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Every experiment destroys some of the knowledge of the system which was obtained by previous experiments.

— Werner Heisenberg

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Source, in full

"Critique of the Physical Concepts of the Corpuscular Theory" in The Physical Principles of the Quantum Theory (1930) as translated by Carl Eckhart and Frank C. Hoyt, p. 20; also in "The Uncertainty Principle" in The World of Mathematics : A Small Library of the Literature of Mathematics (1956) by James Roy Newman, p. 1051

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Knowledge

More quotes by Werner Heisenberg

There is a fundamental error in separating the parts from the whole, the mistake of atomizing what should not be atomized. Unity and complementarity constitute reality.

Light and matter are both single entities, and the apparent duality arises in the limitations of our language.

We have to remember that what we observe is not nature herself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.

Physics and Philosophy (1958)

The more precise the measurement of position, the more imprecise the measurement of momentum, and vice versa.

The existing scientific concepts cover always only a very limited part of reality, and the other part that has not yet been understood is infinite.

Physics and Philosophy (1958)

All Werner Heisenberg quotes →

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Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Werner Heisenberg (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.