Physics Quotes - page 36
Waves striking the sea cliffs bounced back outward, creating interference patterns with the incoming waves that could have come right out of a physics wave tank: so beautiful. And so strange, that the world should conform so well to mathematical formulation. The unreasonable effectiveness of math; it was at the heart of the great unexplainable.
Kim Stanley Robinson
Among all the studies of natural causes and reasons, light most delights the contemplators; among the great things of mathematics, the certainty of its demonstrations most illustriously elevates the minds of its investigators; perspective must therefore be preferred to all human discourses and disciplines, in the study in which radiant lines are expounded by means of demonstrations and in which the glory is found not only of mathematics, but also physics: it is adorned with the flowers of one and the other.
John Peckham
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. If it should turn out that the whole of physical reality can be described by a finite set of equations, I would be disappointed, I would feel that the Creator had been uncharacteristically lacking in imagination.
Freeman Dyson
As astronomy and physics inspired the Enlightenment, so biology inspired Modernism. ...This new view led to a reexamination in art of the biological nature of human existence, as evident in Édouard Manet's Déjeuner sur l'Herbe... Manet's painting... reveals a theme... the complex relationship between the sexes and between fantasy and reality. ...also startlingly modern because of its style. Several decades before Cézanne began to collapse three dimension into two, Manet here had already flattened the viewer's sense of perspective...
Eric Kandel
Real-world data going back to the 1980s suggest that, although fewer women apply for jobs in fields such as maths, physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering, those who do apply are no less likely to be interviewed and no less likely to be offered the job. On the contrary, they are generally more likely to be.
Steve Stewart-Williams
Many people would claim that the boundary conditions are not part of physics but belong to metaphysics or religion. They would claim that nature had complete freedom to start the universe off any way it wanted. That may be so, but it could also have made it evolve in a completely arbitrary and random manner. Yet all the evidence is that it evolves in a regular way according to certain laws. It would therefore seem reasonable to suppose that there are also laws governing the boundary conditions.
Stephen Hawking
It is an old story in physics that higher resolving power leads to new effects. We remember that the magnetic moment of the nucleus was itself discovered through the hyperfine structure of lines in the visible spectrum. The nuclear resonance line in a liquid or gas can be remarkably narrow, as you have already seen. As soon as the reason for this was recognized, it became clear that the only practical limit on resolution was the inhomogeneity of the magnetic field applied to the specimen.
Edward Mills Purcell
Does life in some way make use of the potentiality for vast quantum superpositions, as would be required for serious quantum computation? How important are the quantum aspects of DNA molecules? Are cellular microtubules performing some essential quantum roles? Are the subtleties of quantum field theory important to biology? Shall we gain needed insights from the study of quantum toy models? Do we really need to move forward to radical new theories of physical reality, as I myself believe, before the more subtle issues of biology - most importantly conscious mentality - can be understood in physical terms? How relevant, indeed, is our present lack of understanding of physics at the quantum/classical boundary? Or is consciousness really "no big deal,” as has sometimes been expressed?
It would be too optimistic to expect to find definitive answers to all these questions, at our present state of knowledge, but there is much scope for healthy debate...
Roger Penrose
The "laws of thought" depend not only on the property of brain cells, but also on how they are connected. And these connections are established not by the basic, "general" laws of physics... To be sure, "general" laws apply to everything. But, for that very reason, they can rarely explain anything in particular. ...Each higher level of description must add to our knowledge about lower levels.
Marvin Minsky
[W]hat I had been missing... and what Feynman realized: physics is the ultimate intellectual adventure, the quest to understand the deepest mysteries of our Universe. ...[I]t makes us see more clearly, adding to the beauty and wonder of the world ...[T]he lens of physics adds more beauty to the world ...
Max Tegmark
In summary, then, the set theoretic 'needs' of physics are surprisingly similar to the set theoretic needs of pure logic. Both disciplines need some set theory to function at all. Both disciplines can 'live' - but live badly - on the meager diet of only predicative sets. Both can live extremely happily on the rich diet of impredicative sets. Insofar, then, as the indispensability of quantification over sets is any argument for their existence - and we will discuss why it is in the next section - we may say that it is a strong argument for the existence of at least predicative sets, and a pretty strong, but not as strong, argument for the existence of impredicative sets.
Hilary Putnam
The objects of instruction in purely scientific mechanics and physics are, first, to produce in the student that improvement of the understanding which results from the cultivation of natural knowledge, and that elevation of mind which flows from the contemplation of the order of the universe; and secondly, if possible, to qualify him to become a scientific discoverer.
William John Macquorn Rankine
I think time will show that the new approach, emphasizing emergent "macro" control, is equally valid in all the physical sciences, and that the behavioral and cognitive disciplines are leading the way to a more valid framework for all science. Although the theoretic changes make little difference in physics, chemistry, molecular biology, and so on, they are crucial for the behavioral, social, and human sciences. They don't change the analytic, reductive methodology, just the interpretations and conclusions. There seems little to lose, and much to gain.
Roger Wolcott Sperry
If a scientist saw a cataclysm coming, say a meteor on collision course for earth in 2050, we wouldn't be saying, "Hallelujah, physics is true, bring it on! Our faith in mathematics is strengthened!” We'd be trying to stop it. Which makes the Christian reaction puzzling. If I actually believed Jesus was coming to end the world, I'd be preparing by stocking up on timber and nails. They were pretty effective last time.
PZ Myers
About all these things physics can tell us nothing. The idea of natural selection, which, as we shall see, is uaully called in to account for this vast creative surge, is already looking increasingly inadequate to explain evolution. The main trouble is, I think, best explained in the analogy of coffee. Natural selection is only a filter, and filters do not provide the taste of coffee that pours through them. Similarly, the range of evolutionary alternatives between which selection takes place has to be already in matter. How it comes to be present there is the real mystery about creation.
Mary Midgley
We wish to see... the typical attitude of the scientist who uses mathematics to understand the world around us. ...In the solution of a problem ...there are typically three phases. The first phase is entirely or almost entirely a matter of physics; the third, a matter of mathematics; and the intermediate phase, a transition from physics to mathematics. The first phase is the formulation of the physical hypothesis or conjecture; the second, its translation into equations; the third, the solution of the equations. Each phase calls for a different kind of work and demands a different attitude.
George Pólya
It is plain that God does not employ drugs or hygiene, nor provide them for human use; else Jesus would have recommended and employed them in his healing. The sick are more deplorably lost than the sinning, if the sick cannot rely on God for help and the sinning can. ... The universal belief in physics weighs against the high and mighty truths of Christian metaphysics. This erroneous general belief, which sustains medicine and produces all medical results, works against Christian Science[.] ... If we would heal by the Spirit, we must not hide the talent of spiritual healing under the napkin of its form. ... The tender word and Christian encouragement of an invalid, pitiful patience with his fears and the removal of them, are better than hecatombs of gushing theories, stereotyped borrowed speeches, and the doling of arguments, which are but so many parodies on legitimate Christian Science, aflame with divine Love.
Jesus Christ
It's not... something where you say... you've got the fundamental theory of everything, then... [you can] tell me whether... lions are going to eat tigers or something. ...No, you have to run this thing for ...10 steps ...to know ...You say ...run this rule enough times and you will get the whole universe. ...That's what it means to ...have a fundamental theory of physics ...You've got this rule, it's potentially simple... You've kind of reduced the problem of physics to a problem of mathematics... as if you generate the digits of pi.
Stephen Wolfram
