Physics is like sex. Sure you can get some interesting results, but that's not why we do it.
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Does not appear to be from any of his books or cited in a biography. Oldest book citing it is a quotation text from 2001 (google books search with "physics is like sex"). Could it be yet another fabrication from the internet era?
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Brian Greene, in The Elegant Universe : Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory (1999), p. 97Richard Feynman
» Richard Feynman - all quotes »
The reason is not to glorify "bit chasing"; a more fundamental issue is at stake here: Numerical subroutines should deliver results that satisfy simple, useful mathematical laws whenever possible. [...] Without any underlying symmetry properties, the job of proving interesting results becomes extremely unpleasant. The enjoyment of one's tools is an essential ingredient of successful work.
Donald Knuth
You can’t publish a paper on physics without the full experimental data and results; that should be the standard in journalism".
Julian Assange
In the matter of physics, the first lessons should contain nothing but what is experimental and interesting to see. A pretty experiment is in itself often more valuable than twenty formulae extracted from our minds.
Albert Einstein
On the side of physics, there were a few key figures in Oxford who realized, in all probability unlike the majority of their colleagues in the physics department, that physics without interpretation is only part of the story, and that theories like quantum mechanics need careful foundational reflection.
Harvey (philosopher) Brown
“Try to be a man about whom nothing is known,” our father said, when we were young. Our father said several other interesting things, but we have forgotten what they were. “Keep quiet,” he said. That we remember. He wished more quiet. One tends to want that, in a National Park. Our father was a man about whom nothing was known. Nothing is known about him still. He gave us the recipes. He was not very interesting. A tree is more interesting. A suitcase is more interesting. A canned good is more interesting. When we sing the father hymn, we notice that he was not very interesting. The words of the hymn notice it. It is explictly commented upon, in the text.
Donald Barthelme
Feynman, Richard
Fforde, Jasper
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