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Richard P. Feynman Quotes - Page 15

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People may come along and argue philosophically that they like one better than another; but we have learned from much experience that all philosophical intuitions about what nature is going to do fail.

People may come along and argue philosophically that they like one better than another; but we have learned from much experience that all philosophical intuitions about what nature is going to do fail.

Richard P. Feynman
Philosophical, People, Intuition

Any schemes - such as 'think of symmetry laws', or 'put the information in mathematical form', or 'guess equations'- are known to everybody now, and they are all tried all the time. When you are stuck, the answer cannot be one of these, because you will have tried these right away...The next scheme, the new discovery, is going to be made in a completely different way.

Richard P. Feynman
Thinking, Discovery, Law

From a long view of the history of mankind, seen from, say, ten thousand years from now, there can be little doubt that the most significant event of the 19th century will be judged as Maxwell's discovery of the laws of electrodynamics. The American Civil War will pale into provincial insignificance in comparison with this important scientific event of the same decade.

Richard P. Feynman
War, Discovery, Views
Richard P. Feynman (2015). “The Quotable Feynman”, p.13, Princeton University Press

In those days, in Far Rockaway, there was a youth center for Jewish kids at the temple.... Somebody nominated me for president of the youth center. The elders began getting nervous, because I was an avowed atheist by that time.... I thought nature itself was so interesting that I didn't want it distorted like that. And so I gradually came to disbelieve the whole religion.

Richard P. Feynman
Atheist, Kids, Interesting

A poet once said, "The whole universe is in a glass of wine." We will probably never know in what sense he meant that, for poets do not write to be understood. But it is true that if we look at a glass of wine closely enough we see the entire universe.

Richard P. Feynman
Writing, Wine, Glasses
Richard P. Feynman, Robert B. Leighton, Matthew Sands (2013). “The Feynman Lectures on Physics, vol. 1 for tablets”, Basic Books

The present situation in physics is as if we know chess, but we don't know one or two rules.

Richard P. Feynman
Science, Two, Chess

Some people think Wheeler's gotten crazy in his later years, but he's always been crazy.

Richard P. Feynman
Crazy, Thinking, Years

We can deduce, often, from one part of physics like the law of gravitation, a principle which turns out to be much more valid than the derivation.

Richard P. Feynman
Law, Principles, Physics
"The Character of Physical Law". Book by Richard P. Feynman, 1965.

I learned a lot of different things from different schools. MIT is a very good place…. It has developed for itself a spirit, so that every member of the whole place thinks that it’s the most wonderful place in the world—it’s the center, somehow, of scientific and technological development in the United States, if not the world … and while you don’t get a good sense of proportion there, you do get an excellent sense of being with it and in it, and having motivation and desire to keep on

Richard P. Feynman
Motivation, Learning, School

Only realistic flight schedules should be proposed, schedules that have a reasonable chance of being met. If in this way the government would not support them, then so be it. NASA owes it to the citizens from whom it asks support to be frank, honest, and informative.

Richard P. Feynman
Government, Safety, Support
Richard P. Feynman (2011). “"What Do You Care What Other People Think?": Further Adventures of a Curious Character”, p.253, W. W. Norton & Company

We scientists are clever — too clever — are you not satisfied? Is four square miles in one bomb not enough? Men are still thinking. Just tell us how big you want it!

Richard P. Feynman
Clever, Men, Thinking
Richard P. Feynman (2015). “The Quotable Feynman”, p.260, Princeton University Press

People are always asking for the latest developments in the unification of this theory with that theory, and they don't give us a chance to tell them anything about what we know pretty well. They always want to know the things we don't know.

Richard P. Feynman
People, Giving, Asking
Richard P. Feynman (2014). “QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter”, p.3, Princeton University Press

Science is a way for us to not fool ourselves.

Richard P. Feynman
Way, Fool

When the problem [quantum chromodynamics] is finally solved, it will all be by imagination. Then there will be some big thing about the great way it was done. But it's simple -it will all be by imagination, and persistence.

Richard P. Feynman
Learning, Persistence, Simple

One does not, by knowing all the physical laws as we know them today, immediately obtain an understanding of anything much. I love only nature, and I hate mathematicians.

Richard P. Feynman
Hate, Law, Knowing

I am going to tell you what nature behaves like. If you will simply admit that maybe she does behave like this, you will find her a delightful, entrancing thing. Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, 'But how can it be like that?' ...Nobody knows how it can be like that.

Richard P. Feynman
Science, Doe, Physics
"The Character of Physical Law". Book by Richard P. Feynman, 1965.

On the contrary, it's because somebody knows something about it that we can't talk about physics . It's the things that nobody knows anything about that we can discuss. We can talk about the weather; we can talk about social problems; we can talk about psychology; we can talk about international finance gold transfers we can't talk about, because those are understood so it's the subject that nobody knows anything about that we can all talk about!

Richard P. Feynman
Weather, Psychology, Gold
"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!". Book by Richard P. Feynman, 1985.

Phenomena complex-laws simple....Know what to leave out.

Richard P. Feynman
Simple, Law, Simplicity

In a way, the Nobel Prize has been something of a pain in the neck, though there was at least one time that I got some fun out of it, Shortly after I won the Prize, Gweneth and I received an invitation from the Brazilian government to be the guests of honor at the Carnaval celebrations in Rio.

Richard P. Feynman
Fun, Pain, Government

Everybody who reasons carefully about anything is making a contribution ... and if you abstract it away and send it to the Department of Mathematics they put it in books.

Richard P. Feynman
Book, Reason, Mathematics

It is to be emphasized that no matter how many [amplitude] arrows we draw, add, or multiply, our objective is to calculate a single final arrow for the event . Mistakes are often made by physics students at first because they do not keep this important point in mind. They work for so long analyzing events involving a single photon that they begin to think that the arrow is somehow associated with the photon [rather than with the event].

Richard P. Feynman
Mistake, Thinking, Arrows
Richard P. Feynman (2014). “QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter”, p.75, Princeton University Press

No one really understands quantum mechanics.

Richard P. Feynman
Mechanic, Quantum, Quantum Mechanics
"Does quantum mechanics carry the seeds of its own destruction?". Physics World magazine, 1991.

There is one simplification at least. Electrons behave ... in exactly the same way as photons; they are both screwy, but in exactly in the same way.

Richard P. Feynman
Way, Behave, Electrons

It requires a much higher degree of imagination to understand the electromagnetic field than to understand invisible angels. ... I speak of the E and B fields and wave my arms and you may imagine that I can see them ... [but] I cannot really make a picture that is even nearly like the true waves.

Richard P. Feynman
Angel, Imagination, Degrees
"The Feynman Lectures on Physics". Book by Richard P. Feynman, 1964.

We are very lucky to be living in an age in which we are still making discoveries. It is like the discovery of America-you only discover it once. The age in which we live is the age in which we are discovering the fundamental laws of nature, and that day will never come again. It is very exciting, it is marvelous, but this excitement will have to go.

Richard P. Feynman
Nature, Science, Discovery

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