Freeman Dyson quotes - page 4

I like people who are working on practical things and who are working in teams. It's not so important to get the glory. It's much more important to get something that works. It's a better way to live. (Freeman Dyson)
Successful technologies often begin as hobbies. Jacques Cousteau invented scuba diving because he enjoyed exploring caves. The Wright brothers invented flying as a relief from the monotony of their normal business of selling and repairing bicycles. View quote
Freeman Dyson
The progress of science requires the growth of understanding in both directions, downward from the whole to the parts and upward from the parts to the whole. A reductionist philosophy, arbitrarily proclaiming that the growth of understanding must go only in one direction, makes no scientific sense. Indeed, dogmatic philosophical beliefs of any kind have no place in science. View quote
Freeman Dyson
What the world needs is a small, compact, flexible fusion technology that could make electricity where and when it is needed. The existing fusion program is leading to a huge source of centralized power, at a price that nobody except a government can afford. View quote
Freeman Dyson
I have the freedom to do what I want... bright people to talk to every day. View quote
Freeman Dyson
The world of science and the world of literature have much in common. Each is an international club, helping to tie mankind together across barriers of nationality, race and language. I have been doubly lucky, being accepted as a member of both. View quote
Freeman Dyson
Fifty years ago Kurt Gödel... proved that the world of pure mathematics is inexhaustible. ... I hope that the notion of a final statement of the laws of physics will prove as illusory as the notion of a formal decision process for all mathematics. View quote
Freeman Dyson
There's very good news from the asteroids. It appears that a large fraction of them, including the big ones, are actually very rich in H2O. View quote
Freeman Dyson
I have five minutes left to give you a message to take home. The message is simple. "God forbid that we should give out a dream of our own imagination for a pattern of the world". View quote
Freeman Dyson
Without discipline there can be no greatness. Without diversity there can be no freedom. Greatness for the enterprise, freedom for the individual - these are the two themes, contrasting but not incompatible, that make up the history of science and the history of religion. View quote
Freeman Dyson
The most salient features of all these enterprises are discipline and diversity. (Freeman Dyson)
Religion amplifies the good and evil tendencies of individual souls. View quote
Freeman Dyson
Science is not a monolithic body of doctrine. Science is a culture, constantly growing and changing. View quote
Freeman Dyson
The step in size from each of these things to the next is roughly the same... twenty powers of ten.... View quote
Freeman Dyson
If we start space colonies in, say, the next 20 years, I would put my money on the asteroids. View quote
Freeman Dyson
Progress in religion means that, as time goes on, religion more and more takes the side of the victims against the oppressors. View quote
Freeman Dyson
It is too early yet to come to conclusions. View quote
Freeman Dyson
Science and religion are two human enterprises sharing many features. View quote
Freeman Dyson
Science has as many competing styles as painting or poetry. The diversity of science also finds a parallel in the diversity of religion. View quote
Freeman Dyson
We stand, in a manner of speaking, midway between the unpredictability of atoms and the unpredictability of God. View quote
Freeman Dyson
A point has no existence by itself. It exists only as a part of the pattern of relationships which constitute the geometry of Euclid. (Freeman Dyson)
I am content to be one of the multitude of Christians who do not care much about the doctrine of the Trinity or the historical truth of the gospels. Both as a scientist and as a religious person, I am accustomed to living with uncertainty. Science is exciting because it is full of unsolved mysteries, and religion is exciting for the same reason. View quote
Freeman Dyson
If we had a reliable way to label our toys good and bad, it would be easy to regulate technology wisely. But we can rarely see far enough ahead to know which road leads to damnation. View quote
Freeman Dyson
The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand. View quote
Freeman Dyson
Scientifically speaking, a butterfly is at least as mysterious as a superstring. View quote
Freeman Dyson