John Archibald Wheeler

1911–2008 · American physicist

Topics: learning, physics

• If I had to confess, under torture, right now, what I think the simple idea is, I would say it's that we ourselves generate the world; the world is self-generated. But it may well be absolutely wrong.

  — John Archibald Wheeler

• We live on an island surrounded by a sea of ignorance. As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.

  — John Archibald Wheeler

• Spacetime tells matter how to move; matter tells spacetime how to curve.

  — John Archibald Wheeler

• The best way to learn something is to have to teach it.

  — John Archibald Wheeler

• The question is—what is the question?

  — John Archibald Wheeler