140 quotes
The vastness of heavens stretches my imagination...Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were like a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?
I learned from my father: Have no respect whatsoever for authority; forget who said it and instead look what he starts with, where he ends up, and ask yourself, "Is it reasonable?"
What Do You Care What Other People Think? (1988)
The scale of light can be described by numbers — called the frequency — and as the numbers get higher, the light goes from red to blue to ultraviolet. We can't see ultraviolet light, but it can affect photographic plates. It's still light — only the number is different.
QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter (1985)
Will you understand what I'm going to tell you? ... No, you're not going to be able to understand it. ... That is because I don't understand it. Nobody does.
QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter (1985)
In Einstein’s corrected formula m has the value m=\frac m}_}{\sqrt} where the “rest mass” m0 represents the mass of a body that is not moving and c is the speed of light, which is about 3×105 km⋅sec−1 or about 186,000 mi⋅sec−1.
A person talks in such generalities that everyone can understand him and it's considered to be some deep philosophy. However, I would like to be very rather more special and I would like to be understood in an honest way, rather than in a vague way.
The Character of Physical Law (1965)
In fact, how could you tell inside a space ship whether you are sitting on the earth or are accelerating in free space? According to Einstein’s equivalence principle there is no way to tell if you only make measurements of what happens to things inside!
The most important thing I found out from [my father] is that if you asked any question and pursued it deeply enough, then at the end there was a glorious discovery of a general and beautiful kind.
No Ordinary Genius (1994)
The worthwhile problems are the ones you can really solve or help solve, the ones you can really contribute something to. … No problem is too small or too trivial if we can really do something about it.
Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track (2005)
When a photon comes down, it interacts with electrons throughout the glass, not just on the surface. The photon and electrons do some kind of dance, the net result of which is the same as if the photon hit only on the surface.
QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter (1985)
"The exception tests the rule." Or, put another way, "The exception proves that the rule is wrong." That is the principle of science. If there is an exception to any rule, and if it can be proved by observation, that rule is wrong.
The Meaning of It All (1999)
Feynmans QED probability amplitudes for a single surface reflection (with probability area not indicated as \pi S^2 for a circle, but directly as S^2, the square of the amplitude arrow's length.). This animation is also not for the two surfaces discussed in the quote.
Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, "But how can it be like that?" because you will get "down the drain", into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that.
The Character of Physical Law (1965)
If the professors of English will complain to me that the students who come to the universities, after all those years of study, still cannot spell "friend," I say to them that something's the matter with the way you spell friend.
The Meaning of It All (1999)
Now we have a problem. We can deduce, often, from one part of physics like the law of gravitation, a principle which turns out to be much more valid than the derivation. This doesn't happen in mathematics, that the theorems come out in places where they're not supposed to be!
The Character of Physical Law (1965)
[S]tudy hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.
Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track (2005)
First we have an observation, then we have numbers that we measure, then we have a law which summarizes all the numbers. But the real glory of science is that we can find a way of thinking such that the law is evident.
The real question of government versus private enterprise is argued on too philosophical and abstract a basis. Theoretically, planning may be good. But nobody has ever figured out the cause of government stupidity — and until they do (and find the cure), all ideal plans will fall into quicksand.
What Do You Care What Other People Think? (1988)
Stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light. A vast pattern — of which I am a part... It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little more about it.
Our freedom to doubt was born out of a struggle against authority in the early days of science. It was a very deep and strong struggle: permit us to question — to doubt — to not be sure. I think that it is important that we do not forget this struggle and thus perhaps lose what we have gained.