Richard Feynman citáty

page 6

Einstein was a genius: Head in the clouds, feet on the ground. But those of us who are not as tall, have to make a choice.
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God was invented to explain mystery. God is always invented to explain those things that you do not understand.
Citácia v: Superstrings: A Theory of Everything? (1988) autor: Paul C. W. Davies; autor: Julian R. Brown, str. 208-209, ISBN 0521354625
Potvrdené výroky

There are 1011 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.
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Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
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Zdroj: The Character of Physical Law (1965), chapter 2, “ The Relation of Mathematics to Physics http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9ZYEb0Vf8U”

volume I; lecture 22, "Algebra"; section 22-1, "Addition and multiplication"; p. 22-1
The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1964)

lecture II: "The Uncertainty of Values"
The Meaning of It All (1999)

lecture III: "This Unscientific Age"
The Meaning of It All (1999)

lecture III: "This Unscientific Age"
The Meaning of It All (1999)

From Omni interview, "The Smartest Man in the World" (1979) or from the book p. 194.
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out (1999)

From Omni interview, "The Smartest Man in the World" (1979) or from the book p. 195.
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out (1999)

Reflecting on the failure of his presentation at the "Pocono Conference" of 30 March - 1 April 1948.
interview with Sylvan S. Schweber, 13 November 1984, published in QED and the Men Who Made It: Dyson, Feynman, Schwinger, and Tomonaga (1994) by Silvan S. Schweber, p. 436

"The Development of the Space-Time View of Quantum Electrodynamics," Nobel Lecture http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/1965/feynman-lecture.html (11 December 1965)

Comment to psychiatrist who examines Feynman and states he (the psychiatrist) has studied medicine.
Part 3: "Feynman, The Bomb, and the Military", "Uncle Sam Doesn't Need <u>You</u>", p. 159
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (1985)

last words (15 February 1988), recalled by sister Joan Feynman, in Christopher Sykes, editor, No Ordinary Genius: The Illustrated Richard Feynman (1994), p. 254

on his blackboard at the time of death in February 1988; from a photo in the Caltech archives http://archives.caltech.edu/pictures/1.10-29.jpg

The Value of Science (1955)

" New Textbooks for the "New" Mathematics http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/2362/1/feynman.pdf", Engineering and Science volume 28, number 6 (March 1965) p. 9-15 at p. 14
Paraphrased as "Precise language is not the problem. Clear language is the problem."

It is not odd at all. You only think you know, as a matter of fact. And most of your actions are based on incomplete knowledge and you really don't know what it is all about, or what the purpose of the world is, or know a great deal of other things. It is possible to live and not know.
from lecture "What is and What Should be the Role of Scientific Culture in Modern Society", given at the Galileo Symposium in Italy (1964)
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out (1999)

The Value of Science (1955)

The Value of Science (1955)

Attributed to Feynman, many times, by the British historian of science Brian Cox.
Disputed and/or attributed

address " What is Science? http://www.fotuva.org/feynman/what_is_science.html", presented at the fifteenth annual meeting of the National Science Teachers Association, in New York City (1966), published in The Physics Teacher, volume 7, issue 6 (1969), p. 313-320

because you will get "down the drain", into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that.
Concerning the apparent absurdities of quantum behavior.
Zdroj: The Character of Physical Law (1965), chapter 6, “Probability and Uncertainty — the Quantum Mechanical View of Nature,” p. 129

Even if we knew every rule, however, we might not be able to understand why a particular move is made in the game, merely because it is too complicated and our minds are limited. If you play chess you must know that it is easy to learn all the rules, and yet it is often very hard to select the best move or to understand why a player moves as he does. So it is in nature, only much more so.
volume I; lecture 2, "Basic Physics"; section 2-1, "Introduction"; p. 2-1
The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1964)

remarks (2 May 1956) at a Caltech YMCA lunch forum http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/49/2/Religion.htm

lecture II: "The Uncertainty of Values"
The Meaning of It All (1999)

I might think about it a little bit, and if I can't figure it out then I go on to something else. But I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose — which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell. Possibly. It doesn't frighten me.
Zdroj: No Ordinary Genius (1994), p. 239, from interview in "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out" (1981): video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEwUwWh5Xs4&t=48m10s

I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination — stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light. A vast pattern — of which I am a part... What is the pattern, or the meaning, or the why? It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined! Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?
volume I; lecture 3, "The Relation of Physics to Other Sciences"; section 3-4, "Astronomy"; p. 3-6
The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1964)

Zdroj: Curious Character

excerpt from letter to J. M. Szabados (30 November 1965), quoted in "Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track The Letters of Richard P. Feynman" (2005) by Michelle Feynman and Carl Feynman, p. 206