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b8fd645 the imagination of nature is far, far greater than the imagination of man. man nature Richard P. Feynman
1dfea06 The things that mattered were honesty, independence, willingness to admit ignorance. Richard P. Feynman
b100b8e That was a very good way to get educated, working on the senior problems and learning how to pronounce things. Richard P. Feynman
de9401c the whole problem of discovering what was the matter, and figuring out what you have to do to fix it-that was interesting to me, like a puzzle Richard P. Feynman
e9080da I wouldn't stop until I figured the damn thing out-it would take me fifteen or twenty minutes. But during the day, other guys would come to me with the same problem, and I'd do it for them in a flash. So for one guy, to do it took me twenty minutes, while there were five guys who thought I was a super-genius. Richard P. Feynman
73a4d85 We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress we must recognize our ignorance and leave room for doubt. Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty--some most unsure, some nearly sure, but none absolutely certain. Richard P. Feynman
7ff690a I think we should teach them [the people] wonders and that the purpose of knowledge is to appreciate wonders even more. science physicscs Richard P. Feynman
d04195d I've always been rather very one-sided about the science, and when I was younger, I concentrated almost all my effort on it. I didn't have time to learn, and I didn't have much patience for what's called the humanities; even though in the university there were humanities that you had to take, I tried my best to avoid somehow to learn anything and to work on it. It's only afterwards, when I've gotten older and more relaxed that I've spread o.. Richard P. Feynman
31f0075 I learned from my father to translate: everything I read I try to figure out what it really means, what it's really saying. Richard P. Feynman
90a2eb2 if we were to name the most powerful assumption of all, which leads one on and on in an attempt to understand life, it is that all things are made of atoms, and that everything that living things do can be understood in terms of the jigglings and wigglings of atoms. Richard P. Feynman
84d9f49 How much do you value life?" "Sixty-four." Richard P. Feynman
5af6e3e Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can--if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong--to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem. When you have put a lot of ideas together to make a.. theory scientific-method Richard P. Feynman
d422087 There is a most profound and beautiful question associated with the observed coupling constant, e - the amplitude for a real electron to emit or absorb a real photon. It is a simple number that has been experimentally determined to be close to 0.08542455. (My physicist friends won't recognize this number, because they like to remember it as the inverse of its square: about 137.03597 with about an uncertainty of about 2 in the last decimal p.. Richard P. Feynman
4438104 Once you start doubting, just like you're supposed to doubt, you ask me if the science is true. You say no, we don't know what's true, we're trying to find out and everything is possibly wrong. Richard P. Feynman
c99c3ff 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?' because you will get 'down the drain', into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that. Richard P. Feynman
a15c086 So our problem is to explain where symmetry comes from. Why is nature so nearly symmetrical? No one has any idea why. The only thing we might suggest is something like this: There is a gate in Japan, a gate in Neiko, which is sometimes called by the Japanese the most beautiful gate in all Japan; it was built in a time when there was great influence from Chinese art. This gate is very elaborate, with lots of gables and beautiful carving and .. Richard P. Feynman
07b4a70 Of course, I am interested, but I would not dare to talk about them. In talking about the impact of ideas in one field on ideas in another field, one is always apt to make a fool of oneself. In these days of specialization there are too few people who have such a deep understanding of two departments of our knowledge that they do not make fools of themselves in one or the other. learning self-awareness specialization thought-provoking Richard P. Feynman
41c584c There were a lot of fools at that conference--pompous fools--and pompous fools drive me up the wall. Ordinary fools are all right; you can talk to them, and try to help them out. Richard P. Feynman
db9d6c6 Things on a very small scale behave like nothing that you have any direct experience about. Richard P. Feynman
6de52a8 psychoanalysis is not a science: it is at best a medical process, and perhaps even more like witch-doctoring. Richard P. Feynman
721efde I have a friend who's an artist, and he sometimes takes a view which I don't agree with. He'll hold up a flower and say, "Look how beautiful it is," and I'll agree. But then he'll say, "I, as an artist, can see how beautiful a flower is. But you, as a scientist, take it all apart and it becomes dull." I think he's kind of nutty. ... There are all kinds of interesting questions that come from a knowledge of science, which only adds to the ex.. Richard P. Feynman
d35dff3 Once in Hawaii I was taken to see a Buddhist temple. In the temple a man said, "I am going to tell you something that you will never forget." And then he said, "To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven. The same key opens the gates of hell." Richard P. Feynman
e0991da 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
6bb6f56 the only thing that can be predicted is the probability of different events. Richard P. Feynman
4d8197a I've found out since that such people don't know what they're doing, and get insulted when you make some suggestion or criticism. Richard P. Feynman
6b44ec5 If someone were to propose that the planets go around the sun because all planet matter has a kind of tendency for movement, a kind of motility, let us call it an 'oomph,' this theory could explain a number of other phenomena as well. So this is a good theory, is it not? No. It is nowhere near as good as the proposition that the planets move around the sun under the influence of a central force which varies exactly inversely as the square o.. theory imagination science explainability rigor scrutiny rationalization pseudoscience Richard P. Feynman
dabdf83 How can we tell whether the rules which we "guess" at are really right if we cannot analyze the game very well? There are, roughly speaking, three ways. First, there may be situations where nature has arranged, or we arrange nature, to be simple and to have so few parts that we can predict exactly what will happen, and thus we can check how our rules work. (In one corner of the board there may be only a few chess pieces at work, and that we.. Richard P. Feynman
7592688 THE QUESTION IS, OF COURSE, IS IT GOING TO BE POSSIBLE TO AMALGAMATE EVERYTHING, AND MERELY DISCOVER THAT THIS WORLD REPRESENTS DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF ONE THING? science physics Richard P. Feynman
8586b71 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. scientific-method Richard P. Feynman
762ba21 If instead of arranging the atoms in some definite pattern, again and again repeated, on and on, or even forming little lumps of complexity like the odor of violets, we make an arrangement which is always different from place to place, with different kinds of atoms arranged in many ways, continually changing, not repeating, how much more marvelously is it possible that this thing might behave? Is it possible that that "thing" walking back a.. richard-feynman six-easy-pieces physics Richard P. Feynman
99e1717 Electrons, when they were first discovered, behaved exactly like particles or bullets, very simply. Further research showed, from electron diffraction experiments for example, that they behaved like waves. As time went on there was a growing confusion about how these things really behaved ---- waves or particles, particles or waves? Everything looked like both. This growing confusion was resolved in 1925 or 1926 with the advent of the corre.. science philosophy quantum-mechanics physics Richard P. Feynman
869cc99 don't know what's the matter with people: they don't learn by understanding; they learn by some other way--by rote, Richard P. Feynman
c900dc6 I won't have anything to do with the Nobel Prize . . . it's a pain in the . . . (LAUGHS). I don't like honors. Richard P. Feynman
2064e06 The uncertainty principle "protects" quantum mechanics. Heisenberg recognized that if it were possible to measure the momentum and the position simultaneously with a greater accuracy, the quantum mechanics would collapse. So he proposed that it must be impossible." Richard P. Feynman
0474e0b alone, and start to think. There are the rushing waves . . . mountains of molecules, each stupidly minding its own business . . . trillions apart . . . yet forming white surf in unison. Ages on ages . . . before any eyes could see . . . year after year . . . thunderously pounding the shore as now. For whom, for what? . . . on a dead planet, with no life to entertain. Never at rest . . . tortured by energy . . . wasted prodigiously by the su.. Richard P. Feynman
25a52f7 I believe, therefore, that although it is not the case today, that there may some day come a time, I should hope, when it will fully appreciated that the power of governments should be limited; that governments ought not to be empowered to decide the validity of scientific theories, that this is a ridiculous thing for them to try to do; that they are not to decide the description of history or of economic theory or of philosophy. science Richard P. Feynman
b774559 CURIOSITY DEMANDS THAT WE ASK QUESTIONS, THAT WE TRY TO PUT THINGS TOGETHER AND TRY TO UNDERSTAND THIS MULTITUDE OF ASPECTS AS PERHAPS RESULTING FROM THE ACTION OF A RELATIVELY SMALL NUMBER OF ELEMENTAL THINGS AND FORCES ACTING IN AN INFINITE VARIETY OF COMBINATIONS science particles physics Richard P. Feynman
7d3fd00 This is not a new idea; this is the idea of the age of reason. This is the philosophy that guided the men that made the democracy that we live under. The idea that no one really knew how to run a government led to the idea that we should arrange a system by which new ideas could be developed, tried out, and tossed out if necessary, with more new ideas brought in--a trial and error system. reason trial-and-error Richard P. Feynman
f70524f Mathematics is not a science from our point of view, in the sense that it is not a natural science. The test of its validity is not experiment. Richard P. Feynman
09a7924 The exception proves that the rule is wrong." That is the principle of science. If there is an exception to any rule, and if it can be proved by observation, that rule is wrong." Richard P. Feynman
adbcd76 It is probably better to realize that the probability concept is in a sense subjective, that it is always based on uncertain knowledge, and that its quantitative evaluation is subject to change as we obtain more information. Richard P. Feynman
6738bd4 Philosophers have said before that one of the fundamental requisites of science is that whenever you set up the same conditions, the same thing must happen. This is simply not true, it is not a fundamental condition of science. Richard P. Feynman
d424a1d I'm not responsible for what other people think I am able to do; I don't have to be good because they think I'm going to be good. Richard P. Feynman
94a8395 I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. Richard P. Feynman
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