Mathematics began to seem too much like puzzle solving. Physics is puzzle solving, too, but of puzzles created by nature, not by the mind of man.

— Maria Göppert Mayer, Nobel Prize in Physics 1963 (1963)

Source: https://www.nobelprize.org/stories/women-who-changed-science/maria-goeppert-mayer/

Quoted in a Nobel Prize web story about her.

Topics: mathematics, physics