Equation Quotes - page 6
Ironically, conventional quantum mechanics itself involves a vast expansion of physical reality, which may be enough to avoid Einstein Insanity. The equations of quantum dynamics allow physicists to predict the future values of the wave function, given its present value. According to the Schrödinger equation, the wave function evolves in a completely predictable way. But in practice we never have access to the full wave function, either at present or in the future, so this "predictability” is unattainable. If the wave function provides the ultimate description of reality - a controversial issue!
Frank Wilczek
... the science of calculation also is indispensable as far as the extraction of the square and cube roots Algebra as far as the quadratic equation and the use of logarithms are often of value in ordinary cases but all beyond these is but a luxury a delicious luxury indeed but not to be in indulged in by one who is to have a profession to follow for his subsistence.
Thomas Jefferson
Someone told me that each equation I included in the book would halve the sales. I therefore resolved not to have any equations at all. In the end, however, I did put in one equation, Einstein's famous equation, E = mc^2. I hope that this will not scare off half of my potential readers.
Stephen Hawking
A great deal of the thinking here has been influenced by cybernetics and information theory, though this has been used as much to extend the scope of closed-system as to improve the sophistication of open system formulations. It was von Bertalanffy (1950) who, in terms of the general transport equation which he introduced, first fully disclosed the importance of openness or closedness to the environment as a means of distinguishing living organisms from inanimate objects.
Fred Emery
Man is naturally self-centered and he is inclined to regard expediency as the supreme standard for what is right and wrong. However, we must not convert an inclination into an axiom that just as man's perceptions cannot operate outside time and space, so his motivations cannot operate outside expediency; that man can never transcend his own self. The most fatal trap into which thinking may fall is the equation of existence and expediency.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
The differential equation of the first order
\frac {dy}{dx} = f(x, y)
... prescribes the slope \frac {dy}{dx} at each point of the plane (or at each point of a certain region of the plane we call the field").... a differential equation of the first order... can be conceived intuitively as a problem about the steady flow of a river: Being given the direction of the flow at each point, find the streamlines.... It leaves open the choice between the two possible directions in the line of a given slope. Thus... we should say specifically "direction of an unoriented straight line" and not merely "direction."
George Pólya
Under what circumstances is continuing to live like this the best option? Only if you have no belief that any alternative is possible. Only then. The celebrities feel better for taking part. The callers feel better for donating. The Haitians get a bit of aid that they should rightly have been given under the covenant of brotherhood that exists between us all, and we all just smile and pretend there's no alternative. There is another way. There is the way. To live in accordance with truth, to accept we are on a planet that has resources and people on it. We have to respect the planet so we can use the resources to nourish the people. Somehow this simple equation has been allowed to become extremely confusing.
Russell Brand
Darwin's theory of evolution is a framework by which we understand the diversity of life on Earth. But there is no equation sitting there in Darwin's 'Origin of Species' that you apply and say, 'What is this species going to look like in 100 years or 1,000 years?' Biology isn't there yet with that kind of predictive precision.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
The slightest study of business conditions will satisfy anyone capable of forming a judgment that the personal equation is the most important factor in a business operation; that the business ability of the man at the head of any business concern, big or little, is usually the factor which fixes the gulf between striking success and hopeless failure.
Theodore Roosevelt
