in life one must never forget that in the drama of existence we are ourselves both actors and spectators.

  Niels Bohr

  Life, Drama, Science

  Niels Bohr (2010). “Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge”, p.63, Courier Dover Publications

• What is that we human beings ultimately depend on? We depend on our words. We are suspended in language. Our task is to communicate experience and ideas to others.

  Niels Bohr

  Science, Ideas, Tasks

• Prediction is difficult, especially the future.

  Niels Bohr

  Science, Predictions, Difficult

• The present state of atomic theory is characterized by the fact that we not only believe the existence of atoms to be proved beyond a doubt, but also we even believe that we have an intimate knowledge of the constituents of the individual atoms.

  Niels Bohr

  Believe, Science, Doubt

  Niels Bohr (1977). “The Periodic System (1920-1923)”, p.467, Elsevier

• An independant reality in the ordinary physical sense can neither be ascribed to the phenomenon nor to the agencies of observation.

  Niels Bohr

  Science, Reality, Agency

  Niels Bohr (2011). “Atomic Theory and the Description of Nature: Four Essays with an Introductory Survey”, p.54, Cambridge University Press

• One thought spectra are marvellous, but it is not possible to make progress there. Just as if you have the wing of a butterfly then certainly it is very regular with the colors and so on, but nobody thought one could get the basis of biology from the coloring of the wing of a butterfly.

  Niels Bohr

  Butterfly, Science, Color

• You must come to Copenhagen to work with us. We like people who can actually perform thought experiments!

  Niels Bohr

  Science, People, Copenhagen

• A person who wasn't outraged on first hearing about quantum theory didn't understand what had been said.

  Niels Bohr

  Funny, Science, Hearing

• In physics we deal with states of affairs much simpler than those of psychology and yet we again and again learn that our task is not to investigate the essence of things-we do not at all know what this would mean&mash;but to develop those concepts that allow us to speak with each other about the events of nature in a fruitful manner.

  Niels Bohr

  Knowledge, Mean, Science

• Truth is something that we can attempt to doubt, and then perhaps, after much exertion, discover that part of the doubt is not justified.

  Niels Bohr

  Truth, Science, Discovery

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