John Archibald Wheeler > Quotes

“We live on an island surrounded by a sea of ignorance. As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.”
― John Archibald Wheeler

“In any field, find the strangest thing and then explore it.”
― John Archibald Wheeler

“Spacetime tells matter how to move; matter tells spacetime how to curve.”
― John Archibald Wheeler, Geons, Black Holes and Quantum Foam: A Life in Physics

“The universe gives birth to consciousness, and consciousness gives meaning to the universe.”
― John Archibald Wheeler

“Knowledge only progresses by making mistakes as fast as possible.”
― John Wheeler physicist

“Never make a calculation until you know the answer. Make an estimate before every calculation, try a simple physical argument (symmetry! invariance! conservation!) before every derivation, guess the answer to every paradox and puzzle. Courage: No one else needs to know what the guess is. Therefore make it quickly, by instinct. A right guess reinforces this instinct. A wrong guess brings the refreshment of surprise. In either case life as a spacetime expert, however long, is more fun!”
― John Archibald Wheeler, Spacetime Physics: Introduction to Special Relativity

“Yes, there is happiness to be found in the mere contemplation of the deepest mysteries.”
― John Archibald Wheeler, Geons, Black Holes and Quantum Foam: A Life in Physics

“Anyone who expects to create, be it as a scientist or artist, scholar or writer, needs self-confidence, even bravado. How else can one dare to imagine understanding what no one else has understood, discovering what no one else has discovered? Where does this confidence come from? Fortunately, every young person is blessed with some of it. It is part of human character.”
― John Archibald Wheeler

“There are many modes of thinking about the world around us and our place in it. I like to consider all the angles from which we might gain perspective on our amazing universe and the nature of existence.”
― John Archibald Wheeler

“Spacetime grips mass, telling it how to move...
Mass grips spacetime, telling it how to curve”
― John Archibald Wheeler, A Journey into Gravity and Spacetime

“Never make a calculation until you know the answer.”
― John Archibald Wheeler

“the past has no existence except as it is recorded in the present. (...) we would seem forced to say that no phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon. The universe does not 'exist, out there' independent of all acts of observation. Instead, it is in some strange sense a participatory universe”
― John Archibald Wheeler

“Nobody can be anybody without somebodies around.”
― John Archibald Wheeler

“Individual events. Events beyond law. Events so numerous and so uncoordinated that, flaunting their freedom from formula, they yet fabricate firm form.”
― John Archibald Wheeler

“But some numbers, called dimensionless numbers, have the same numerical value no matter what units of measurement are chosen. Probably the most famous of these is the "fine-structure constant," .... Physicists love this number not just because it is dimensionless, but also because it is a combination of three fundamental constants of nature.”
― John Archibald Wheeler, Geons, Black Holes and Quantum Foam: A Life in Physics

“What we call the past is built on bits.”
― John Archibald Wheeler

“Physicists love this number not just because it is dimensionless, but also because it is a combination of three fundamental constants of nature. Why do these constants come together to make the particular number 1/137.036 and not some other number?”
― John Archibald Wheeler, Geons, Black Holes and Quantum Foam: A Life in Physics

“We live on an island of knowledge surrounded by a sea of ignorance. As the island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.”
― John Archibald Wheeler

“Recent decades have taught us that physics is a magic window. It shows us the illusion that lies behind reality—and the reality that lies behind illusion. Its scope is immensely greater than we one realized. We are no longer satisfied with insights only into particles, or fields of force, or geometry, or even space and time. Today we demand of physics some understanding of existence itself.”
― John Archibald Wheeler, Quantum Theory and Measurement

“I learn best by teaching. In fact, as I got older, I concluded that I could learn only by teaching. Universities have students, I like to say, to teach the professors.”
― John Archibald Wheeler, Geons, Black Holes, and Quantum Foam: A Life in Physics

“Broadway”
― John Archibald Wheeler, Geons, Black Holes, and Quantum Foam: A Life in Physics

“We are participators in bringing into being not only the near and here but the far away and long ago. We are in this sense, participators in bringing about something of the universe in the distant past”
― John Archibald Wheeler

“As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.”
― John Archibald Wheeler