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Ron Peters's Reviews > The Quotable Feynman
The Quotable Feynman
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Yet another book that I couldn’t remember why I asked for it in the first place. But me being me I read the whole thing anyhow. A few quotes caught my eye.
Some I liked because they agreed with my thinking about modern physics, which (IMHO) has become too theoretical, too mathematical, not experimental enough. These are from Feynman’s (1965) The Character of Physical Law:
“Physics is not mathematics, and mathematics is not physics.” (p. 55)
“It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is. It does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is – if it disagrees with experiment, it is wrong.” (p. 156)
This next made me think of the arguments lawyers make about the “science” concerning corporate poisoning of the environment, and whether one can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt (a standard we apply nowhere else) that companies are responsible for their effects on humans:
“It is scientific only to say what is likely and what is less likely, and not to be proving all the time the possible and the impossible.” (BBC, “The Pleasure of Finding Things Out,” 1981)
And this one, just because I liked it:
“A guy came into my room and found me leaning out of a wide-open window in the dead of winter, holding a pot in one hand and stirring with the other. I was curious as to whether Jello would coagulate if you kept it moving all the time.” What Do You Care What Other People Think?, p. 56
Four quotes in four hundred pages. Still, I like to dig up nice quotes.
Some I liked because they agreed with my thinking about modern physics, which (IMHO) has become too theoretical, too mathematical, not experimental enough. These are from Feynman’s (1965) The Character of Physical Law:
“Physics is not mathematics, and mathematics is not physics.” (p. 55)
“It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is. It does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is – if it disagrees with experiment, it is wrong.” (p. 156)
This next made me think of the arguments lawyers make about the “science” concerning corporate poisoning of the environment, and whether one can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt (a standard we apply nowhere else) that companies are responsible for their effects on humans:
“It is scientific only to say what is likely and what is less likely, and not to be proving all the time the possible and the impossible.” (BBC, “The Pleasure of Finding Things Out,” 1981)
And this one, just because I liked it:
“A guy came into my room and found me leaning out of a wide-open window in the dead of winter, holding a pot in one hand and stirring with the other. I was curious as to whether Jello would coagulate if you kept it moving all the time.” What Do You Care What Other People Think?, p. 56
Four quotes in four hundred pages. Still, I like to dig up nice quotes.
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