I Also Read the Witness's Statement About the Bullets Having No Effect Upon the Killer.

The corking extension of our experience in contempo years has brought light to the insufficiency of our simple mechanical conceptions and, as a event, has shaken the foundation on which the customary interpretation of ascertainment was based.

Niels Henrik David Bohr (vii Oct 1885 – 18 November 1962) was a Danish physicist. He received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1922 for his contributions which were essential to modern understandings of atomic structure and quantum mechanics.

Quotes [edit]

The word "reality" is too a give-and-take, a word which nosotros must larn to use correctly.

We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides u.s. is whether it is crazy plenty to have a chance of being correct.

Physics is to be regarded not and so much every bit the report of something a priori given, simply rather equally the development of methods of ordering and surveying human feel.

It is wrong to think that the chore of physics is to observe out how nature is. Physics concerns what we tin can say most nature...

Information technology is a great compassion that homo beings cannot find all of their satisfaction in scientific contemplativeness.

Some subjects are so serious that i can merely joke about them.

• Those who are not shocked when they showtime come up beyond quantum theory cannot perhaps have understood it.
  • In a 1952 conversation with Heisenberg and Pauli in Copenhagen; quoted in Heisenberg, Werner, Physics and Beyond. (New York: Harper & Row, 1971) p. 206.

• We must exist articulate that when it comes to atoms, linguistic communication can be used but as in poesy. The poet, also, is non nearly so concerned with describing facts equally with creating images and establishing mental connections.
  • In his first meeting with Werner Heisenberg in early summer 1920, in response to questions on the nature of language, equally reported in Discussions almost Linguistic communication (1933); quoted in Defense force Implications of International Indeterminacy (1972) by Robert J. Pranger, p. 11, and Theorizing Modernism : Essays in Critical Theory (1993) by Steve Giles, p. 28

• The grand discoveries which scientific experiment yielded at and about the turn of the century, in which investigators in many countries took an eminent role and which were destined all unexpectedly to give u.s.a. a fresh insight into the structure of atoms, were due in the start example, equally all are aware, to the work of the great investigators of the English school, Sir Joseph Thomson and Sir Ernest Rutherford, who take inscribed their names on the tablets of the history of scientific research as distinguished witnesses to the truth that imagination and apprehending are capable of penetrating the crowded mass of registered feel and of revealing Nature'south simplicity to our gaze.
  • Niels Bohr'due south oral communication at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm (December 10, 1922)

• The corking extension of our experience in recent years has brought light to the insufficiency of our simple mechanical conceptions and, equally a consequence, has shaken the foundation on which the customary estimation of observation was based.
  • Niels Bohr, "Atomic Physics and the Clarification of Nature" (1934)

• Isolated fabric particles are abstractions, their backdrop existence definable and observable only through their interaction with other systems.
  • "Diminutive Physics and the Description of Nature" (1934)

• What is information technology that we humans depend on? We depend on our words... Our task is to communicate experience and ideas to others. We must strive continually to extend the scope of our description, but in such a way that our letters practise non thereby lose their objective or unambiguous character ... Nosotros are suspended in language in such a way that we cannot say what is up and what is down. The give-and-take "reality" is too a word, a word which we must learn to use correctly.
  • Quoted in Philosophy of Science Vol. 37 (1934), p. 157, and in The Truth of Science : Physical Theories and Reality (1997) by Roger Gerhard Newton, p. 176

• For a parallel to the lesson of diminutive theory regarding the limited applicability of such customary idealizations, we must in fact turn to quite other branches of science, such as psychology, or even to that kind of epistemological problems with which already thinkers similar Buddha and Lao Tzu accept been confronted, when trying to harmonize our position equally spectators and actors in the great drama of existence.
  • Speech on quantum theory at Celebrazione del Secondo Centenario della Nascita di Luigi Galvani, Bologna, Italy (October 1937)

• Contraria Sunt Complementa
  • Opposites are complementary.
    • Motto he chose for his glaze of arms, when granted the Danish Order of the Elephant in 1947.

• However far the phenomena transcend the telescopic of classical concrete caption, the account of all evidence must be expressed in classical terms. The argument is that only by the word "experiment" we refer to a situation where we can tell others what nosotros have done and what nosotros have learned and that, therefore, the account of the experimental arrangement and of the results of the observations must be expressed in unambiguous linguistic communication with suitable application of the terminology of classical physics.
  • Niels Bohr, "Discussions with Einstein on Epistemological Problems in Atomic Physics," in Paul Arthur Schilpp, Albert Einstein: Philosopher Scientist (1949) pp. 199-241.

• An skilful is a person who has institute out by his own painful experience all the mistakes that one tin make in a very narrow field.
  • As quoted by Edward Teller, in Dr. Edward Teller's Magnificent Obsession by Robert Coughlan, in LIFE magazine (6 September 1954), p. 62
  • Variant: An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field.
    • As quoted past Edward Teller (10 October 1972), and A Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (1991) by Alan 50. Mackay, p. 35

• Nosotros are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides united states is whether information technology is crazy enough to have a take chances of existence right.
  • Said to Wolfgang Pauli later his presentation of Heisenberg's and Pauli'south nonlinear field theory of elementary particles, at Columbia University (1958), as reported past F. J. Dyson in his newspaper "Innovation in Physics" (Scientific American, 199, No. 3, September 1958, pp. 74-82; reprinted in "JingShin Theoretical Physics Symposium in Honor of Professor Ta-You Wu," edited by Jong-Ping Hsu & Leonardo Hsu, Singapore; River Edge, NJ: Globe Scientific, 1998, pp. 73-90, hither: p. 84).
  • Your theory is crazy, but it's not crazy enough to exist true.
    • Every bit quoted in Offset Philosophy: The Theory of Everything (2007) by Spencer Scoular, p. 89
  • There are many slight variants on this remark:
    • We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides the states is whether it is crazy enough.
    • Nosotros are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question is whether it is crazy enough to exist have a chance of being correct.
    • Nosotros in the back are convinced your theory is crazy. But what divides united states of america is whether it is crazy enough.
    • Your theory is crazy, the question is whether information technology'due south crazy plenty to be true.
    • Yes, I think that your theory is crazy. Sadly, it's non crazy enough to be believed.

• Physics is to be regarded not and then much every bit the written report of something a priori given, only rather every bit the development of methods of ordering and surveying human feel. In this respect our chore must exist to account for such feel in a fashion independent of individual subjective sentence and therefore objective in the sense that it can exist unambiguously communicated in ordinary human language.
  • "The Unity of Human Knowledge" (October 1960)

• Every valuable human being must be a radical and a rebel, for what he must aim at is to make things better than they are.
  • Every bit quoted in The World of the Cantlet (1966) past Henry Abraham Boorse and Lloyd Motz, p. 741

• How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress.
  • Equally quoted in Niels Bohr : The Man, His Scientific discipline, & the World They Changed (1966) by Ruth Moore, p. 196

• Two sorts of truth: profound truths recognized by the fact that the opposite is also a profound truth, in contrast to trivialities where opposites are apparently absurd.
  • As quoted by his son Hans Bohr in "My Father", published in Niels Bohr: His Life and Work (1967), p. 328
  • Unsourced variant: The opposite of a correct statement is a false argument. But the reverse of a profound truth may well exist another profound truth.
  • Equally quoted in Max Delbrück, Mind from Matter: An Essay on Evolutionary Epistemology, (1986) p. 167. It is the hallmark of any deep truth that its negation is as well a deep truth

• Every judgement I utter must be understood not equally an affirmation, just equally a question.
  • As quoted in A Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (1991) by Alan 50. Mackay, p. 35

• It is a great pity that human being beings cannot find all of their satisfaction in scientific contemplativeness.
  • Every bit quoted in Chandra: A Biography of S. Chandrasekhar‎ (1991) by Kameshwar C. Wali, p. 147

• Anyone who is non shocked past breakthrough theory has not understood it.
  • As quoted in Meeting the Universe Halfway (2007) past Karen Michelle Barad, p. 254, with a footnote citing The Philosophical Writings of Niels Bohr (1998).
  • Variants: Those who are not shocked when they first come across breakthrough mechanics cannot possibly accept understood it.
    Those who are non shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it.
    Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood a unmarried word.
    If you think you tin talk about quantum theory without feeling dizzy, you haven't understood the start thing about it.

• Some subjects are and then serious that one can but joke about them.
  • Equally quoted in The Genius of Science: A Portrait Gallery (2000) by Abraham Pais, p. 24
  • Some things are so serious that i tin can but joke about them.
    • Variant without any commendation every bit to writer in Deprival is non a river in Arab republic of egypt (1998) by Sandi Bachom, p. 85.

• Truth and clarity are complementary.
  • Every bit quoted in Quantum Theory and the Flight from Realism : Philosophical Responses to Breakthrough Mechanics (2000) by Christopher Norris, p. 234

• Information technology is not enough to be wrong, one must besides exist polite.
  • As quoted in The Genius of Scientific discipline: A Portrait Gallery (2000) by Abraham Pais, p. 24

• Never limited yourself more conspicuously than you are able to think.
  • As quoted in Values of the Wise : Humanity'due south Highest Aspirations (2004) by Jason Merchey, p. 63

• Oh, what idiots we all have been. This is but as information technology must exist.
  • In response to Frisch & Meitner'south explanation of nuclear fission, as quoted in The Physicists - A generation that changed the earth (1981) by C.P.Snow, p. 96

• I go into the Upanishads to ask questions.
  • As quoted in God Is Not Ane : The Viii Rival Religions That Run the Globe and Why Their Differences Matter (2010), by Stephen Prothero, Ch, 4 : Hinduism : The Way of Devotion, p. 144

• No, no, y'all are not thinking, you are just existence logical.
  • In response to those who made purely formal or mathematical arguments, as quoted in What Piffling I Remember (1979) by Otto Robert Frisch, p. 95

• I am absolutely prepared to talk virtually the spiritual life of an electronic computer: to state that it is reflecting or is in a bad mood... The question whether the machine really feels or ponders, or whether information technology simply looks as though it did, is of course admittedly meaningingless.
  • Every bit quoted in a letter written from J. Kalckar to John A. Wheeler dated June x, 1977, which appears in Wheeler's "Law Without Law," pg 207.

[edit]

The fact that religions through the ages take spoken in images, parables, and paradoxes means simply that there are no other ways of grasping the reality to which they refer. But that does not mean that it is non a genuine reality.

Nowadays, the individual seems to be able to choose the spiritual framework of his thoughts and actions quite freely, and this freedom reflects the fact that the boundaries betwixt the various cultures and societies are start to become more than fluid. But even when an private tries to reach the greatest possible degree of independence, he will still be swayed by the existing spiritual structures — consciously or unconsciously.

Statements of Bohr after the Solvay Briefing of 1927, every bit quoted in Physics and Beyond (1971) by Werner Heisenberg

• I feel very much similar Dirac: the idea of a personal God is strange to me. But we ought to call back that organized religion uses linguistic communication in quite a different way from scientific discipline. The language of organized religion is more closely related to the language of poetry than to the language of science. True, we are inclined to think that scientific discipline deals with information nigh objective facts, and poetry with subjective feelings. Hence we conclude that if religion does indeed deal with objective truths, it ought to adopt the same criteria of truth equally science. But I myself find the division of the world into an objective and a subjective side much too arbitrary. The fact that religions through the ages have spoken in images, parables, and paradoxes ways but that there are no other ways of grasping the reality to which they refer. Just that does not mean that information technology is not a genuine reality. And splitting this reality into an objective and a subjective side won't get us very far.

• I consider those developments in physics during the final decades which have shown how problematical such concepts as "objective" and "subjective" are, a great liberation of thought. The whole thing started with the theory of relativity. In the by, the statement that two events are simultaneous was considered an objective assertion, ane that could be communicated quite simply and that was open up to verification past whatsoever observer. Today we know that 'simultaneity' contains a subjective chemical element, inasmuch equally two events that appear simultaneous to an observer at residuum are not necessarily simultaneous to an observer in motility. All the same, the relativistic clarification is also objective inasmuch equally every observer can deduce by calculation what the other observer will perceive or has perceived. For all that, nosotros take come up a long way from the classical ideal of objective descriptions.
  In quantum mechanics the departure from this platonic has been even more radical. We tin yet use the objectifying language of classical physics to make statements about observable facts. For case, we can say that a photographic plate has been blackened, or that cloud aerosol have formed. Simply we can say zero about the atoms themselves. And what predictions we base on such findings depend on the way we pose our experimental question, and here the observer has freedom of choice. Naturally, it still makes no difference whether the observer is a man, an creature, or a piece of appliance, but it is no longer possible to make predictions without reference to the observer or the ways of observation. To that extent, every physical process may be said to take objective and subjective features. The objective earth of nineteenth-century scientific discipline was, as we know today, an ideal, limiting case, merely not the whole reality. Absolutely, even in our future encounters with reality we shall accept to distinguish between the objective and the subjective side, to make a partition between the two. But the location of the separation may depend on the style things are looked at; to a certain extent it can be called at will. Hence I can quite understand why we cannot speak well-nigh the content of organized religion in an objectifying language. The fact that different religions endeavor to limited this content in quite distinct spiritual forms is no real objection. Mayhap we ought to look upon these different forms as complementary descriptions which, though they exclude one another, are needed to convey the rich possibilities flowing from man'due south relationship with the central order.

• In mathematics we tin can take our inner distance from the content of our statements. In the final analysis mathematics is a mental game that we can play or not play as nosotros cull. Organized religion, on the other hand, deals with ourselves, with our life and death; its promises are meant to govern our deportment and thus, at least indirectly, our very existence. We cannot just look at them impassively from the exterior. Moreover, our mental attitude to religious questions cannot exist separated from our attitude to society. Even if religion arose as the spiritual structure of a item man order, it is arguable whether it has remained the strongest social molding force through history, or whether society, once formed, develops new spiritual structures and adapts them to its item level of knowledge. Nowadays, the private seems to exist able to choose the spiritual framework of his thoughts and actions quite freely, and this liberty reflects the fact that the boundaries between the various cultures and societies are beginning to go more than fluid. But even when an individual tries to attain the greatest possible degree of independence, he volition nevertheless be swayed by the existing spiritual structures — consciously or unconsciously. For he, too, must be able to speak of life and death and the human condition to other members of the order in which he'southward chosen to live; he must brainwash his children according to the norms of that gild, fit into its life. Epistemological sophistries cannot possibly aid him accomplish these ends. Here, too, the relationship between disquisitional thought almost the spiritual content of a given organized religion and activity based on the deliberate acceptance of that content is complementary. And such acceptance, if consciously arrived at, fills the individual with strength of purpose, helps him to overcome doubts and, if he has to suffer, provides him with the kind of solace that merely a sense of beingness sheltered under an across-the-board roof can grant. In that sense, religion helps to brand social life more harmonious; its most of import task is to remind usa, in the language of pictures and parables, of the wider framework within which our life is set.

Disputed [edit]

Terminate telling God what to do with his dice.

• Anyone who is not shocked by breakthrough theory has not understood it.
  • Heisenberg recounts a personal conversation he had with Pauli and Bohr in 1952 in which Bohr says, "Those who are not shocked when they first come across breakthrough theory cannot peradventure accept understood it." Heisenberg, Werner, Physics and Across. (New York: Harper & Row, 1971) p. 206.
  • Bohr said this sentence in a conversation with Werner Heisenberg, as quoted in: "Der Teil und das Ganze. Gespräche im Umkreis der Atomphysik" . R. Piper & Co., München, 1969, S. 280. DIE ZEIT 22. Aug. 1969 [1].
  • As quoted in Meeting the Universe Halfway (2007) by Karen Michelle Barad, p. 254, with the quote attributed to The Philosophical Writings of Niels Bohr, only with no page number or volume number given.

  • David Mermin, on pages 186–187 of his volume Boojums All the Way Through: Communicating Scientific discipline in a Prosaic Age (1990) noted that he specifically looked for pithy quotes well-nigh quantum mechanics along these lines when reviewing the 3 volumes of The Philosophical Writings of Niels Bohr, simply couldn't find any:

    Once I tried to teach some breakthrough mechanics to a grade of law students, philosophers, and art historians. As an advertizement for the course I put together the most sensational quotations I could collect from the about authoritative practitioners of the field of study. Heisenberg was a goldmine: "The concept of the objective reality of the uncomplicated particles has thus evaporated..."; "the idea of an objective real world whose smallest parts exist objectively in the same sense as stones or trees exist, independently of whether or not nosotros find them ... is incommunicable ..." Feynman did his part also: "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics." But I failed to turn up annihilation comparable in the writings of Bohr. Others attributed spectacular remarks to him, simply he seemed to take pains to avert any hint of the dramatic in his ain writings. You lot don't pack them into your classroom with "The indivisibility of quantum phenomena finds its consequent expression in the circumstance that every definable subdivision would require a change of the experimental arrangement with the appearance of new individual phenomena," or "the wider frame of complementarity directly expresses our position as regards the account of fundamental backdrop of affair presupposed in classical physical description merely outside its scope."

    I was therefore on the lookout for nuggets when I sat down to review these three volumes – a reissue of Bohr'southward collected essays on the revolutionary epistemological graphic symbol of the quantum theory and on the implications of that revolution for other scientific and non-scientific areas of endeavor (the originals first appeared in 1934, 1958, and 1963.) But the most radical statement I could find in all iii books was this: "...physics is to be regarded not so much as the written report of something a priori given, but rather as the development of methods for ordering and surveying homo experience." No nuggets for the nonscientist.

  • Variants: Those who are not shocked when they starting time come across quantum mechanics cannot maybe have understood information technology.
    Those who are not shocked when they showtime come across breakthrough theory cannot possibly have understood it.
    Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood a single discussion.
    If you think you lot can talk about quantum theory without feeling dizzy, you haven't understood the kickoff thing most information technology.

• Prediction is very difficult, especially nearly the future.
  • As quoted in Instruction and Learning Elementary Social Studies (1970) by Arthur K. Ellis, p. 431
  • The above quote is also attributed to various humourists and the Danish poet Piet Hein: "det er svært at spå – især om fremtiden"
  • It is besides attributed to Danish cartoonist Storm P (Robert Storm Petersen).
  • Variant: It'south hard to make predictions, specially about the future.

• Cease telling God what to exercise with his dice.
  • A response to Einstein's exclamation that "God doesn't play dice"; a similar argument is attributed to Enrico Fermi
  • Variant: Einstein, don't tell God what to do.
  • Variant: Don't tell God what to practice with his dice.
  • Variant: You ought not to speak for what Providence tin can or can non do. – As described in The Physicists: A generation that inverse the world (1981) by C. P. Snow, p. 84

• Of class not ... only I am told it works even if yous don't believe in information technology.
  • Answer to a company to his domicile in Tisvilde who asked him if he really believed a horseshoe above his door brought him luck, every bit quoted in In Jump : Of Matter and Forces in the Physical World (1986) by Abraham Pais, p. 210
  • In most published accounts of this chestnut such was Bohr's reply to his friend, just in one early account, in The Interaction Betwixt Science and Philosophy (1974) by Samuel Sambursky, p. 357, Bohr was at a friend's house and asked "Practise y'all actually believe in this?" to which his friend replied "Oh, I don't believe in it. But I am told it works even if you don't believe in it."
  • Variant: No, but I'one thousand told it works even if you don't believe in it.

Quotes nigh Bohr [edit]

Alphabetized by author

• Bohr seemed to retrieve that he had solved this question. I could not find his solution in his writings. But there was no doubt that he was convinced that he had solved the problem and, in so doing, had non simply contributed to atomic physics, merely to epistemology, to philosophy, to humanity in general. And in that location are amazing passages in his writings in which he is sort of patronizing to the ancient Far Eastern philosophers, near maxim that he had solved the problems that had defeated them. It's an extraordinary thing for me—the graphic symbol of Bohr—absolutely puzzling. I like to speak of two Bohrs: one is a very businesslike young man who insists that the apparatus is classical, and the other is a very arrogant, pontificating man who makes enormous claims for what he has done.
  • John S. Bell, quoted in Jeremy Bernstein, Quantum Profiles (1991), John Stewart Bell: Breakthrough Engineer

• One of the favorite maxims of my male parent was the distinction between the 2 sorts of truths, profound truths recognized by the fact that the contrary is likewise a profound truth, in contrast to trivialities where opposites are obviously absurd.
  • Hans Henrik Bohr, writing about his father in "My father" in Niels Bohr - His Life and Work As Seen By His Friends and Colleagues (1967), S. Rozental, ed.

• If quantum theory has any philosophical importance at all, it lies in the fact that it demonstrates for a single, sharply divers scientific discipline the necessity of dual aspects and complementary considerations. Niels Bohr has discussed this question with respect to many applications in physiology, psychology, and philosophy in general.
  • Max Born in Natural Philosophy of Cause and Chance (1949) ch. 10, p. 127

• Non often in life has a human being being caused me such joy by his mere presence as you did.
  • Albert Einstein in a letter to Bohr (1920)

• Information technology is practically impossible to describe Niels Bohr to a person who has never worked with him. Probably his most characteristic property was the slowness of his thinking and comprehension. When, in the tardily twenties and early on thirties, the author of this book was i of the "Bohr boys" working in his Institute in Copenhagen on a Carlsberg (the all-time beer in the world!) fellowship, he had many a hazard to observe it. In the evening, when a handful of Bohr's students were "working" in the Paa Blegdamsvejen Institute, discussing the latest issues of the quantum theory, or playing Ping-pong on the library table with coffee cups placed on it to brand the game more difficult, Bohr would appear, lament that he was very tired, and would like to "exercise something." To "exercise something" inevitably meant to get to the movies, and the simply movies Bohr liked were those called The Gun Fight at the Lazy Gee Ranch or The Lone Ranger and a Sioux Daughter. But it was hard to go with Bohr to the movies. He could not follow the plot, and was constantly request us, to the great annoyance of the rest of the audience, questions like this: "Is that the sis of that cowboy who shot the Indian who tried to steal a herd of cattle belonging to her blood brother-in-law?" The aforementioned slowness of reaction was apparent at scientific meetings. Many a time, a visiting young physicist (well-nigh physicists visiting Copenhagen were young) would deliver a bright talk about his recent calculations on some intricate problem of the breakthrough theory. Everybody in the audience would understand the statement quite clearly, but Bohr wouldn't. So everybody would start to explicate to Bohr the uncomplicated point he had missed, and in the resulting turmoil everybody would stop understanding annihilation. Finally, after a considerable period of time, Bohr would begin to understand, and it would plow out that what he understood well-nigh the problem presented by the visitor was quite different from what the visitor meant, and was correct, while the visitor's interpretation was incorrect.
  • George Gamow on Niels Bohr in "The Keen Physicists from Galileo to Einstein" (1961) pg. 237

• I recollect discussions with Bohr which went through many hours till very late at night and ended almost in despair; and when at the cease of the discussion I went alone for a walk in the neighbouring park I repeated to myself once again and again the question: Can nature possibly be and so absurd equally information technology seemed to u.s.a. in these diminutive experiments?
  • Werner Heisenberg in Physics and Philosophy (1958)

• The showtime matter Bohr said to me was that it would only then exist assisting to work with him if I understood that he was a dilettante. The merely fashion I knew to react to this unexpected statement was with a polite smile of disbelief. But evidently Bohr was serious. He explained how he had to arroyo every new question from a starting point of total ignorance. It is perhaps better to say that Bohr's strength lay in his formidable intuition and insight rather than erudition.
  • Abraham Pais, in testimony in Niels Bohr : His Life and Work as Seen past His Friends and Colleagues (1967) edited by Stefan Rozental, p. 218; afterward in his ain work, Niels Bohr'south Times : In Physics, Philosophy, and Polity (1991)

• When asked whether the algorism of quantum mechanics could be considered equally somehow mirroring an underlying quantum world, Bohr would answer, "At that place is no quantum world. There is simply an abstruse quantum physical description. It is incorrect to think that the chore of physics is to discover out how nature is. Physics concerns what nosotros tin say about nature." Bohr felt that every step in the development of physics has strengthened the view that the problem of establishing an unambiguous description of nature has just one solution. He regarded all attempts to supervene upon our elementary concepts or to introduce a new logic to account for the peculiarities of quantum phenomena as not merely unnecessary merely also incompatible with our most fundamental atmospheric condition, since we are suspended in a unique linguistic communication.
  • Aage Petersen, "The philosophy of Niels Bohr" by in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Vol. 19, No. 7 (September 1963); The Genius of Scientific discipline: A Portrait Gallery (2000) by Abraham Pais, p. 24, and Niels Bohr: Reflections on Subject and Object (2001) by Paul. McEvoy, p. 291
  • Quotes about quote:
    • To my great pleasure, Victor Weisskopf was sitting in his usual place in the front end row, smile approvingly up at me. (Information technology'due south surprising how much such encouragement from such a source tin can improve the quality of a talk.) His smiles continued right up to the moment when I read the Petersen quotation. No sooner had I finished reading information technology than Viki was on his anxiety. "That'south outrageous," he proclaimed. "Bohr couldn't possibly have said annihilation like that!" Somewhat taken aback by this sudden flip from approbation to condemnation, I feebly protested that I wasn't attributing it to Bohr, merely to Aage Petersen's memory of Bohr. That did not extinguish the flames. "Shame on Aage Petersen," declared Viki, "for putting those ridiculous words into Bohr'due south mouth!"
      • Northward. David Mermin, "What'south Incorrect With This Quantum Earth?" Physics Today Vol. 52, No. 2 (February 2004), p. x.

• [Bohr was] a marvelous physicist, 1 of the greatest of all time, but he was a miserable philosopher, and one couldn't talk to him. He was talking all the fourth dimension, allowing practically only one or two words to you and then at once cutting in.
  • Karl Popper, quoted in John Horgan, The End of Science (1996), Ch. 2 : The Cease of Philosophy

• "You tin can talk about people similar Buddha, Jesus, Moses, Confucius, merely the thing that convinced me that such people existed were the conversations with Bohr," Dr. Wheeler said.
  • John A. Wheeler as quoted by Dennis Overbye in "John A. Wheeler, Physicist Who Coined the Term 'Black Pigsty,' Is Dead at 96". NY Times. (14 Apr 2008)

• Niels Bohr distinguished 2 kinds of truths. An ordinary truth is a statement whose contrary is a falsehood. A profound truth is a statement whose opposite is also a profound truth.
  • Frank Wilczek, The Lightness of Existence (2008)

External links [edit]

• Niels Bohr Archive
• Nobel Foundation: Niels Bohr
• Almost Niels Bohr
• Niels Bohr Quotes Video

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Source: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Niels_Bohr

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