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Richard P. Feynman Quotes - Page 11

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The problem of creating something new, but which is consistent with everything which has been seen before, is one of extreme difficulty.

The problem of creating something new, but which is consistent with everything which has been seen before, is one of extreme difficulty.

Richard P. Feynman
Creating, Problem, Something New
Richard P. Feynman, Robert B. Leighton, Matthew Sands (2015). “The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol. II: The New Millennium Edition: Mainly Electromagnetism and Matter”, p.679, Basic Books

As usual, nature's imagination far surpasses our own, as we have seen from the other theories which are subtle and deep.

Richard P. Feynman
Nature, Imagination, Usual
Richard P. Feynman (2015). “The Quotable Feynman”, p.128, Princeton University Press

The other thing that gives a scientific man the creeps in the world today are the methods of choosing leaders - in every nation. Today, for example, in the United States, the two political parties have decided to employ public relations men, that is, advertising men, who are trained in the necessary methods of telling the truth or lying in order to develop a product.

Richard P. Feynman
Lying, Party, Men

Nature isn't classical, dammit, and if you want to make a simulation of nature, you'd better make it quantum mechanical, and by golly it's a wonderful problem, because it doesn't look so easy.

Richard P. Feynman
Looks, Want, Problem
Richard P. Feynman (2015). “The Quotable Feynman”, p.76, Princeton University Press

I'm trying to find out NOT how Nature could be, but how Nature IS.

Richard P. Feynman
Trying
Richard P. Feynman (2015). “The Quotable Feynman”, p.69, Princeton University Press

The work I have done has, already, been adequately rewarded and recognized. Imagination reaches out repeatedly trying to achieve some higher level of understanding, until suddenly I find myself momentarily alone before one new corner of nature's pattern of beauty and true majesty revealed. That was my reward.

Richard P. Feynman
Science, Imagination, Understanding
Richard P. Feynman (2008). “Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track: The Letters of Richard P. Feynman”, p.32, Hachette UK

I am not interested in what today's mathematicians find interesting.

Richard P. Feynman
Interesting, Today, Mathematician
Richard P. Feynman (2015). “The Quotable Feynman”, p.232, Princeton University Press

When a photon comes down, it interacts with electrons throughout the glass, not just on the surface. The photon and electrons do some kind of dance, the net result of which is the same as if the photon hit only on the surface.

Richard P. Feynman
Glasses, Kind, Results
Richard P. Feynman (2014). “QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter”, p.17, Princeton University Press

Scientific knowledge is an enabling power to do either good or bad — but it does not carry instructions on how to use it.

Richard P. Feynman
Doe, Use, Enabling
Richard P. Feynman (2015). “The Quotable Feynman”, p.126, Princeton University Press

Just as a poet often has license from the rules of grammar and pronunciation, we should like to ask for 'physicists' license from the rules of mathematics in order to express what we wish to say in as simple a manner as possible.

Richard P. Feynman
Simple, Order, Wish

If you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid - not only what you think is right about it; other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked -to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.

Richard P. Feynman
Thinking, Might, Causes
"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character". Book by Ralph Leighton and Richard R. Feynman, 1985.

I have to keep going to find out ultimately what is the matter with it in the end.

Richard P. Feynman
Matter, Ends, Keep Going

Scientific views end in awe and mystery, lost at the edge in uncertainty, but they appear to be so deep and so impressive that the theory that it is all arranged as a stage for God to watch man's struggle for good and evil seems inadequate.

Richard P. Feynman
Fear, Struggle, Men
Richard P. Feynman (2015). “The Quotable Feynman”, p.119, Princeton University Press

The same equations have the same solutions

Richard P. Feynman
Equations, Solutions
Richard P. Feynman, Robert B. Leighton, Matthew Sands (2015). “The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol. III: The New Millennium Edition: Quantum Mechanics”, p.307, Basic Books

It is in the admission of ignorance and the admission of uncertainty that there is a hope for the continuous motion of human beings in some direction that doesn't get confined, permanently blocked, as it has so many times before in various periods in the history of man.

Richard P. Feynman
Ignorance, Men, Thinking
"The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen Scientist (lecture II: "The Uncertainty of Values")". Book by Richard P. Feynman, 1998.

If science is to progress, what we need is the ability to experiment, honesty in reporting results—the results must be reported without somebody saying what they would like the results to have been—and finally—an important thing—the intelligence to interpret the results.

Richard P. Feynman
Honesty, Intelligence, Important
Richard P. Feynman (2015). “The Quotable Feynman”, p.130, Princeton University Press

To test whether you have learned an idea or a definition, rephrase what you just learned without using the new word.

Richard P. Feynman
Ideas, Definitions, Tests

If you can find any other view of the world which agrees over the entire range where things have already been observed, but disagrees somewhere else, you have made a great discovery.

Richard P. Feynman
Discovery, Views, Somewhere Else

I find that teaching and the students keep life going, and I would never accept any position in which somebody has invented a happy situation for me where I don't have to teach. Never.

Richard P. Feynman
Teaching, Students, Accepting
Richard P Feynman (2014). “Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman: Adventures of a Curious Character as Told to Ralph Leighton”, p.166, Random House

Strange! I don't understand how it is that we can write mathematical expressions and calculate what the thing is going to do without being able to picture it.

Richard P. Feynman
Writing, Expression, Able

The unanswerable mysteries... the attitude that all is uncertain... to summarize it - the humility of the intellect.

Richard P. Feynman
Attitude, Humility, Pride

If you keep proving stuff that others have done, getting confidence, increasing the complexities of your solutions - for the fun of it - then one day you'll turn around and discover that nobody actually did that one! And that's the way to become a computer scientist.

Richard P. Feynman
Fun, One Day, Done

Therefore psychologically we must keep all the theories in our heads, and every theoretical physicist who is any good knows six or seven different theoretical representations for exactly the same physics.

Richard P. Feynman
Different, Six, Physics
Richard P. Feynman (2015). “The Quotable Feynman”, p.161, Princeton University Press

It is our responsibility to leave the people of the future a free hand.

Richard P. Feynman
Responsibility, Hands, People
"What Do You Care What Other People Think". Book by Richard P. Feynman, 1988.

A person talks in such generalities that everyone can understand him and it's considered to be some deep philosophy. However, I would like to be very rather more special and I would like to be understood in an honest way, rather than in a vague way.

Richard P. Feynman
Philosophy, Special, Way
"The Character of Physical Law". Richard P. Feynman's Messenger Lectures at Cornell University (November 1964), later quoted in his book "The Character of Physical Law" (Chapter 1 "The Law of Gravitation", p. 13), www.youtube.com. 1965.

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