Mechanic Quotes - Page 8

• Quantum field theory, which was born just fifty years ago from the marriage of quantum mechanics with relativity, is a beautiful but not very robust child.

  Steven Weinberg

  Marriage, Beauty, Beautiful

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• Celestial mechanics is the origin of dynamical systems, linear algebra, topology, variational calculus and symplectic geometry.

  Vladimir Arnold

  Mathematics, Topology, Linear

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• All mathematics is divided into three parts: cryptography (paid for by CIA, KGB and the like), hydrodynamics (supported by manufacturers of atomic submarines) and celestial mechanics (financed by military and other institutions dealing with missiles, such as NASA).

  Vladimir Arnold

  Military, Kgb, Three

  "Polymathematics: is mathematics a single science or a set of arts?". Mathematics: Frontiers and Perspectives, edited by V. I. Arnold, M. Atiyah, P. Lax, and B. Mazur, pp. 403 - 416, 2000.

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• There is no term comparable to green thumbs to apply to such a mechanic, but there should be. For there are men who can look, listen, tap, make an adjustment, and a machine works.

  John Steinbeck

  Men, Looks, Machines

  John Steinbeck (1993). “Cannery Row”, p.35, Penguin

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• Embedded in this outlook is an idea of the body as a machine, so that illness is seen as a breakdown of the machine, healing involves repairing the broken parts, and a doctor is a kind of mechanic with medications as his or her tools.

  Russell Shorto

  Healing, Doctors, Ideas

  Russell Shorto (2008). “Descartes' Bones: A Skeletal History of the Conflict between Faith and Reason”, p.13, Vintage

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• As far as the mechanics go, working with other people on received ideas was for me a very interesting technical problem. I can't say that any of my collaborations engaged my heart, but they engaged the craftsman in me.

  Robert Sheckley

  Heart, Ideas, People

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• To my mind this makes psychedelics central to any political reconstruction, because these are the only force in nature that actually dissolve linguistics structures; lets the mechanics of syntax to be visible, allows the possibility for rapid introduction and spread of new concepts; gives permission for new ways of seeing; and this is what we have to do, we have to change our minds.

  Terence McKenna

  Giving, Political, Mind

  "History Ends in Green". Terence McKenna's eight-hour lecture at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, www.youtube.com. 1989.

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• The basic formulation, or bare-bones mechanics, of natural selection is a disarmingly simple argument, based on three undeniable facts (overproduction of offspring, variation, and heritability) and one syllogistic inference (natural selection, or the claim that organisms enjoying differential reproductive success will, on average, be those variants that are fortuitously better adapted to changing local environments, and that these variants will then pass their favored traits to offspring by inheritance).

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Simple, Average, Atheism

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• Nine-tenths of the people are at present freeholders... The time is not distant when this country will abound with mechanics and manufacturers who will receive their bread from their employers. Will such men be the secure and faithful guardians of liberty? Give the votes to people who have no property, and they will sell them to the rich who will be able to buy them.

  Gouverneur Morris

  Wisdom, Country, Men

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• Quantum mechanics as it stands would be perfect if we didn’t have the quantum-gravity issue and a few other very deep fundamental problems.

  Gerard 't Hooft

  Issues, Perfect, Would Be

  "Does Some Deeper Level of Physics Underlie Quantum Mechanics? An Interview with Nobelist Gerard 't Hooft". Interview with George Musser, blogs.scientificamerican.com. October 7, 2013.

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• [The Many-worlds interpretation is the] only completely coherent approach to explaining both the contents of quantum mechanics and the appearance of the world.

  Hugh Everett III

  World, Appearance, Quantum

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• On every full moon, rituals ... take place on hilltops, beaches, in open fields and in ordinary houses. Writers, teachers, nurses, computer programmers, artists, lawyers, poets, plumbers, and auto mechanics -- women and men from many backgrounds come together to celebrate the mysteries of the Triple Goddess of the Dance of Life. The religion they practice is called Witchcraft.

  Starhawk

  Teacher, Beach, Men

  Starhawk (1999). “Spiral Dance: Slipcase”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• A gifted experimentalist, and theoretician, in the best Newtonian tradition... His contributions to quantum measurements, and elucidative teachings on quantum mechanics, have not yet received the attention they deserve.

  Willis Lamb

  Teaching, Measurement, Attention

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• Can quantum mechanics represent the fact that an electron finds itself approximately in a given place and that it moves approximately with a given velocity, and can we make these approximations so close that they do not cause experimental difficulties?

  Werner Heisenberg

  Moving, Velocity, Causes

  Werner Heisenberg (1985). “Gesammelte Werke”, Springer

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• It was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to the consciousness.

  Eugene Wigner

  Law, Way, Consciousness

  Eugene Paul Wigner (2012). “Philosophical Reflections and Syntheses”, p.248, Springer Science & Business Media

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• The valuable properties of this cement depend in a great measure on the mode of preparing it for use. The mixing should therefore be conducted with care in order to form a perfect union of the powdered cement, sand and water. This can be best accomplished by the use of the New England corn hoe on a board floor or by beating with a hand stamper; not much labour is required if properly applied. Mechanics can judge when the mixture is perfect by the appearance of the mortar, which, when properly prepared, very much resembles putty.

  Canvass White

  Engineering, Hands, Order

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• Made poetry a mere mechanic art.

  William Cowper

  Art, Poetry, Made

  'Table Talk' (1782) l. 654 (on Pope)

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• Clearing his throat, Kai murmured, "You have no idea how to dance, do you?" Cinder fixed her gaze on him, mind still reeling. "I'm a mechanic." His eyebrows raised mockingly. "Believe me, I noticed. Are those grease stains on the gloves I gave you?

  Marissa Meyer

  Believe, Eyebrows, Ideas

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• Now let's take up the minorities in our civilisation, shall we? Bigger the population, the more minorities. Don't step on the toes of the dog-lovers, the cat-lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico. The people in this book, this play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters, cartographers, mechanics anywhere. The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that!

  Ray Bradbury

  Dog, Book, Cat

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• Even after all this time, I keep forgetting that heroes can be found in unlikely places and persons -- like mechanics who can turn into coyotes.

  Patricia Briggs

  Hero, Coyotes, Forget

  Patricia Briggs (2011). “The Mercy Thompson Collection”, p.436, Penguin

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• It is a truism that the structure of a society is basically determined by its technology. Not in an absolute sense-there may be totally different cultures using identical tools-but the tools settle the possibilities; you can't have interstellar trade without spaceships. A race limited to a single planet, possessing a high knowledge of mechanics but with its basic machines of industry and war requiring a large capital investment, will inevitably tend toward collectivism under one name or another. Free enterprise needs elbow room.

  Poul Anderson

  War, Technology, Names

  Poul Anderson (2011). “Trader to the Stars: Polesotechnic League”, p.26, Hachette UK

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• I find it only natural for a storyteller to be interested in storytelling and, for anyone who spends the better part of his or her life writing fiction, it is hardly surprising that the pleasures, worries, and mechanics of fiction-making should enter the work.

  Norman Lock

  Writing, Worry, Fiction

  Source: therumpus.net

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• I favour an interpretation of quantum mechanics (the 'Everett interpretation') according to which reality branches in any chancy quantum situation. On this view, Schrödinger's set-up will give rise to in two future branches of reality, one with a live cat, and one with a dead cat - and the talk of '50% chances' just indicates that the two branches are both equally real futures of the cat that originally entered the box.

  David Papineau

  Real, Cat, Views

  "Physical". Interview with Richard Marshall, www.3ammagazine.com. April 8, 2013.

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• In quantum mechanics there is A causing B. The equations do not stand outside that usual paradigm of physics. The real issue is that the kinds of things you predict in quantum mechanics are different from the kinds of things you predict using general relativity. Quantum mechanics, that big, new, spectacular remarkable idea is that you only predict probabilities, the likelihood of one outcome or another. That's the new idea.

  Brian Greene

  Real, Ideas, Issues

  "Professor Brian Greene answers everything you wanted to know about string theory and the multiverse". "Lateline", www.abc.net.au. February 26, 2016.

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• And in that narrow cockpit I wept, as I shall never weep again, when I felt the concrete brush against his wheels and, with a great sweep of the wrist, dropped him on the ground like a cut flower. As always, I carefully cleared the engine, turned off all the switches one by one, removed the straps, the wires and the tubes which tied me to him, like a child to his mother. And when my waiting pilots and my mechanics saw my downcast eyes and my shaking shoulders, they understood and returned to the dispersal in silence.

  Pierre Clostermann

  Mother, Children, Flower

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