physics
It is an astonishing feat of deciphering that we should have been able to infer an orderly scheme of natural knowledge from such indirect communication.
— Arthur Eddington[T]he production of heat alone is not sufficient to give birth to the impelling power: it is necessary that there should also be cold; without it, the heat would be useless.
— Nicolas CarnotWill you understand what I'm going to tell you? ... No, you're not going to be able to understand it. ... That is because I don't understand it. Nobody does.
— Richard FeynmanIsolated material particles are abstractions, their properties being definable and observable only through their interaction with other systems.
— Niels BohrLong ago, physics and other natural sciences... had become computational.
— Joscha BachWe have no right to assume that any physical laws exist, or if they have existed up to now, that they will continue to exist in a similar manner in the future.
— Max PlanckThe scale of light can be described by numbers — called the frequency — and as the numbers get higher, the light goes from red to blue to ultraviolet. We can't see ultraviolet light, but it can affect photographic plates. It's still light — only the number is different.
— Richard FeynmanThe idea of quantum mechanics that I want to describe now is a positive thing. It's a way that we actually use to make calculations and understand nature. Excuse me, to make calculations! We really don't understand it very well... Understanding real nature, we are unable to do.
— Richard FeynmanOf several luminous bodies of equal size and brilliancy and at an equal distance, that will look the largest which is surrounded by the darkest background.
— Leonardo da VinciWe have heard that nature can sing some strange and unfamiliar songs. In coming to appreciate these songs, we develop a heightened perception... leavened by an admixture of our own creation...
— Frank WilczekThe electron is a theory we use; it is so useful in understanding the way nature works that we can almost call it real.
— Richard FeynmanThe external world of physics has thus become a world of shadows. In removing our illusions we have removed the substance, for indeed we have seen that substance is one of the greatest of our illusions.
— Arthur EddingtonPhysical science comes nearest to that complete system of exact knowledge which all sciences have before them as an ideal. Some fall far short of it.
— Arthur Eddington[C]razy ideas are the sort of thing one needs when talking about the Big Bang. ...All the ideas I'm going to show you... are put forward by very... respectable cosmologists. It doesn't make the ideas any less crazy...
— Roger PenrosePossibly we will find an elegant model, in agreement with observation, that yields the pattern of lepton masses as well as the pattern of quark bare masses and even relates hadrons and leptons. This is our dream; touch us!
— Murray Gell-MannNature was not satisfied by a simple point charge but required a charge with spin.
— Shinichiro TomonagaWe want a fireworks theory of evolution. The last two thousand million years are slow evolution: they are the smoke and ashes of bright but very rapid fireworks.
— Georges LemaîtreI pointed out in the second part of my paper... that my Minimum Theorem, as well as the so-called Second Law of Thermodynamics, are only theorems of probability. The Second Law can never be proved mathematically by means of the equations of dynamics alone.
— Ludwig BoltzmannMathematical physics is in the first place physics and it could not exist without experimental investigations.
— Peter DebyeDiscoveries in physics are made when the time for making them is ripe, and not before.
— Clinton Davisson