Richard Feynman Quotes
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If you thought that science was certain - well, that is just an error on your part.
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The electron is a theory. But the theory is so good we can almost consider them real.
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Just as a poet often has license from the rules of grammar and pronunciation, we should like to ask for 'physicists' license from the rules of mathematics in order to express what we wish to say in as simple a manner as possible.
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When the problem quantum chromodynamics is finally solved, it will all be by imagination. Then there will be some big thing about the great way it was done. But it's simple -it will all be by imagination, and persistence.
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If we want to solve a problem that we have never solved before, we must leave the door to the unknown ajar.
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Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty -- some most unsure, some nearly sure, none absolutely certain.
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Science is like sex: sometimes something useful comes out, but that is not the reason we are doing it
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The other thing that gives a scientific man the creeps in the world today are the methods of choosing leaders - in every nation. Today, for example, in the United States, the two political parties have decided to employ public relations men, that is, advertising men, who are trained in the necessary methods of telling the truth or lying in order to develop a product.
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A great deal more is known than has been proved.
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The beauty that is there is also available for me, too. But I see a deeper beauty that isn't so readily available to others.... I don't see how studying a flower ever detracts from its beauty. It only adds
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The idea that no one really knew how to run a government led to the idea that we should arrange a system by which new ideas could be developed, tried out, and tossed out if necessary, with more new ideas brought in - a trial and error system.
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As you know, a theory in physics is not useful unless it is able to predict underlined effects which we would otherwise expect.
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So this piece of dirt waits four and a half billion years and evolves and changes, and now a strange creature stands here with instruments and talks to the strange creatures in the audience. What a wonderful world!
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You see, I get such fun out of thinking that I don't want to destroy this most pleasant machine that makes life such a big kick.
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If you know that you are not sure, you have a chance to improve the situation. I want to demand this freedom for future generations.
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I love to think. I once considered taking drugs as an attempt to better understand an altered state of mind; however, I decided not to. I didn't want to chance ruining the machine.
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If you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid - not only what you think is right about it; other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked -to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.
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Today's brains are yesterday's mashed potatoes.
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... it is impossible to explain honestly the beauties of the laws of nature in a way that people can feel, without their having some deep understanding of mathematics. I am sorry, but this seems to be the case.
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Nature's imagination far surpasses our own.
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The problem of creating something new, but which is consistent with everything which has been seen before, is one of extreme difficulty.
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Nature does not care what we call it, she just keeps on doing it.
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Philosophers say a great deal about what is absolutely necessary for science, and it is always, so far as one can see, rather naive, and probably wrong.
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We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.