Niels Bohr (1885 – 1962)
Jewish Danish physicist.
We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough.
It is not enough to be wrong, one must also be polite.
There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature...
I remember discussions with Bohr which went through many hours till very late at night and ended almost in despair; and when at the end of the discussion I went alone for a walk in the neighbouring park I repeated to myself again and again the question: Can nature possibly be so absurd as it seemed to us in these atomic experiments?
Not often in life has a human being caused me such joy by his mere presence as you did.
It is a great pity that human beings cannot find all of their satisfaction in scientific contemplativeness.
Isolated material particles are abstractions, their properties being definable and observable only through their interaction with other systems.
Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.
We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question is whether it is crazy enough to be have a chance of being correct.
Stop telling God what to do with his dice.
One of the favorite maxims of my father was the distinction between the two sorts of truths, profound truths recognized by the fact that the opposite is also a profound truth, in contrast to trivialities where opposites are obviously absurd.
An expert is a person who has found out by his own painful experience all the mistakes that one can make in a very narrow field.
Yes, I think that your theory is crazy. Sadly, it's not crazy enough to be believed.
The first thing Bohr said to me was that it would only then be profitable to work with him if I understood that he was a dilettante. The only way I knew to react to this unexpected statement was with a polite smile of disbelief. But evidently Bohr was serious. He explained how he had to approach every new question from a starting point of total ignorance. It is perhaps better to say that Bohr's strength lay in his formidable intuition and insight rather than erudition.
Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.
The great extension of our experience in recent years has brought light to the insufficiency of our simple mechanical conceptions and, as a consequence, has shaken the foundation on which the customary interpretation of observation was based.
How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress.
Two sorts of truth: profound truths ?recognized by the fact that the opposite is also a profound truth,? in contrast to trivialities where opposites are obviously absurd.
We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct.
We in the back are convinced your theory is crazy. But what divides us is whether it is crazy enough.