Edward Witten Quotes

• There is a difference between knowing what is true and knowing why it is true

  Edward Witten

  Differences, Knowing

  31 Copy quote

• As for the forces, electromagnetism and gravity we experience in everyday life. But the weak and strong forces are beyond our ordinary experience. So in physics, lots of the basic building blocks take 20th- or perhaps 21st-century equipment to explore.

  Edward Witten

  Strong, Block, Everyday

  53 Copy quote

• We know a lot of things, but what we don't know is a lot more.

  Edward Witten

  Knows

  "String theorist Edward Witten gives prize lecture" by Ian Sample, www.theguardian.com. July 27, 2010.

  20 Copy quote

• I have a much easier time imagining how we would understand the big bang, even though we can't do it yet, than I can imagine understanding consciousness.

  Edward Witten

  Understanding, Bangs, Consciousness

  12 Copy quote

• You enter a completely new world where things aren't at all what you're used to.

  Edward Witten

  World, Used, New World

  6 Copy quote

• M stands for Magic, Mystery, or Matrixaccording to taste

  Edward Witten

  Magic, Taste, Mystery

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• Im actually, for the most part, a complete agnostic politically.

  Edward Witten

  Agnostic

  18 Copy quote

• But the beauty of Einstein's equations, for example, is just as real to anyone who's experienced it as the beauty of music. We've learned in the 20th century that the equations that work have inner harmony.

  Edward Witten

  Music, Beauty, Real

  15 Copy quote

• I have a tendency, more than most other physicists, to try to figure out everything all at once, before I publish. And even to try to figure out everything in my head, without pencil and paper.

  Edward Witten

  Trying, Paper, Figures

  19 Copy quote

• 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.

  Edward Witten

  Nature, Simplicity, Physics

  "Viewpoints on String Theory: Edward Witten". "NOVA" interview, www.pbs.org. July 2003.

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• I just think too many nice things have happened in string theory for it to be all wrong. Humans do not understand it very well, but I just don't believe there is a big cosmic conspiracy that created this incredible thing that has nothing to do with the real world.

  Edward Witten

  Real, Nice, Believe

  "Physics' sharpest mind since Einstein" by Candy Crowley, www.cnn.com. July 5, 2005.

  18 Copy quote

• One of the basic things about a string is that it can vibrate in many different shapes or forms, which gives music its beauty.

  Edward Witten

  Beauty, Giving, Different

  7 Copy quote

• Quantum mechanics brought an unexpected fuzziness into physics because of quantum uncertainty, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. String theory does so again because a point particle is replaced by a string, which is more spread out.

  Edward Witten

  Uncertainty Principle, Principles, Doe

  12 Copy quote

• 1/r^2 has a nasty singularity at r=0, but it did not bother Newton-the Moon is far enough.

  Edward Witten

  Moon, Nasty, Newton

  7 Copy quote

• As of now, string theorists have no explanation of why there are three large dimensions as well as time, and the other dimensions are microscopic. Proposals about that have been all over the map.

  Edward Witten

  Time, Three, Maps

  11 Copy quote

• In Einstein's general relativity the structure of space can change but not its topology. Topology is the property of something that doesn't change when you bend it or stretch it as long as you don't break anything.

  Edward Witten

  Change, Space, Long

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• Superstring theories provide a framework in which the force of gravity may be united with the other three forces in nature: the weak, electromagnetic and strong forces. Recent progress has shown that the most promising superstring theories follow from a single theory. For the last generation, physicists have studied five string theories and one close cousin. Recently it has become clear that these five or six theories are different limiting cases of one theory which, though still scarcely understood, is the candidate for superunification of the forces of nature.

  Edward Witten

  Strong, Cousin, Progress

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• So when you ask me how string theory might be tested, I can tell you what's likely to happen at accelerators or some parts of the theory that are likely to be tested.

  Edward Witten

  Might, Strings, Theory

  15 Copy quote

• String theory is an attempt at a deeper description of nature by thinking of an elementary particle not as a little point but as a little loop of vibrating string.

  Edward Witten

  Nature, Thinking, Littles

  9 Copy quote

• String theory is 21 st century physics that fell accidentally into the 20th century.

  Edward Witten

  Physics, Century, Strings

  6 Copy quote

• One very important aspect of string theory is definitely testable. That was the prediction of supersymmetry, which emerged from string theory in the early '70s.

  Edward Witten

  Important, Predictions, Strings

  10 Copy quote

• If I take the theory as we have it now, literally, I would conclude that extra dimensions really exist. They're part of nature. We don't really know how big they are yet, but we hope to explore that in various ways.

  Edward Witten

  Nature, Way, Dimensions

  7 Copy quote

• It's indeed surprising that replacing the elementary particle with a string leads to such a big change in things. I'm tempted to say that it has to do with the fuzziness it introduces.

  Edward Witten

  Change, Introducing, Bigs

  7 Copy quote

• The theory has to be interpreted that extra dimensions beyond the ordinary four dimensions the three spatial dimensions plus time are sufficiently small that they haven't been observed yet.

  Edward Witten

  Time, Ordinary, Three

  9 Copy quote

• As far as extra dimensions are concerned, very tiny extra dimensions wouldn't be perceived in everyday life, just as atoms aren't: we see many atoms together but we don't see atoms individually.

  Edward Witten

  Teamwork, Everyday, Together

  7 Copy quote

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