Robert B. Laughlin quotes - page 2

The most interesting thing I learned during this time was how small a nuclear warhead was. (Robert B. Laughlin)
Real understanding of a thing comes from taking it apart oneself, not reading about it in a book or hearing about it in a classroom. View quote
Robert B. Laughlin
It is sobering thought that these missiles were actually deployed in continental Europe in those days and that on at least one occasion, namely the 1973 Arab-Israel war, there was an alert serious enough to leave the commanding officers trembling. View quote
Robert B. Laughlin
The world is full of intelligent, well-meaning people who, for one reason or another, did not attend university but are nonetheless well-read and educated. View quote
Robert B. Laughlin
I realized that nature is filled with a limitless number of wonderful things which have causes and reasons like anything else but nonetheless cannot be forseen but must be discovered, for their subtlety and complexity transcends the present state of science. View quote
Robert B. Laughlin
Another important aspect of our home was respect for ideas. View quote
Robert B. Laughlin
Over the course of time this gave us a deep respect for ideas, both our own and those of others, and an understanding that conflict through debate is a powerful means of revealing truth. View quote
Robert B. Laughlin
One of the terrific aspects of MIT in those days was the enormous variety of experimental work that either took place there or was talked about in seminars by outside speakers aggressively recruited by the faculty. View quote
Robert B. Laughlin
It was at this moment that I wrote my first important paper in theoretical physics. I was 32 years old, 5 years beyond the alleged age of senility for theorists. View quote
Robert B. Laughlin
Real understanding of a thing comes from taking it apart oneself, not reading about it in a book or hearing about it in a classroom. To this day I always insist on working out a problem from the beginning without reading up on it first, a habit that sometimes gets me into trouble but just as often helps me see things my predecessors have missed. View quote
Robert B. Laughlin
The world is full of intelligent, well-meaning people who, for one reason or another, did not attend university but are nonetheless well-read and educated. Out there on the prairie lost opportunities of youth were the rule rather than the exception, and I slowly became disabused of the myth of the Bright Young Thing and have not believed in it since. (Robert B. Laughlin)