Physics Quotes

What is especially striking and remarkable is that in fundamental physics a beautiful or elegant theory is more likely to be right than a theory that is inelegant.

Murray Gell-Mann

Why is it so difficult for us to think in relative terms? Well, for the good reason that human nature loves absoluteness, and erroneously considers it as a state of higher knowledge.

Felix Alba-Juez

There is no problem more difficult to solve than that created by ourselves.

Felix Alba-Juez

Without the time, the world is only a static material; without the sense, the world is only a dead living system

Aditia Rinaldi

One of the various theories proposed to explain the negative result of the famous Michelson-Morley experiment with light waves (conceived to measure the absolute space), was based on the ballistic hypothesis, i.e. on postulating that the speed of light predicted by Maxwell's equations was not given as relative to the medium but as relative to the transmitter (firearm). Had that been the case, the experiment negative results would have not caused such perplexity and frustration (as we shall see in forthcoming sections).

Felix Alba-Juez

One possibility is: God is nothing but the power of the universe to organize itself.

Lee Smolin

The expression e=mc2 is the ultimate statement in bounce per ounce.

Nigel S. Hey Diaries

A mathematician is an? individual who calls himself a 'physicist' and does 'physics' and physical experiments with abstract concepts.

Bill Gaede

While the Copernican principle comes with no guarantees that it will forever guide us to cosmic truths, it's worked quite well so far: not only is Earth not in the center of the solar system, but the solar system is not in the center of the Milky Way galaxy, the Milky Way galaxy is not in the center of the universe, and it may come to pass that our universe is just one of many that comprise a multiverse. And in case you're one of those people who thinks that the edge may be a special place, we are not at the edge of anything either.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

My idea of an educated person is one who can converse on one subject for more than two minutes.

Robert Millikan

He (Comings) has in the past performed succesful energy-converting experiments, creating a ringing resonance by injecting certain frequencies into piezo-electric crystals. When the crystal was in resonance with the plenum of space, the power output rose significantly higher than the input. He concluded that, if allowed politically, such discoveries could guide humankind in building a completely clean energy infrastructure -- resonant technologies that allow us to live in harmony with the universal energy field and the Earth.

Jeane Manning and Joel Garbon

If a book were written all in numbers, it would be true. It would be just. Nothing said in words ever came out quite even. Things in words got twisted and ran together, instead of staying straight and fitting together. But underneath the words, at the center, like the center of the Square, it all came out even. Everything could change, yet nothing would be lost. If you saw the numbers you could see that, the balance, the pattern. You saw the foundations of the world. And they were solid.

Ursula K. Le Guin

I tell you about a fact and truth. In physical reality of matter, there's no such thing as an imaginary spirit nor spiritual ghost. They are also made of matter, but totally different in size andlaws of physics which rule their life and the way they interact.

Toba Beta

There's no obvious reason to assume that the very same rare properties that allow for our existence would also provide the best overall setting to make discoveries about the world around us. We don't think this is merely coincidental. It cries out for another explanation, an explanation that... points to purpose and intelligent design in the cosmos.

Guillermo Gonzalez

If you can't illustrate 'it', 'it' doens't belong in Physics as a noun! You can't put an article in front. You can't put a verb after!

Bill Gaede

Maybe knowledge is as fundamental, or even more fundamental than [material] reality.

Anton Zeilinger

Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it.

Niels Bohr

It is curious that the human mind could blindly accept an infinite speed but had reservations to accept a finite one, simply because it was too large!

Felix Alba-Juez

It is worth noting that a wrong folkoric definition of an Inertial Frame in the Popular Science literature (even in text books) reads that 'it is a frame in uniform motion'. We know very well by now that the idea of motion requires a frame of reference, so that such a definition of an Inertial Frame has no meaning whatsoever, confusing the reader because it tacitly reaffirms the idea of absolute motion -- when the goal of every didactic exposition of Relativity Theory should be precisely the opposite.

Felix Alba-Juez

Ideas that require people to reorganize their picture of the world provoke hostility.

James Gleick