Theoretical Physics Quotes

• The first thing to realize about physics ... is its extraordinary indirectness.... For physics is not about the real world, it is about "abstractions" from the real world, and this is what makes it so scientific.... Theoretical physics runs merrily along with these unreal abstractions, but its conclusions are checked, at every possible point, by experiments.

  Anthony Standen

  Running, Real, Science

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• The chief difficulty of modern theoretical physics resides not in the fact that it expresses itself almost exclusively in mathematical symbols, but in the psychological difficulty of supposing that complete nonsense can be seriously promulgated and transmitted by persons who have sufficient intelligence of some kind to perform operations in differential and integral calculus.

  Celia Green

  Science, Supposing That, Facts

  Celia Elizabeth Green (1976). “The decline and fall of science”, Hamish Hamilton

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• I am now convinced that theoretical physics is actually philosophy.

  Max Born

  Philosophy, Convinced, Physics

  "Schrodinger : Life and Thought" by Walter J. Moore, (p. 1), 1992.

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• The methods of theoretical physics should be applicable to all those branches of thought in which the essential features are expressible with numbers.

  Paul Dirac

  Numbers, Essentials, Branches

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• It is odd, but on the infrequent occasions when I have been called upon in a formal place to play the bongo drums, the introducer never seems to find it necessary to mention that I also do theoretical physics.

  Richard P. Feynman

  Science, Play, Odd

  Richard P. Feynman (2015). “The Quotable Feynman”, p.102, Princeton University Press

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• 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

  Learning, Thinking, Tasks

  "The philosophy of Niels Bohr" by Aage Petersen in "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists", Volume 19, No. 7 (September 1963), as quoted in Abraham Pais "The Genius of Science: A Portrait Gallery" (p. 24), 2000, and in Paul McEvoy "Niels Bohr: Reflections on Subject and Object" (p. 291), October 2000.

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• In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.

  Carl Sagan

  Change, Learning, Humility

  Keynote address at CSICOP conference in 1987. "Do Science and the Bible Conflict?" Book by Judson Poling, p. 30, 2003.

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• In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken..."

  Carl Sagan

  Change, Science, Dna

  Keynote address at CSICOP conference, 1987.

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• I have tried to read philosophers of all ages and have found many illuminating ideas but no steady progress toward deeper knowledge and understanding. Science, however, gives me the feeling of steady progress: I am convinced that theoretical physics is actual philosophy. It has revolutionized fundamental concepts, e.g., about space and time (relativity), about causality (quantum theory), and about substance and matter (atomistics), and it has taught us new methods of thinking (complementarity) which are applicable far beyond physics.

  Max Born

  Philosophy, Knowledge, Science

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• I recognize that many physicists are smarter than I am-most of them theoretical physicists. A lot of smart people have gone into theoretical physics, therefore the field is extremely competitive. I console myself with the thought that although they may be smarter and may be deeper thinkers than I am, I have broader interests than they have.

  Linus Pauling

  Smart, People, May

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• If the aim of physical theories is to explain experimental laws, theoretical physics is not an autonomous science; it is subordinate to metaphysics.

  Pierre Duhem

  Science, Law, Theory

  "The aim and structure of physical theory". Book by Pierre Duhem, p. 10, 1991.

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• What appear to be the most valuable aspects of the theoretical physics we have are the mathematical descriptions which enable us to predict events. These equations are, we would argue, the only realities we can be certain of in physics; any other ways we have of thinking about the situation are visual aids or mnemonics which make it easier for beings with our sort of macroscopic experience to use and remember the equations.

  Celia Green

  Reality, Thinking, Events

  "The Lost Cause: Causation and the Mind-body Problem". Book by Celia Green, 2003.

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• It would of course be a great step forward if we succeeded in combining the gravitational field and the electromagnetic field into a single structure. Only so could the era in theoretical physics inaugurated by Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell be brought to a satisfactory close.

  Albert Einstein

  Clerks, Eras, Fields

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• Alchemy and Kabbalah are later developments in my thinking. I think the primary interest has been the relationship of magic and mystery to logic and understanding. Those are the primary driving forces of my life. I have this ability, for some reason, to be able to hold both the Magical MysteryTour we're on in conjunction with the logical rigor of understanding theoretical physics, which makes me kind of a rare bird, because usually you're one or the other.

  Fred Alan Wolf

  Thinking, Bird, Understanding

  Source: www.edgemagazine.net

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• It is tribute to how far we have come in theoretical physics that it now takes enormous machines and a great deal of money to perform experiments whose results we can not predict.

  Stephen Hawking

  Machines, Results, Enormous

  Stephen W. Hawking (1993). “Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays”, Bantam

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• I started out in nuclear physics. But after I became more sensitized to the environmental and health implications of the nuclear system - I was being trained to be the first women in the fast-breeder reactor in India (and was in it when it first went critical) - I didn't feel comfortable with it. So I went into theoretical physics.

  Vandana Shiva

  Environmental, India, Nuclear

  Source: scottlondon.com

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• But, contrary to the lady's prejudices about the engineering profession, the fact is that quite some time ago the tables were turned between theory and applications in the physical sciences. Since World War II the discoveries that have changed the world are not made so much in lofty halls of theoretical physics as in the less-noticed labs of engineering and experimental physics. The roles of pure and applied science have been reversed; they are no longer what they were in the golden age of physics, in the age of Einstein, Schrödinger, Fermi and Dirac.

  Nicholas Metropolis

  War, Science, Engineering

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• Is the purpose of theoretical physics to be no more than a cataloging of all the things that can happen when particles interact with each other and seperate? Or is it to be an understanding at a deeper level in which there are things that are not directly observable (as the underlying quantized fields are) but in terms of which we shall have a more fundamental understanding?

  Julian Schwinger

  Understanding, Purpose, Fundamentals

  Julian Schwinger (2013). “Quantum Mechanics: Symbolism of Atomic Measurements”, p.25, Springer Science & Business Media

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• At present, when the prevailing forms of society have become hindrances to the free expression of human powers, it is precisely the abstract branches of science, mathematics and theoretical physics, which ... offer a less distorted form of knowledge than other branches of science which are interwoven with the pattern of daily life, and the practicality of which seemingly testifies to their realistic character.

  Max Horkheimer

  Character, Expression, Branches

  Max Horkheimer (1972). “Critical Theory: Selected Essays”, p.133, A&C Black

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• Now these two questions Does there exist a material reality distinct from sensible appearances? and What is the nature of reality? do not have their source in experimental method, which is acquainted only with sensible appearances and can discover nothing beyond them. The resolution of these questions transcends the methods used by physics; it is the object of metaphysics. Therefore, if the aim of physical theories is to explain experimental laws, theoretical physics is not an autonomous science; it is subordinate to metaphysics.

  Pierre Duhem

  Reality, Two, Law

  "The aim and structure of physical theory". Book by Pierre Duhem, translated by Philip P. Wiener, p. 10, 1991.

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• I think my dad [ Stephen Hawking] would have been pleased if I had turned out a scientist because he truly believes that is the most interesting career open to anyone. But he also believes that you have to follow your own path in life and so he certainly wasn't going to push me toward theoretical physics when it didn't look like I was going in that direction naturally.

  Stephen Hawking

  Dad, Believe, Thinking

  "Q & A: Stephen Hawking and daughter Lucy". Today Interview, www.nbcnews.com. November 1, 2007.

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• In some ways I'm a frustrated scientist or mathematician. The amount of times I've thought I'd go back to university and do theoretical physics because I like the big questions, but really I know now that that's not quite me. What's me is to do it in novels.

  Scarlett Thomas

  Frustrated, Way, Scientist

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• The pace of science forces the pace of technique. Theoretical physics forces atomic energy on us; the successful production of the fission bomb forces upon us the manufacture of the hydrogen bomb. We do not choose our problems, we do not choose our products; we are pushed, we are forced -- by what? By a system which has no purpose and goal transcending it, and which makes man its appendix.

  Erich Fromm

  Science, Successful, Men

  1955 The Sane Society.

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• What I remember most clearly was that when I put down a suggestion that seemed to me cogent and reasonable, Einstein did not in the least contest this, but he only said, 'Oh, how ugly.' As soon as an equation seemed to him to be ugly, he really rather lost interest in it and could not understand why somebody else was willing to spend much time on it. He was quite convinced that beauty was a guiding principle in the search for important results in theoretical physics.

  Hermann Bondi

  Science, Guiding Principles, Important

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• Ive always really been into science, and in the last five years Ive gotten into theoretical physics and the origins of the universe.

  Adam Pascal

  Years, Lasts, Five

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