It Does Not Matter Who You Are, Or How Smart You Are, Or What Title You Have, Or How Many Of You There Are, And Certainly Not How Many Papers Your Side Has Published, If Your Prediction Is Wrong Then Your Hypothesis Is Wrong. Period.

-Richard P. Feynman

Please Wait....
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It Does Not Matter

Richard P. Feynman

Topic

Smart

Your Side

Matter

More From Richard P. Feynman

People Who Wish To Analyze Nature Without Using Mathematics Must Settle For A Reduced Understanding.

People

Understanding

Wish

It Is Important To Realize That In Physics Today, We Have No Knowledge Of What Energy Is

Important

Energy

Today

When A Scientist Doesn't Know The Answer To A Problem, He Is Ignorant. When He Has A Hunch As To What The Result Is, He Is Uncertain. And When He Is Pretty Darn Sure Of What The Result Is Going To Be, He Is Still In Some Doubt. 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.

Ignorance

Order

Ignorant

I Couldn't Claim That I Was Smarter Than Sixty-five Other Guys--but The Average Of Sixty-five Other Guys, Certainly!

Average

Guy

Claims

I Think Nature's Imagination Is So Much Greater Than Man's, She's Never Gonna Let Us Relax!

Men

Thinking

Imagination

The Idea Is To Try To Give All The Information To Help Others To Judge The Value Of Your Contribution; Not Just The Information That Leads To Judgment In One Particular Direction Or Another.

Helping Others

Ideas

Giving

I'm Going To Play With Physics, Whenever I Want To, Without Worrying About Any Importance Whatsoever.

Play

Worry

Want

For Far More Marvelous Is The Truth Than Any Artists Of The Past Imagined It. Why Do The Poets Of The Present Not Speak Of It? What Men Are Poets Who Can Speak Of Jupiter If He Were A Man, But If He Is An Immense Spinning Sphere Of Methane And Ammonia Must Be Silent?

Artist

Past

Men

It Doesn't Seem To Me That This Fantastically Marvelous Universe, This Tremendous Range Of Time And Space And Different Kinds Of Animals, And All The Different Planets, And All These Atoms With All Their Motions, And So On, All This Complicated Thing Can Merely Be A Stage So That God Can Watch Human Beings Struggle For Good And Evil - Which Is The View That Religion Has. The Stage Is Too Big For The Drama.

Atheist

Drama

Struggle

In Fact The Total Amount That A Physicist Knows Is Very Little. He Has Only To Remember The Rules To Get Him From One Place To Another And He Is All Right.

Littles

Facts

Remember

For A Successful Technology, Reality Must Take Precedence Over Public Relations, For Nature Cannot Be Fooled.

Inspirational

Nature

Science

Nature...cannot Be Fooled!

Fooled

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.

Ignorance

Men

Thinking

Physics Is Like Sex: Sure, It May Give Some Practical Results, But That's Not Why We Do It.

Sex

Learning

Science

Everything Is Made Of Atoms.

Atoms

Made

You Should Not Fool The Laymen When You're Talking As A Scientist... . I'm Talking About A Specific, Extra Type Of Integrity That Is Not Lying, But Bending Over Backwards To Show How You're Maybe Wrong, [an Integrity] That You Ought To Have When Acting As A Scientist. And This Is Our Responsibility As Scientists, Certainly To Other Scientists, And I Think To Laymen.

Integrity

Lying

Responsibility

I Have To Keep Going To Find Out Ultimately What Is The Matter With It In The End.

Matter

Ends

Keep Going

No Man Is Rich Who Is Unsatisfied, But Who Wants Nothing Possess His Heart's Desire.

Heart

Men

Desire

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.

Fun

One Day

Done

I Have Argued Flying Saucers With Lots Of People. I Was Interested In Possible. They Do Not Appreciate That The Problem Is Not To Demonstrate Whether It's Possible Or Not But Whether It's Going On Or Not.

People

Appreciate

Flying

In Any Organization There Ought To Be The Possibility Of Discussion... Fence Sitting Is An Art, And It's Difficult, And It's Important To Do, Rather Than To Go Headlong In One Direction Or The Other. It's Just Better To Have Action, Isn't It Than To Sit On The Fence? Not If You're Not Sure Which Way To Go, It Isn't.

Art

Thinking

One Direction

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.

Discovery

Views

Somewhere Else

We Have This Terrible Struggle To Try To Explain Things To People Who Have No Reason To Want To Know.

Struggle

Communication

People

But There Is Nothing In Biology Yet Found That Indicates The Inevitability Of Death.

Inevitability Of Death

Biology

Found

There Are Thousands Of Years In The Past, And There Is An Unknown Amount Of Time In The Future. There Are All Kinds Of Opportunities, And There Are All Kinds Of Dangers.

Past

Opportunity

Years

It Is Our Responsibility To Leave The People Of The Future A Free Hand.

Responsibility

Hands

People

There Is Nothing In Biology Yet Found That Indicates The Inevitability Of Death. This Suggests To Me That It Is Not At All Inevitable And That It Is Only A Matter Of Time Before Biologists Discover What It Is That Is Causing Us The Trouble.

Health

Inevitability Of Death

Matter

You Can Know The Name Of A Bird In All The Languages Of The World, But When You're Finished, You'll Know Absolutely Nothing Whatever About The Bird... So Let's Look At The Bird And See What It's Doing -- That's What Counts.

Science

Names

Bird

The Female Mind Is Capable Of Understanding Analytic Geometry... The Difficulty May Just Be That We Have Never Yet Discovered A Way To Communicate With The Female Mind. If It Is Done In The Right Way, You May Be Able To Get Something Out Of It.

Understanding

Mind

Female

Turbulence Is The Most Important Unsolved Problem Of Classical Physics.

Important

Problem

Physics

If You Think You Understand Quantum Mechanics, You Don't Understand Quantum Mechanics.

Thinking

Mechanic

Quantum

No Government Has The Right To Decide On The Truth Of Scientific Principles, Nor To Prescribe In Any Way The Character Of The Questions Investigated. Neither May A Government Determine The Aesthetic Value Of Artistic Creations, Nor Limit The Forms Of Literacy Or Artistic Expression. Nor Should It Pronounce On The Validity Of Economic, Historic, Religious, Or Philosophical Doctrines. Instead It Has A Duty To Its Citizens To Maintain The Freedom, To Let Those Citizens Contribute To The Further Adventure And The Development Of The Human Race.

Religious

Philosophical

Character

The Only Way To Deep Happiness Is To Do Something You Love To The Best Of Your Ability

Way

Ability

Deep Happiness

So, Ultimately, In Order To Understand Nature It May Be Necessary To Have A Deeper Understanding Of Mathematical Relationships. But The Real Reason Is That The Subject Is Enjoyable, And Although We Humans Cut Nature Up In Different Ways, And We Have Different Courses In Different Departments, Such Compartmentaliz Ation Is Really Artificial, And We Should Take Our Intellectual Pleasures Where We Find Them.

Real

Cutting

Order

If You Have Any Talent, Or Any Occupation That Delights You, Do It, And Do It To The Hilt. Don't Ask Why, Or What Difficulties You May Get Into.

Delight

Occupation

May

In Physics The Truth Is Rarely Perfectly Clear, And That Is Certainly Universally The Case In Human Affairs. Hence, What Is Not Surrounded By Uncertainty Cannot Be The Truth.

Physics

Affair

Truth Is

Physics Is Not The Most Important Thing. Love Is.

Science

Technology

Love Is

Have No Respect Whatsoever For Authority; Forget Who Said It And Instead Look What He Starts With, Where He Ends Up, And Ask Yourself, "is It Reasonable?"

Looks

Physics

Forget

It Is Necessary For The Very Existence Of Science That Minds Exist Which Do Not Allow That Nature Must Satisfy Some Preconceived Conditions.

Nobody Ever Figures Out What Life Is All About, And It Doesn't Matter. Explore The World. Nearly Everything Is Really Interesting If You Go Into It Deeply Enough.

Interesting

World

Matter

We Have A Habit In Writing Articles Published In Scientific Journals To Make The Work As Finished As Possible, To Cover Up All The Tracks, To Not Worry About The Blind Alleys Or Describe How You Had The Wrong Idea First, And So On. So There Isn't Any Place To Publish, In A Dignified Manner, What You Actually Did In Order To Get To Do The Work, Although, There Has Been In These Days, Some Interest In This Kind Of Thing.

Funny

Work

Writing

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.

Honesty

Intelligence

Important

The Beauty That Is There Is Also Available For Me, Too. But I See A Deeper Beauty That Isn't So Readily Available To Others.... I Don't See How Studying A Flower Ever Detracts From Its Beauty. It Only Adds

Flower

Add

Study

No One Really Understands Quantum Mechanics.

Mechanic

Quantum

Quantum Mechanics

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.

Learning

Persistence

Simple

Science Alone Of All The Subjects Contains Within Itself The Lesson Of The Danger Of Belief In The Infallibility Of The Greatest Teachers Of The Preceding Generation.

Faith

Teacher

Generations

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.

Way

Behave

Electrons

God Was Invented To Explain Mystery. God Is Always Invented To Explain Those Things That You Do Not Understand.

Religious

Religion

Atheism

From A Long View Of The History Of Mankind The Most Significant Event Of The Nineteenth Century Will Be Judged As Maxwell's Discovery Of The Laws Of Electrodynamics.

Discovery

Views

Law

We Have Been Led To Imagine All Sorts Of Things Infinitely More Marvelous Than The Imagining Of Poets And Dreamers Of The Past. It Shows That The Imagination Of Nature Is Far, Far Greater Than The Imagination Of Man. For Instance, How Much More Remarkable It Is For Us All To Be Stuck-half Of Us Upside Down-by A Mysterious Attraction, To A Spinning Ball That Has Been Swinging In Space For Billions Of Years, Than To Be Carried On The Back Of An Elephant Supported On A Tortoise Swimming In A Bottomless Sea.

Swimming

Men

Past

You Can Recognize Truth By Its Beauty And Simplicity. When You Get It Right, It Is Obvious That It Is Right -- At Least If You Have Any Experience -- Because Usually What Happens Is That More Comes Out Than Goes In.

Truth

Simplicity

Obvious

I Don't Like Honors. ... I've Already Got The Prize: The Prize Is The Pleasure Of Finding The Thing Out, The Kick In The Discovery, The Observation That Other People Use It. Those Are The Real Things.

Real

Discovery

People

What Is The Fundamental Hypothesis Of Science, The Fundamental Philosophy? We Stated It In The First Chapter: The Sole Test Of The Validity Of Any Idea Is Experiment. ... If We Are Told That The Same Experiment Will Always Produce The Same Result, That Is All Very Well, But If When We Try It, It Does Not, Then It Does Not. We Just Have To Take What We See, And Then Formulate All The Rest Of Our Ideas In Terms Of Our Actual Experience.

Philosophy

Math

Ideas

The Fact That You Are Not Sure Means That It Is Possible That There Is Another Way Someday.

Mean

Way

Facts

The Truth Always Turns Out To Be Simpler Than You Thought.

Truth

Science

Simplicity

Ordinary Fools Are All Right; You Can Talk To Them, And Try To Help Them Out. But Pompous Fools-guys Who Are Fools And Are Covering It All Over And Impressing People As To How Wonderful They Are With All This Hocus Pocus-that, I Cannot Stand! An Ordinary Fool Isn't A Faker; An Honest Fool Is All Right. But A Dishonest Fool Is Terrible!

People

Guy

Trying

Nature's Imagination Far Surpasses Our Own.

Imagination

Our Responsibility Is To Do What We Can, Learn What We Can, Improve The Solutions, And Pass Them On.

Responsibility

Unreasonable

Human Race

The Exception Tests The Rule.

Exception To The Rule

Tests

Exception

Although It Is Uncertain, It Is Necessary To Make Science Useful. Science Is Only Useful If It Tells You About Some Experiment That Has Not Been Done; It Is Not Good If It Only Tells You What Just Went On.

Done

Uncertain

Experiments

We Absolutely Must Leave Room For Doubt Or There Is No Progress And No Learning. There Is No Learning Without Having To Pose A Question. And A Question Requires Doubt. People Search For Certainty. But There Is No Certainty.

People

Doubt

Progress

I Think A Power To Do Something Is Of Value. Whether The Result Is A Good Thing Or A Bad Thing Depends On How It Is Used, But The Power Is A Value.

Life

Thinking

Good Things

The Electron Is A Theory. But The Theory Is So Good We Can Almost Consider Them Real.

Real

Theory

Electrons

... It Is Impossible To Explain Honestly The Beauties Of The Laws Of Nature In A Way That People Can Feel, Without Their Having Some Deep Understanding Of Mathematics. I Am Sorry, But This Seems To Be The Case.

If I Could Explain It To The Average Person, I Wouldn't Have Been Worth The Nobel Prize.

Average

Nobel

Persons

Scientific Knowledge Is A Body Of Statements Of Varying Degrees Of Certainty -- Some Most Unsure, Some Nearly Sure, None Absolutely Certain.

Degrees

Body

Absolute Certainty

A Philosopher Once Said, 'it Is Necessary For The Very Existence Of Science That The Same Conditions Always Produce The Same Results.' Well, They Don't!

Philosopher

Quantum

Results

Nature Does Not Care What We Call It, She Just Keeps On Doing It.

Doe

Care

Philosophers Say A Great Deal About What Is Absolutely Necessary For Science, And It Is Always, So Far As One Can See, Rather Naive, And Probably Wrong.

Philosopher

Deals

Naive

Once We Were Driving In The Midwest And We Pulled Into A Mcdonald's. Someone Came Up To Me And Asked Me Why I Have Feynman Diagrams All Over My Van. I Replied, "because I Am Feynman!" The Young Man Went, "ahhhhh!"

Men

Mcdonalds

Atheism

It Is Our Responsibility As Scientists, Knowing The Great Progress Which Comes From A Satisfactory Philosophy Of Ignorance, The Great Progress Which Is The Fruit Of Freedom Of Thought, To Proclaim The Value Of This Freedom; To Teach How Doubt Is Not To Be Feared But Welcomed And Discussed; And To Demand This Freedom As Our Duty To All Coming Generations.

Freedom

Philosophy

Responsibility

When A Caltech Student Asked The Eminent Cosmologist Michael Turner What His "bias" Was In Favoring One Or Another Particle As A Likely Candidate To Compromise Dark Matter In The Universe, Feynmann Snapped, "why Do You Want To Know His Bias? Form Your Own Bias!"

Learning

Dark

Want

One Of The Ways Of Stopping Science Would Be Only To Do Experiments In The Region Where You Know The Law. But Experimenters Search Most Diligently, And With The Greatest Effort, In Exactly Those Places Where It Seems Most Likely That We Can Prove Our Theories Wrong. In Other Words, We Are Trying To Prove Ourselves Wrong As Quickly As Possible, Because Only In That Way Can We Find Progress.

Discovery

Law

Effort

The Worthwhile Problems Are The Ones You Can Really Solve Or Help Solve, The Ones You Can Really Contribute Something To... No Problem Is Too Small Or Too Trivial If We Can Really Do Something About It.

Helping

Problem

Worthwhile

It Is The Fact That The Electrons Cannot All Get On Top Of Each Other That Makes Tables And Everything Else Solid.

Tables

Facts

Electrons

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.

Lying

Party

Men

If I Say [electrons] Behave Like Particles I Give The Wrong Impression; Also If I Say They Behave Like Waves. They Behave In Their Own Inimitable Way, Which Technically Could Be Called A Quantum Mechanical Way. They Behave In A Way That Is Like Nothing That You Have Seen Before.

Science

Giving

Way

If We Will Only Allow That, As We Progress, We Remain Unsure, We Will Leave Opportunities For Alternatives.

Science

Opportunity

Progress

The Game I Play Is A Very Interesting One. It's Imagination, In A Tight Straightjacket.

Play

Games

Interesting

Science Is The Belief In The Ignorance Of Experts.

Ignorance

Science

Thinking

What Would Happen If We Could Arrange The Atoms One By One The Way We Want Them?

Atoms

Want

Way

Study Hard What Interests You The Most In The Most Undisciplined, Irreverent And Original Manner Possible.

Inspirational

Encouraging

Education

Unless A Thing Can Be Defined By Measurement, It Has No Place In A Theory. And Since An Accurate Value Of The Momentum Of A Localized Particle Cannot Be Defined By Measurement It Therefore Has No Place In The Theory.

Science

Momentum

Measurement

I Do Believe That There Is A Conflict Between Science And Religion ... The Spirit Or Attitude Toward The Facts Is Different In Religion From What It Is In Science. The Uncertainty That Is Necessary In Order To Appreciate Nature Is Not Easily Correlated With The Feeling Of Certainty In Faith.

Attitude

Believe

Order

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.

Law

Principles

Physics

By Honest I Don't Mean That You Only Tell What's True. But You Make Clear The Entire Situation. You Make Clear All The Information That Is Required For Somebody Else Who Is Intelligent To Make Up Their Mind.

Honesty

Mean

Intelligent

Science Is Like Sex: Sometimes Something Useful Comes Out, But That Is Not The Reason We Are Doing It

Inspirational

Funny

Sex

I Don't Feel Frightened By Not Knowing Things.

Mysterious Universe

Knowing

Frightened

The First Principle Is That You Must Not Fool Yourself—and You Are The Easiest Person To Fool. So You Have To Be Very Careful About That. After You’ve Not Fooled Yourself, It’s Easy Not To Fool Other Scientists. You Just Have To Be Honest In A Conventional Way After That.

Principles

Way

Fool

So I Have Just One Wish For You – The Good Luck To Be Somewhere Where You Are Free To Maintain The Kind Of Integrity I Have Described, And Where You Do Not Feel Forced By A Need To Maintain Your Position In The Organization, Or Financial Support, Or So On, To Lose Your Integrity. May You Have That Freedom.

Integrity

Good Luck

Organization

Physicists Like To Think That All You Have To Do Is Say, These Are The Conditions, Now What Happens Next?

Thinking

Physics

What We Need Is Imagination, But Imagination In A Terrible Strait-jacket.

Imagination

Needs

Terrible

Tell Your Son To Stop Trying To Fill Your Head With Science - For To Fill Your Heart With Love Is Enough!

Life

Heart

Son

So Far As We Know, All The Fundamental Laws Of Physics, Like Newton's Equations, Are Reversible.

Law

Fundamentals

Physics

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.

Government

Safety

Support

To Guess What To Keep And What To Throw Away Takes Considerable Skill. Actually It Is Probably Merely A Matter Of Luck, But It Looks As If It Takes Considerable Skill.

Science

Skills

Luck

Science Is What We Have Learned About How To Keep From Fooling Ourselves.

Fooling Ourselves

Teach Principles Not Formulas.

Principles

Teach

Formulas

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!

Clever

Men

Thinking

I Don't Have To Be Good Because They Think I'm Going To Be Good.

Thinking

Be Good

Energy Is A Very Subtle Concept. It Is Very, Very Difficult To Get Right.

Energy

Subtle

Difficult

Scientists Are Explorers. Philosophers Are Tourists.

Science

Tourists

Philosopher

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.

Hate

Law

Knowing

Our Imagination Is Stretched To The Utmost, Not, As In Fiction, To Imagine Things Which Are Not Really There, But Just To Comprehend Those Things Which Are There.

Real

Science

Imagination

Do Not Read So Much, Look About You And Think Of What You See There.

Thinking

Looks

You Know How It Always Is, Every New Idea, It Takes A Generation Or Two Until It Becomes Obvious That There's No Real Problem. It Has Not Yet Become Obvious To Me That There's No Real Problem. I Cannot Define The Real Problem, Therefore I Suspect There's No Real Problem, But I'm Not Sure There's No Real Problem.

Real

Ideas

Two

Don't Pay Attention To "authorities," Think For Yourself.

Thinking

Attention

Pay

I Have A Limited Intelligence And I've Used It In A Particular Direction.

Used

Particular

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].

Mistake

Thinking

Arrows

There’s So Much Distance Between The Fundamental Rules And The Final Phenomenon, That It’s Almost Unbelievable That The Final Variety Of Phenomenon Can Come From Such A Steady Operation Of Such Simple Rules.

Distance

Simple

Finals

Doubt Is Clearly A Value In Science. It Is Important To Doubt And That The Doubt Is Not A Fearful Thing, But A Thing Of Great Value.

Doubt

Important

Fearful

There Is No Harm In Doubt And Skepticism, For It Is Through These That New Discoveries Are Made.

Science

Discovery

Doubt

To Those Who Do Not Know Mathematics It Is Difficult To Get Across A Real Feeling As To The Beauty, The Deepest Beauty, Of Nature ... If You Want To Learn About Nature, To Appreciate Nature, It Is Necessary To Understand The Language That She Speaks In.

Nature

Real

Learning

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.

Science

Doe

Physics

The Same Equations Have The Same Solutions

Equations

Solutions

I Love Only Nature, And I Hate Mathematicians.

Hate

Science

I Hate

I Don't Think That The Laws Can Be Considered To Be Like God Because They Have Been Figured Out.

Thinking

Law

Atheism

Science Is Of Value Because It Can Produce Something.

Produce

Values

We Are Not To Tell Nature What She’s Gotta Be... She's Always Got Better Imagination Than We Have.

Imagination

I, A Universe Of Atoms, An Atom In The Universe.

Atoms

Cosmology

Universe

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.

Simple

Order

Wish

My Rule Is, When You Are Unhappy, Think About It. But When You're Happy, Don't. Why Spoil It? You're Probably Happy For Some Ridiculous Reason And You'd Just Spoil It To Know It.

Thinking

Unhappy

Ridiculous

Physics Is To Mathematics What Sex Is To Masturbation.

Sex

Math

Science

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.

War

Discovery

Views

It's Amazing How Many People Even Today Use A Computer To Do Something You Can Do With A Pencil And Paper In Less Time.

People

Simplicity

Use

The Problem Of Creating Something New, But Which Is Consistent With Everything Which Has Been Seen Before, Is One Of Extreme Difficulty.

Creating

Problem

Something New

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... How Vivid Is The Claret, Pressing Its Existence Into The Consciousness That Watches It! If Our Small Minds, For Some Convenience, Divide This Glass Of Wine, This Universe, Into Parts - Physics, Biology, Geology, Astronomy, Psychology, And So On - Remember That Nature Does Not Know It! So Let Us Put It All Back Together, Not Forgetting Ultimately What It Is For. Let It Give Us One More Final Pleasure: Drink It And Forget It All!

Writing

Wine

Glasses

Another Thing I Must Point Out Is That You Cannot Prove A Vague Theory Wrong.

Theory

Prove

Vague

There's Plenty Of Room At The Bottom.

Rooms

Bottom

Plenty

All We Know So Far Is What Doesn't Work.

Knows

It Is Impossible, By The Way, When Picking One Example Of Anything, To Avoid Picking One Which Is Atypical In Some Sense.

Example

Way

Impossible

During The Middle Ages There Were All Kinds Of Crazy Ideas, Such As That A Piece Of Rhinoceros Horn Would Increase Potency. Then A Method Was Discovered For Separating The Ideas - Which Was To Try One To See If It Worked, And If It Didn't Work, To Eliminate It. This Method Became Organized, Of Course, Into Science.

Crazy

Ideas

Religion

John Von Neumann Gave Me An Interesting Idea: That You Don't Have To Be Responsible For The World That You're In. So I Have Developed A Very Powerful Sense Of Social Irresponsibility As A Result Of Von Neumann's Advice. It's Made Me A Very Happy Man Ever Since. But It Was Von Neumann Who Put The Seed In That Grew Into My Active Irresponsibility!

Powerful

Men

Ideas

Poets Say Science Takes Away From The Beauty Of Stars-mere Globs Of Gas Atoms. Nothing Is "mere". I Too See The Stars On A Desert Night, And Feel Them. But Do I See Less Or More? ...what Is The Pattern, Or The Meaning, Or The Why? It Does Not Do Harm To The Mystery To Know A Little More About It. For Far More Marvelous Is The Truth Than Any Artists Of The Past Imagined It.

Stars

Past

Night

I'd Hate To Die Twice. It's So Boring.

Hate

Bad Ass

Boring

I Am A Successful Lecturer In Physics For Popular Audiences. The Real Entertainment Gimmick Is The Excitement, Drama And Mystery Of The Subject Matter. People Love To Learn Something, They Are 'entertained' Enormously By Being Allowed To Understand A Little Bit Of Something They Never Understood Before. One Must Have Faith In The Subject And In People's Interest In It.

Drama

Real

Successful

Philosophy Of Science Is About As Useful To Scientists As Ornithology Is To Birds.

Philosophy

Science

Engineering

Why Make Yourself Miserable Saying Things Like, "why Do We Have Such Bad Luck? What Has God Done To Us? What Have We Done To Deserve This?" - All Of Which, If You Understand Reality And Take It Completely Into Your Heart, Are Irrelevant And Unsolvable. They Are Just Things That Nobody Can Know. Your Situation Is Just An Accident Of Life.

Heart

Reality

Luck

If You Know That You Are Not Sure, You Have A Chance To Improve The Situation. I Want To Demand This Freedom For Future Generations.

Generations

Demand

Want

'conservation' (the Conservation Law) Means This ... That There Is A Number, Which You Can Calculate, At One Moment-and As Nature Undergoes Its Multitude Of Changes, This Number Doesn't Change. That Is, If You Calculate Again, This Quantity, It'll Be The Same As It Was Before. An Example Is The Conservation Of Energy: There's A Quantity That You Can Calculate According To A Certain Rule, And It Comes Out The Same Answer After, No Matter What Happens, Happens.

Change

Nature

Mean

I Believe That A Scientist Looking At Nonscientific Problems Is Just As Dumb As The Next Guy.

Stupid

Believe

Guy

The First Principle Is That You Must Not Fool Yourself And You Are The Easiest Person To Fool.

Clever

Love Life

Science

Observation, Reason, And Experiment Make Up What We Call The Scientific Method.

Scientific Method

Reason

Observation

This Is Not Very Important What I'm Doing. I'm Just Proving Something.

Science

Important

Mathematics

Our Freedom To Doubt Was Born Out Of A Struggle Against Authority In The Early Days Of Science. It Was A Very Deep And Strong Struggle: Permit Us To Question - To Doubt - To Not Be Sure. I Think That It Is Important That We Do Not Forget This Struggle And Thus Perhaps Lose What We Have Gained.

Strong

Struggle

Science

Nature Uses Only The Longest Threads To Weave Her Patterns, So That Each Small Piece Of Her Fabric Reveals The Organization Of The Entire Tapestry.

Uplifting

Wisdom

Nature

Words Can Be Meaningless. If They Are Used In Such A Way That No Sharp Conclusions Can Be Drawn.

Way

Used

Conclusion

I'm Trying To Find Out Not How Nature Could Be, But How Nature Is.

Trying

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.

Teaching

Students

Accepting

The Game I Play Is A Very Interesting One. It's Imagination In A Straightjacket, Which Is This: That It Has To Agree With The Known Laws Of Physics. ... It Requires Imagination To Think Of What's Possible, And Then It Requires An Analysis Back, Checking To See Whether It Fits, Whether Its Allowed, According To What's Known, Okay?

Science

Thinking

Law

This Is The Key Of Modern Science And Is The Beginning Of The True Understanding Of Nature. This Idea. That To Look At The Things, To Record The Details, And To Hope That In The Information Thus Obtained, May Lie A Clue To One Or Another Of A Possible Theoretical Interpretation.

Lying

Keys

Ideas

What Did You Ask At School Today?

Educational

Teaching

School

There In Wine Is Found The Great Generalization: All Life Is Fermentation.

Wine

Life Is

Found

But The Real Glory Of Science Is That We Can Find A Way Of Thinking Such That The Law Is Evident.

Real

Science

Thinking

I Don't Know What's The Matter With People: They Don't Learn By Understanding, They Learn By Some Other Way — By Rote Or Something. Their Knowledge Is So Fragile!

Inspirational

People

Understanding

Some People Think Wheeler's Gotten Crazy In His Later Years, But He's Always Been Crazy.

Crazy

Thinking

Years

It Appears That There Are Enormous Differences Of Opinion As To The Probability Of A Failure With Loss Of Vehicle And Of Human Life. The Estimates Range From Roughly 1 In 100 To 1 In 100,000. The Higher Figures Come From The Working Engineers, And The Very Low Figures From Management.

Loss

Differences

Safety

Since Then I Never Pay Attention To Anything By "experts". I Calculate Everything Myself.

Experts

Attention

Pay

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.

Fear

Struggle

Men

Progress In Science Comes When Experiments Contradict Theory.

Science

Progress

Theory

Maybe That Is Why Young People Make Success. They Don't Know Enough.

Children

Ignorance

People

The Real Problem In Speech Is Not Precise Language. The Problem Is Clear Language.

Learning

Language

Problem

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.

Different

Six

Physics

The "paradox" Is Only A Conflict Between Reality And Your Feeling Of What Reality "ought To Be."

Reality

Feelings

Conflict

I Think It's Much More Interesting To Live Not Knowing Than To Have Answers Which Might Be Wrong. I Have Approximate Answers, And Possible Beliefs, And Different Degrees Of Uncertainty About Different Things, But I Am Not Absolutely Sure Of Anything. There Are Many Things I Don't Know Anything About, Such As Whether It Means Anything To Ask "why Are We Here?" I Might Think About It A Little Bit, And If I Can't Figure It Out Then I Go On To Something Else. But I Don't Have To Know An Answer. I Don't Feel Frightened By Not Knowing Things, By Being Lost In The Mysterious Universe Without Having Any Purpose - Which Is The Way It Really Is, As Far As I Can Tell.

Mean

Humility

Acceptance

You Do Not Know Anything Until You Have Practiced.

Knows

Einstein Was A Giant. His Head Was In The Clouds, But His Feet Were On The Ground. But Those Of Us Who Are Not That Tall Have To Choose!

Clouds

Feet

Giants

I Learned From Her That Every Woman Is Worried About Her Looks, No Matter How Beautiful She Is.

Beautiful

Looks

Matter

The Unanswerable Mysteries... The Attitude That All Is Uncertain... To Summarize It - The Humility Of The Intellect.

Attitude

Humility

Pride

Science Is A Way Of Trying Not To Fool Yourself.

Atheism

Trying

Way

Science Is Uncertain.

Uncertain

Everything We Know Is Only Some Kind Of Approximation, Because We Know That We Do Not Know All The Laws Yet. Therefore, Things Must Be Learned Only To Be Unlearned Again Or, More Likely, To Be Corrected.

Law

Kind

Skepticism

I Learned Very Early The Difference Between Knowing The Name Of Something And Knowing Something.

Inspirational

Motivational

Education

I Have The Advantage Of Having Found Out How Hard It Is To Get To Really Know Something. How Careful You Have To Be About Checking Your Experiments. How Easy It Is To Make Mistakes And Fool Yourself. I Know What It Means To Know Something.

Mistake

Mean

Fool

The Fundamental Principle Of Science, The Definition Almost, Is This: The Sole Test Of The Validity Of Any Idea Is Experiment.

Ideas

Principles

Fundamentals

We Need To Teach How Doubt Is Not To Be Feared But Welcomed. It's Ok To Say, "i Don't Know."

Learning

Doubt

Needs

The Test Of All Knowledge Is Experiment.

Tests

Experiments

All Things Are Made Of Atoms - Little Particles That Move Around In Perpetual Motion, Attracting Each Other When They Are A Little Distance Apart, But Repelling Upon Being Squeezed Into One Another. In That One Sentence, You Will See, There Is An Enormous Amount Of Information About The World, If Just A Little Imagination And Thinking Are Applied.

Distance

Moving

Knowledge

Don't Think About What You Want To Be, But What You Want To Do. Keep Up Some Kind Of A Minimum With Other Things So That Society Doesn't Stop You From Doing Anything At All.

Ambition

Thinking

Want

There Are All Kinds Of Interesting Questions That Come From A Knowledge Of Science, Which Only Adds To The Excitement And Mystery And Awe Of A Flower.

Flower

Interesting

Add

Our Poets Do Not Write About It; Our Artists Do Not Try To Portray This Remarkable Thing. I Don't Know Why. Is Nobody Inspired By Our Present Picture Of The Universe? The Value Of Science Remains Unsung By Singers... This Is Not Yet A Scientific Age.

Writing

Artist

Age

Work Hard To Find Something That Fascinates You.

Hard Work

Hard

We Decided That 'trivial' Means 'proved'. So We Joked With The Mathematicians: We Have A New Theorem- That Mathematicians Can Prove Only Trivial Theorems, Because Every Theorem That's Proved Is Trivial.

Mean

Science

Mathematics

Poets Say Science Takes Away From The Beauty Of The Stars - Mere Globs Of Gas Atoms. I, Too, Can See The Stars On A Desert Night, And Feel Them. But Do I See Less Or More?

Stars

Science

Night

If An Apple Was Magnified To The Size Of The Earth, Then The Atoms In The Apple Would Be Approximately The Size Of The Original Apple.

Apples

Atoms

Would Be

I Can Live With Doubt And Uncertainty And Not Knowing. I Think It Is Much More Interesting To Live Not Knowing Than To Have Answers That Might Be Wrong. If We Will Only Allow That, As We Progress, We Remain Unsure, We Will Leave Opportunities For Alternatives. We Will Not Become Enthusiastic For The Fact, The Knowledge, The Absolute Truth Of The Day, But Remain Always Uncertain … In Order To Make Progress, One Must Leave The Door To The Unknown Ajar.

Science

Opportunity

Thinking

Mathematics Is A Language Plus Reasoning. It's Like A Language Plus Logic. Mathematics Is A Tool For Reasoning.

Tools

Logic

Language

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.

Angel

Imagination

Degrees

There Is Nothing That Living Things Do That Cannot Be Understood From The Point Of View That They Are Made Of Atoms Acting According To The Laws Of Physics.

Science

Views

Law

So This Piece Of Dirt Waits Four And A Half Billion Years And Evolves And Changes, And Now A Strange Creature Stands Here With Instruments And Talks To The Strange Creatures In The Audience. What A Wonderful World!

Years

Waiting

Pieces

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.

Writing

Expression

Able

No Problem Is Too Small Or Too Trivial If We Can Really Do Something About It.

Problem

No Problem

Ifs

What I Can't Create I Don't Understand

Computer Programming

Programming Languages

Computer Language

If There Is Something Very Slightly Wrong In Our Definition Of The Theories, Then The Full Mathematical Rigor May Convert These Errors Into Ridiculous Conclusions.

Science

Errors

May

That Is The Logical Tight-rope On Which We Have To Walk If We Wish To Interpret Nature.

Science

Wish

Rope

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.

Science

Play

Theoretical Physics

It Doesn't Matter How Beautiful Your Theory Is, It Doesn't Matter How Smart You Are. If It Doesn't Agree With Experiment, It's Wrong.

Beautiful

Smart

Science

To Develop Working Ideas Efficiently, I Try To Fail As Fast As I Can.

Failure

Ideas

Trying

Understanding Quotes: Their Essence and Application

Quotes, or quotations, are powerful tools in communication, encapsulating ideas, emotions, and wisdom in concise expressions. They serve various purposes across different contexts, from academic writing to everyday conversation.

1. Defining Quotes

A quote is a repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts. It can be a direct replication of words spoken or written by another individual, often used to support arguments, provide evidence, or convey profound insights.

2. The Importance of Quotes

2.1. Enhancing Credibility

Incorporating quotes from authoritative sources can bolster the credibility of your work. By referencing experts or primary sources, you demonstrate thorough research and a solid foundation for your arguments.

2.2. Providing Evidence

Quotes serve as concrete evidence to support claims. In academic and professional writing, they validate points made, offering readers a basis to trust the information presented.

2.3. Conveying Emotions and Perspectives

Quotes can encapsulate emotions and perspectives succinctly. They allow writers to express complex feelings or viewpoints through the words of others, often more eloquently than paraphrasing.

3. Types of Quotes

3.1. Direct Quotes

Direct quotes involve copying the exact words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. They are used when the original wording is significant or particularly well-expressed.

3.2. Indirect Quotes (Paraphrasing)

Indirect quotes restate the original message in your own words. While not enclosed in quotation marks, they still require proper attribution to the original source.

3.3. Block Quotes

Block quotes are lengthy direct quotations, formatted as a separate block of text. They are typically used for quotes exceeding a certain length, varying by citation style. For instance, in APA style, quotes longer than 40 words are formatted as block quotes.

4. Proper Usage of Quotes

4.1. Contextual Relevance

Ensure that the quote you choose is relevant to the topic and adds value to your content. Avoid inserting quotes solely for decorative purposes.

4.2. Integration into Your Writing

Seamlessly integrate quotes into your writing. Introduce them appropriately and follow up with analysis or commentary to connect them to your main points.

4.3. Attribution and Citation

Always attribute quotes to their original authors and provide proper citations according to the required style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).

5. Common Mistakes to Avoid

5.1. Overusing Quotes

Relying too heavily on quotes can overshadow your voice. Use them sparingly to support your arguments, not replace them.

5.2. Lack of Analysis

Presenting a quote without analysis or explanation can leave readers questioning its relevance. Always follow up with your interpretation or discussion.

5.3. Misquoting or Taking Out of Context

Ensure that quotes are accurate and not taken out of context, as this can mislead readers and undermine your credibility.

6. Quotes in Different Contexts

6.1. Academic Writing

In academic writing, quotes are used to support arguments, provide evidence, and engage with existing literature. Proper citation is crucial to avoid plagiarism.

6.2. Journalism

Journalists use quotes to provide firsthand accounts, add authenticity, and present multiple perspectives within a story.

6.3. Literature and Creative Writing

In literature, quotes can be used to convey character voices, themes, and stylistic elements. They enrich narratives and provide depth to storytelling.

7. Punctuation and Formatting

Understanding the correct punctuation and formatting of quotes is essential:

Quotation Marks: Always enclose direct quotes within quotation marks.

Punctuation Placement: In American English, periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks, while colons and semicolons are placed outside.

Block Quotes: For longer quotes, format them as block quotes without quotation marks, and indent the entire block.

8. Ethical Considerations

Ethical use of quotes involves accurate representation, proper attribution, and respect for intellectual property. Misuse can lead to plagiarism, which carries serious academic and professional consequences.

9. Tools for Managing Quotes

Utilize tools like citation generators and plagiarism checkers to manage quotes effectively. These tools help ensure proper formatting and originality in your writing.

Conclusion

Quotes are invaluable in enriching content, providing evidence, and conveying complex ideas succinctly. When used appropriately, they enhance the quality and credibility of your writing. Always ensure relevance, proper integration, and ethical usage to maximize their impact.

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