140 quotes
I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy — and when he talks about a nonscientific matter, he will sound as naive as anyone untrained in the matter.
The Value of Science (1955)
If it turns out there is a simple ultimate law which explains everything, so be it, that would be very nice to discover. If it turns out it's like an onion with millions of layers … then that's the way it is.
[I call myself] an atheist. Agnostic for me would be trying to weasel out and sound a little nicer than I am about this.
[T]he total amount that a physicist knows is very little. He has only to remember the rules to get him from one place to another...
The Character of Physical Law (1965)
[T]he experimentally measured mass m, and... charge, e, of the electron are different from the numbers in our calculations, n and j.
QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter (1985)
The fact that this danger did not lead to a catastrophe before is no guarantee that it will not the next time, unless it is completely understood. When playing Russian roulette the fact that the first shot got off safely is little comfort for the next.
Rogers Commission Report (1986)
The only way to have real success in science, the field I'm familiar with, is to describe the evidence very carefully without regard to the way you feel it should be. If you have a theory, you must try to explain what's good and what's bad about it equally. In science, you learn a kind of standard integrity and honesty.
What Do You Care What Other People Think? (1988)
I don't like honors. ... I've already got the prize: the prize is the pleasure of finding the thing out, the kick in the discovery, the observation that other people use it. Those are the real things.
No Ordinary Genius (1994)
If we suppress all discussion, all criticism, proclaiming "This is the answer, my friends; man is saved!" we will doom humanity for a long time to the chains of authority, confined to the limits of our present imagination. It has been done so many times before.
The Value of Science (1955)
Deep in the sea
all molecules repeat
the patterns of one another
till complex new ones are formed.
They make others like themselves
and a new dance starts. Growing in size and complexity
living things
masses of atoms
DNA, protein
dancing a pattern ever more intricate.
The Value of Science (1955)
The next question was — what makes planets go around the sun? At the time of Kepler some people answered this problem by saying that there were angels behind them beating their wings and pushing the planets around an orbit. As you will see, the answer is not very far from the truth. The only difference is that the angels sit in a different direction and their wings push inward.
The Character of Physical Law (1965)
The most dramatic moments in the development of physics are those in which great syntheses take place, where phenomena which previously had appeared to be different are suddenly discovered to be but different aspects of the same thing. The history of physics is the history of such syntheses, and the basis of the success of physical science is mainly that we are able to synthesize.
The chance is high that the truth lies in the fashionable direction. But, on the off-chance that it is in another direction — a direction obvious from an unfashionable view of field theory — who will find it? Only someone who has sacrificed himself by teaching himself quantum electrodynamics from a peculiar and unfashionable point of view; one that he may have to invent for himself.
That's called monochromatic light, light of one color. ...I'm going to discuss all my phenomena for a while with light of one color, because it's simpler
Sir Douglas Robb Lectures (1979)
We have a habit in writing articles published in scientific journals to make the work as finished as possible, to cover all the tracks, to not worry about the blind alleys or to describe how you had the wrong idea first, and so on. So there isn't any place to publish, in a dignified manner, what you actually did in order to get to do the work.
Is no one inspired by our present picture of the universe? This value of science remains unsung by singers, you are reduced to hearing not a song or poem, but an evening lecture about it. This is not yet a scientific age.
The Value of Science (1955)
Ordinary fools are all right; you can talk to them, and try to help them out. But pompous fools—guys who are fools and are covering it all over and impressing people as to how wonderful they are with all this hocus pocus—THAT, I CANNOT STAND! An ordinary fool isn’t a faker; an honest fool is all right. But a dishonest fool is terrible!
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (1985)
In fact, the science of thermodynamics began with an analysis, by the great engineer Sadi Carnot, of the problem of how to build the best and most efficient engine, and this constitutes one of the few famous cases in which engineering has contributed to fundamental physical theory. Another example that comes to mind is the more recent analysis of information theory by Claude Shannon. These two analyses, incidentally, turn out to be closely related.
The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1964)
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
Disputed
The philosophy of science is as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds.
Disputed