Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
When we try to observe things that are very small, the act of observation itself will significantly disturb the state we are seeking to measure.
In 5 billion years, the expansion of the universe will have progressed to the point where all other galaxies will have receded beyond detection.
If you look through the shelves of science books, you'll find row after row of books written by men. This can be terribly off-putting for women.
Most physicists like myself won't believe the result until every possible caveat has been investigated and/or the result is confirmed elsewhere.
Some day we'll move into space and start ensuring the survival of our species beyond Earth, whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand.
Photography is a source of raw materials as I believe the camera is never perfect and will never be able to express in full what I see and feel.
If you have any talent, or any occupation that delights you, do it, and do it to the hilt. Don't ask why, or what difficulties you may get into.
Man himself is a mysterious object, and the tools to probe his physiologic nature and function have developed only slowly through the millennia.
The astronauts who came in with me in my astronaut class - my class had 29 men and 6 women - those men were all very used to working with women.
I think eventually private enterprise will be able to send people into orbit, but I suspect initially it's going to have to be with NASA's help.
[In the Universe it may be that] Primitive life is very common and intelligent life is fairly rare. Some would say it has yet to occur on Earth.
The problem is that people think faith is something to be admired. In fact, faith means you believe in something for which you have no evidence.
It's hard to figure out the secrets of the universe when you're trying to figure out where you and your girlfriend are going to sleep next month.
Mathematics may be defined as the economy of counting. There is no problem in the whole of mathematics which cannot be solved by direct counting.
It takes so long to train a physicist to the place where he understands the nature of physical problems that he is already too old to solve them.
Organizations need to undergo fundamental changes, both in order to adapt to the new business environment and to become ecologically sustainable.
The destruction of our environment and resources cannot be stemmed unless the growth of the world's population is stemmed and ultimately reduced.
This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.
The changing of Bodies into Light, and Light into Bodies, is very conformable to the Course of Nature, which seems delighted with Transmutations.
The combined results of several people working together is often much more effective than could be that of an individual scientist working alone.
Science is only truly consistent with an atheistic worldview with regards to the claimed miracles of the gods of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
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.
During the course of my research, I had had occasion to examine not only simple compounds, salts and oxides, but also a great number of minerals.
In the future, I can imagine that we will genetically modify ourselves using the genes that have doubled our life span since we were chimpanzees.
Truth is beautiful and divine, no matter how humble its origin; it is the same in the musty boiler-room as it is in the glorious stars of heaven.
I would recommend that skeptics devote even more effort than they do now to understanding the reasons why so many people want or need to believe.
My experience in science has always been that the future always exceeds what we believe is possible. I suspect that we will explore the universe.
Isolated material particles are abstractions, their properties being definable and observable only through their interaction with other systems .
It's because somebody knows something about it that we can't talk about physics. It's the things that nobody knows anything about we can discuss.
Most sets of values would give rise to universes that, although they might be very beautiful, would contain no one able to wonder at that beauty.
[Question: Do you feel that scientists correct themselves as often as they should?] More often than politicians, but not as often as they should.
Proof is not required to believe [in a god]. But some sign, some evidence is needed. None exists... Find some inkling of evidence. There is none.
I had imagined doing nuclear physics and cosmic ray work in greater style in peace time. To do modern physics in a small way is of no use of all.
I have always loved magic realism as a form of writing. I have also been fascinated for a long time with the intersection of science and religion.
The trouble with New York today is that it's lost its balance. I love the new, greener New York, but it takes all kinds of worlds to make a World.
There's so much light in Broughty Ferry. I think the humour in Glasgow is darker, because it's much more gloomy, there's a perpetual misery there.
In the history of science it has often happened that the majority was wrong and refused to listen to a minority that later turned out to be right.
This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.
All discussion of the ultimate nature of things must necessarily be barren unless we have some extraneous standards against which to compare them.
To hate is to study, to study is to understand, to understand is to appreciate, to appreciate is to love. So maybe I'll end up loving your theory.
A new scientific theory is seldom stated with such clarity by its original author, and usually takes many years to creep into public conciousness.
The person who thought there could be any real conflict between science and religion must be either very young in science or ignorant of religion.
I have frequently been questioned, especially by women, of how I could reconcile family life with a scientific career. Well, it has not been easy.
God gave us laughter, I think, as a balm to wash the wounds of our own blunders, as a splint to mend the bones we break in our rashness or vanity.
In all my research I have never come across matter. To me the term matter implies a bundle of energy which is given form by an intelligent spirit.
The lessons learned as we try to build ever more sophisticated nanomachines will almost certainly inform our understanding of the origins of life.
We can deduce, often, from one part of physics like the law of gravitation, a principle which turns out to be much more valid than the derivation.
I suppose I'm worried that someday there will be some exciting experiments to do, and there won't be anyone around who knows what experiments are.
I first had the idea of writing a popular book about the universe in 1982. My intention was partly to earn money to pay my daughter's school fees.
When I meet God, I am going to ask him two questions: Why relativity ? And why turbulence ? I really believe he will have an answer for the first.