#quantum

“He began to see that the recognition of relativity, interconnectedness, and impermanence as fundamental aspects of physical reality, which had been so difficult for himself and his fellow physicists, was the very basis of the Indian spiritual traditions.”

“There is a fundamental error in separating the parts from the whole , the mistake of atomizing what should not be atomized. Unity and complementarity constitute reality . Heisenberg's praise for Ruth Anshen's book Biography of An Idea found on the back cover”

“Do you believe in a personal God?”

“The problem of values is nothing but the problem of our acts, goals and morals. It concerns the compass by which we must steer our ship if we are to set a true course through life. The compass itself has been given different names by various religions and philosophies: happiness, the will of God, the meaning of life”

“In general, scientific progress calls for no more than the absorption and elaboration of new ideas”

“An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in his subject, and how to avoid them. Ein Fachmann ist ein Mann, der einige der gröbsten Fehler kennt, die man in dem betreffenden Fach machen kann, und der sie deshalb zu vermeiden versteht.”

“Kein Chaos, aus dem nicht wieder Ordnung würde”

“Quantum theory provides us with a striking illustration of the fact that we can fully understand a connection though we can only speak of it in images and parables . Die Quantentheorie ist so ein wunderbares Beispiel dafür, daß man einen Sachverhalt in völliger Klarheit verstanden haben kann und gleichzeitig doch weiß, daß man nur in Bildern und Gleichnissen von ihm reden kann.”

“Critique of the Physical Concepts of the Corpuscular Theory”

“Über den anschaulichen Inhalt der quantentheoretischen Kinematik und Mechanik”

“The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be transparency.”

“We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides us is whether it is crazy enough.”

“Your theory is crazy, but it's not crazy enough to be true.”

“Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think.”

“If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't understood it yet.”

“Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.”

“How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress.”

“Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.”

“The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement, but the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.”

“An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.”

“Paraphrased variants:”

“Eine neue wissenschaftliche Wahrheit pflegt sich nicht in der Weise durchzusetzen, daß ihre Gegner überzeugt werden und sich als belehrt erklären, sondern vielmehr dadurch, daß ihre Gegner allmählich aussterben und daß die heranwachsende Generation von vornherein mit der Wahrheit vertraut gemacht ist. … Eine neue große wissenschaftliche Idee pflegt sich nicht in der Weise durchzusetzen, daß ihre Gegner allmählich überzeugt und bekehrt werden”

“As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clearheaded science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about the atoms this much: There is no matter as such! All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particles of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. . . . We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter.”

“, here translated as”

“Als Physiker, der sein ganzes Leben der nüchternen Wissenschaft, der Erforschung der Materie widmete, bin ich sicher von dem Verdacht frei, für einen Schwarmgeist gehalten zu werden. Und so sage ich nach meinen Erforschungen des Atoms dieses: Es gibt keine Materie an sich. Alle Materie entsteht und besteht nur durch eine Kraft, welche die Atomteilchen in Schwingung bringt und sie zum winzigsten Sonnensystem des Alls zusammenhält. Da es im ganzen Weltall aber weder eine intelligente Kraft noch eine ewige Kraft gibt”

“New scientific ideas never spring from a communal body, however organized, but rather from the head of an individually inspired researcher who struggles with his problems in lonely thought and unites all his thought on one single point which is his whole world for the moment. Address on the 25th anniversary of the Kaiser”

“Planck, the Quantum, and the Historians”

“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness. The Observer (London, England) (25 January 1931), p. 17”

“We 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 . The Universe in the Light of Modern Physics”

“Farsighted theologians are now working to mine the eternal metal from the teachings of Jesus and to forge it for all time . From Planck to Study (2 December 1913), (Autog. I/383, SPK); as quoted in The Dilemmas of an Upright Man : Max Planck As Spokesman for German Science (1986) by J. L. Heilbron , p. 67”

“If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The psi”

“Although I think that life may be the result of an accident, I do not think that of consciousness . Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else. As quoted in The Observer (11 January 1931); also in Psychic Research (1931), Vol. 25, p. 91”

“Schrödinger equation”

“For thousands of years men have striven and suffered and begotten and women have brought forth in pain . A hundred years ago, perhaps, another man sat on this spot; like you he gazed with awe and yearning in his heart at the dying light on the glaciers. Like you he was begotten of man and born of woman. He felt pain and brief joy as you do. Was he someone else? Was it not you yourself? What is this Self of yours? What was the necessary condition for making the thing conceived this time into you, just you and not someone else? "Seek for the Road"”

“The stages of human development are to strive for: (1) Besitz [Possession] (2) Wissen [Knowledge] (3) Können [Ability] (4) Sein [Being] Writings of August 1918, quoted in A Life of Erwin Schrödinger (1994) by Walter Moore”

“No self is of itself alone . It has a long chain of intellectual ancestors. The "I" is chained to ancestry by many factors … This is not mere allegory, but an eternal memory . Writings of July 1918, quoted in A Life of Erwin Schrödinger (1994) by Walter Moore”

“Nirvana is a state of pure blissful knowledge ... It has nothing to do with the individual . The ego or its separation is an illusion . Indeed in a certain sense two "I"'s are identical namely when one disregards all special contents”

“'If finally we look back at that idea of [Ernst] Mach [1838”

“But it is quite easy to express the solution in words, thus: the plurality that we perceive is only an appearance; it is not real. Vedantic philosophy, in which this is a fundamental dogma, has sought to clarify it by a number of analogies, one of the most attractive being the many”

“This life of yours which you are living is not merely apiece of this entire existence, but in a certain sense the whole; only this whole is not so constituted that it can be surveyed in one single glance. This, as we know, is what the Brahmins express in that sacred, mystic formula which is yet really so simple and so clear; tat tvam asi , this is you. Or, again, in such words as "I am in the east and the west, I am above and below, I am this entire world. in Moore, Walter J., Schrödinger: Life and Thought Cambridge University Press (1992). pp.170”