Robert B. Laughlin

1950– · American physicist

Topics: science, learning, physics

• When a thing gets very, very small, you can't tell the difference between a solid and a liquid. (16:30 in video)

  — Robert B. Laughlin

• What we live in, unfortunately, is a time when we are infected by what I call quantum field theory idolatry. (39:30 in video)

  — Robert B. Laughlin

• The reason we believe in relativity today is not because we had a great transition in our beliefs about what should be so. We believe in relativity because we have no choice. It's true — measured to be true.

  — Robert B. Laughlin

• I realized that nature is filled with a limitless number of wonderful things which have causes and reasons like anything else but nonetheless cannot be forseen but must be discovered, for their subtlety and complexity transcends the present state of science.

  — Robert B. Laughlin

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

  — Robert B. Laughlin

• 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.

  — Robert B. Laughlin

• It has been my experience that good theoretical physics is empowering, in that it enables thinking to take place that would otherwise not occur, and, in its highest form, facilitates experiments that would otherwise not be done.

  — Robert B. Laughlin

• 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.

  — Robert B. Laughlin