Physicists Quotes

“Many respectable physicists said that they weren't going to stand for this -- partly because it was a debasement of science, but mostly because they didn't get invited to those sort of parties.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“It may be appropriate to quote a statement of Poincare, who said (partly in jest no doubt) that there must be something mysterious about the normal law since mathematicians think it is a law of nature whereas physicists are convinced that it is a mathematical theorem.”
― Mark Kac, Statistical Independence in Probability, Analysis, and Number Theory

“The goal is nothing other than the coherence and completeness of the system not only in respect of all details, but also in respect of all physicists of all places, all times, all peoples, and all cultures.”
― Max Planck, Dilemmas of an Upright Man: Max Planck and the Fortunes of German Science

“If antimatter and matter make contact, both are destroyed
instantly. Physicists call the process ‘annihilation.”
― Dan Brown, Angels & Demons

“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

“If a problem is clearly stated, it has no further interest to the physicist.”
― Peter J. W. Debye

“God is a pure mathematician!' declared British astronomer Sir James Jeans. The physical Universe does seem to be organised around elegant mathematical relationships. And one number above all others has exercised an enduring fascination for physicists: 137.0359991.... It is known as the fine-structure constant and is denoted by the Greek letter alpha (α).”
― Paul Davies

“While twentieth-century physicists were not able to identify any convincing mathematical constants underlying the fine structure, partly because such thinking has normally not been encouraged, a revolutionary suggestion was recently made by the Czech physicist Raji Heyrovska, who deduced that the fine structure constant, ...really is defined by the [golden] ratio ....”
― Carl Johan Calleman, The Purposeful Universe: How Quantum Theory and Mayan Cosmology Explain the Origin and Evolution of Life

“Paul Dirac was notoriously a man of few words. Dick Feynman told the story that when he first met Dirac at a conference, Dirac said after a long silence, “I have an equation; do you have one too?”
― A. Zee, Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell

“We now know that every particle has an antiparticle, with which it can annihilate. (In the case of the force-carrying particles, the antiparticles are the same as the particles themselves.) There could be whole antiworlds and antipeople made out of antiparticles. However, if you meet your antiself, don't shake hands! You would both vanish in a great flash of light.”
― Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time

“... picture of a hot early stage of the universe was first put forward by the scientist George Gamow in a famous paper written in 1948 with a student of his, Ralph Alpher. Gamow had quite a sense of humour - he persuaded the nuclear scientist Hans Bethe to add his name to the paper to make the list of authors 'Alpher, Bethe, Gamow'...”
― Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time

“I’m relieved to see
that even brilliant physicists make mistakes.”
Kohler looked over. “What do you mean?”
“Whoever wrote that note made a mistake. That column isn’t Ionic. Ionic columns are uniform in width. That one’s tapered. It’s Doric—the Greek counterpart. A common mistake.”
Kohler did not smile. “The author meant it as a joke, Mr. Langdon. Ionic means containing ions—electrically charged particles. Most objects contain them.”
― Dan Brown, Angels & Demons

“As the physicist Murray Gell-Mann once remarked: “Faculty members are familiar with a certain kind of person who looks to the mathematicians like a good physicist and looks to the physicists like a good mathematician. Very properly, they do not want that kind of person around.”
― James Gleick, Chaos: Making a New Science

“After the knowledge of, and obedience to, the will of God, the next aim must be to know something of His wisdom, power and goodness as evidenced by His handiwork.”
― James Prescott Joule

“The Master Physicist Is The Creator”
― Syed Sharukh

“It is most remarkable that, while confessing their entire ignorance of the true Nature of even terrestrial matter--primordial substance being regarded more as a dream than as a sober reality--the physicists should set themselves up as judges, nevertheless, of that matter, and claim to know what it is able and is not able to do, in various combinations.”
― H.P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 of 4

“There is only one object on earth that frightens me: a physicist working on a new trick.”
― Rex Stout, A Family Affair

“Atheists see the spiritual as little more than quacks peddling shame. Theists see physics as trite parlor games.”
― Debra Gavant

“The physicist calls the curtain flying outwards when you open the window air current, while the poet calls it the curtain's love of freedom!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan