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Science is about measurement, dammit — it's not about ideas. (55:20 in video)

— Robert B. Laughlin

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More quotes by Robert B. Laughlin

The most interesting thing I learned during this time was how small a nuclear warhead was.

Nobel Prize autobiography (1998)

The modern concept of the vacuum of space, confirmed every day by experiment, is a relativistic ether. But we do not call it this because it is taboo.

The great power of science is its ability, through brutal objectivity, to reveal to us truth we did not anticipate. In this it continues to be invaluable, and one of the greatest of human creations.

The world is full of intelligent, well-meaning people who, for one reason or another, did not attend university but are nonetheless well-read and educated.

Nobel Prize autobiography (1998)

Real understanding of a thing comes from taking it apart oneself, not reading about it in a book or hearing about it in a classroom.

Nobel Prize autobiography (1998)

All Robert B. Laughlin quotes →

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The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

H. P. Lovecraft The Call of Cthulhu (1926)

All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.

Albert Einstein Moral Decay (1937)

Science and religion are two human enterprises sharing many features.

Freeman Dyson Infinite in All Directions (1988)

To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.

Henri Poincaré Science and Hypothesis (1901)

Attribution

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