Physics Quotes

There was a young lady named Bright,Whose speed was far faster than light;She started one dayIn a relative way,And returned on the previous night.

~ Arthur Henry Reginald Buller

My idea of an educated person is one who can converse on one subject for more than two minutes.

~ Robert Andrews Millikan

If instead of arranging the atoms in some definite pattern, again and again repeated, on and on, or even forming little lumps of complexity like the odor of violets, we make an arrangement which is always different from place to place, with different kinds of atoms arranged in many ways, continually changing, not repeating, how much more marvelously is it possible that this thing might behave? Is it possible that that thing walking back and forth in front of you, talking to you, is a great glob of these atoms in a very complex arrangement, such that the sheer complexity of it staggers the imagination as to what it can do? When we say we are a pile of atoms, we do not mean we are merely a pile of atoms, because a pile of atoms which is not repeated from one to the other might well have the possibilities which you see before you in the mirror.

~ Richard Feynman

As to your Newton, I confess I do not understand his void and his gravity; I admit he has demonstrated the movement of the heavenly bodies with more exactitude than his forerunners; but you will admit it is an absurdity to maintain the existence of No

~ Frederick The Great

Yet if there really were a complete unified theory, it would also presumably determine our actions—so the theory itself would determine the outcome of our search for it! And why should it determine that we come to the right conclusions from the evidence? Might it not equally well determine that we draw the wrong conclusion? Or no conclusion at all?

~ Stephen Hawking

Is numerical equality (forced by the use of specific physical units) the same as conceptual equality? Of course NOT!

~ Felix Alba-Juez

One of the various theories proposed to explain the negative result of the famous Michelson-Morley experiment with light waves (conceived to measure the absolute space), was based on the ballistic hypothesis, i.e. on postulating that the speed of light predicted by Maxwell's equations was not given as relative to the medium but as relative to the transmitter (firearm). Had that been the case, the experiment negative results would have not caused such perplexity and frustration (as we shall see in forthcoming sections).

~ Felix Alba-Juez

It is worth noting that a wrong folkoric definition of an Inertial Frame in the Popular Science literature (even in text books) reads that 'it is a frame in uniform motion'. We know very well by now that the idea of motion requires a frame of reference, so that such a definition of an Inertial Frame has no meaning whatsoever, confusing the reader because it tacitly reaffirms the idea of absolute motion -- when the goal of every didactic exposition of Relativity Theory should be precisely the opposite.

~ Felix Alba-Juez

It's obviously unfair to paint with a broad brush here, but the germ of an idea for a breakthrough in technology doesn't come out of a business school curriculum. It comes out of a laboratory or a math lecture or a physics tutorial.

~ Michael Moritz

Bowling is all physics and energy distribution. It's F = ma. So it is actually one of the most science-y sports, because it literally is just a ball and a surface and objects to knock down.

~ Chris Hardwick

All science is either physics or stamp collecting.

~ Ernest Rutherford

The birth of science as we know it arguably began with Isaac Newton's formulation of the laws of gravitation and motion. It is no exaggeration to say that physics was reborn in the early 20th-century with the twin revolutions of quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity.

~ Paul Davies

The fundamental concept in social science is Power, in the same sense in which Energy is the fundamental concept in physics.

~ Bertrand Russell

'The Turner Diaries' is a racist daydream by a former physics teacher writing under the pseudonym Andrew Macdonald.

~ Gore Vidal

I have been connected with the Niels Bohr Institute since the completion of my university studies, first as a research fellow and, from 1956, as a professor of physics at the University of Copenhagen. After the death of my father in 1962, I followed him as director of the Institute until 1970.

~ Aage Bohr

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.

~ Robert B. Laughlin

Physics has a history of synthesizing many phenomena into a few theories.

~ Richard P. Feynman

In law, as in every other branch of knowledge, the truths given by induction tend to form the premises for new deductions. The lawyers and the judges of successive generations do not repeat for themselves the process of verification any more than most of us repeat the demonstrations of the truths of astronomy or physics.

~ Benjamin N. Cardozo

As an assistant in the polytechnic department, I was able to finance new studies and got my Physics Masters Degree in 1958 and my Ph.D. in 1959.

~ Francois Englert

Medical physics is an applied area of physics.

~ John Cameron

Most medical physicists work in the physics of radiation oncology making sure that the desired dose is given to the cancer and the dose to normal tissues are minimized.

~ John Cameron

I was the Chair of the first department of medical physics in a medical school in the U.S.

~ John Cameron

I have devoted much time and energy to helping medical physics in developing countries.

~ John Cameron

The grounding in natural sciences which I obtained in the course of my medical studies, including preliminary examinations in botany, zoology, physics, and chemistry, was to become decisive in determining the trend of my literary work.

~ Johannes Vilhelm Jensen

The bottom line is that time travel is allowed by the laws of physics.

~ Brian Greene

It's hardly a secret that I'm skeptical of declarations that the aliens are out and about on our planet. Still, I try to answer every one of these mails and phone calls because, after all, it's not a violation of physics to travel from one star system to another.

~ Seth Shostak

I have a funny mental framework when I do physics. I create an imaginary audience in my head to explain things to - it is part of the way I think. For me, teaching and explaining, even to my imaginary audience, is part of the process.

~ Leonard Susskind

Politics follows the lines of physics: every action creates an equal and opposite reaction.

~ John Avlon

In politics, as in physics, every reaction is met with an equal and opposite reaction.

~ Thom Tillis

I tried out various experiments described in treatises on physics and chemistry, and the results were sometimes unexpected. At times, I would be encouraged by a little unhoped-for success; at others, I would be in the deepest despair because of accidents and failures resulting from my inexperience.

~ Marie Curie

It's always a combination of physics and poetry that I find inspiring. It's hard to wrap your head around things like the Hubble scope.

~ Tom Hanks