Quotes by Niels Bohr - Page 2

It is a great pity that human beings cannot find all of their satisfaction in scientific contemplativeness.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Humans
Pity
Satisfaction
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Sometimes the child in one behaves a certain way and the rest of oneself follows behind, slowly shaking its head.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Change
Time
Children
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The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Democracy
Dictatorship
Openness
Political
Secrecy
Weapons
Weapon
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The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Science
Truth
Falsehood
May
Opposites
Profound
Very
Opposite
Another
Fact
Well
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You can recognize a small truth because its opposite is a falsehood. The opposite of a great truth is another truth.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Opposites
Truth And Falsehood
Truth Is
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It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we say about nature.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Learning
Physics
Theoretical Physics
Thinking
Concerns
Wrong
Task
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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.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Radical
Rebel
Spiritual
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Every great and deep difficulty bears in itself its own solution. It forces us to change our thinking in order to find it.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Bears
Difficulty
Inspiration
Order
Thinking
Itself
Forces
Solution
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Every description of natural processes must be based on ideas which have been introduced and defined by the classical theory.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Defined
Description
Theory
Based
Classical
Introduced
Processes
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And anyone who thinks they can talk about quantum theory without feeling dizzy hasn't yet understood the first thing about it.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Feelings
Firsts
Thinking
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An independant reality in the ordinary physical sense can neither be ascribed to the phenomenon nor to the agencies of observation.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Science
Agency
Reality
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When searching for harmony in life one must never forget that in the drama of existence we are ourselves both actors and spectators.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Life
Science
Drama
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Truth is something that we can attempt to doubt, and then perhaps, after much exertion, discover that part of the doubt is not justified.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Science
Truth
Discovery
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If anybody says he can think about quantum physics without getting giddy, that only shows he has not understood the first thing about them.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Inspirational
Life
Science
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There are trivial truths and the great truths. The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Family
Inspirational
Truth
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Isolated material particles are abstractions, their properties being definable and observable only through their interaction with other systems .
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Interaction With Others
Isolated
Materials
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Technology has advanced more in the last thirty years than in the previous two thousand. The exponential increase in advancement will only continue.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Technology
Increase
Thirty
Two
Years
Technology Will More
Advanced
Exponential
Last
Previous
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Of course I don't believe in it [pointing to horseshoe on his office wall]. But I understand that it brings you luck whether you believe in it or not.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Faith
Believe
Wall
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When it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Poetry
Atoms
Concerned
Creating
Describing
Facts
Poet
Nearly
Images
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When we measure something we are forcing an undetermined, undefined world to assume an experimental value. We are not measuring the world, we are creating it.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Assuming
Creating
World
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What is that we human beings ultimately depend on? We depend on our words. We are suspended in language. Our task is to communicate experience and ideas to others.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Science
Ideas
Tasks
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All rising curves that show unwelcome trends in human affairs will approach infinity if extended far enough, but it is we who dictate the curve and not vice versa.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Curves
Rising
Vices
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There are two sorts of truth: trivialities, where opposites are clearly absurd, and profound truths, recognised by the fact that the opposite is also a profound truth
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Opposites
Spiritual
Two
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We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Crazy
Feelings
Statistics
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When it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images and establishing mental connections.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Inspirational
Poetry
Creating
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Our task is not to penetrate the essence of things, the meaning of which we do not know anyway, but rather to develop concepts which allow us to talk in a productive way about phenomena in nature
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Essence
Tasks
Way
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In our description of nature the purpose is not to disclose the real essence of the phenomena but only to track down, so far as it is possible, relations between the manifold aspects of our experience.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Nature
Essence
Real
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If you have a correct statement, then the opposite of a correct statement is of course an incorrect statement, a wrong statement. But when you have a deep truth, then the opposite of a deep truth may again be a deep truth.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Courses
May
Opposites
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It is, indeed, perhaps the greatest prospect of humanistic studies to contribute through an increasing knowledge of the history of cultural development to that gradual removal of prejudices which is the common aim of all science.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Common
Development
Prejudice
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Rutherford is a man you can rely on; he comes regularly and enquires how things are going and talks about the smallest details - Rutherford is such an outstanding man and really interested in the work of all the people around him.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Men
Details
People
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The great extension of our experience in recent years has brought light to the insufficiency of our simple mechanical conceptions and, as a consequence, has shaken the foundation on which the customary interpretation of observation was based.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Light
Simple
Years
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The present state of atomic theory is characterized by the fact that we not only believe the existence of atoms to be proved beyond a doubt, but also we even believe that we have an intimate knowledge of the constituents of the individual atoms.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Science
Believe
Doubt
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A physicist visits a colleague and notices a horseshoe hanging on the wall above the entrance. 'Do you really believe that a horseshoe brings luck?' he asks. 'No,' replies the colleague, 'but I've been told that it works even if you don't believe in it.'
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Believe
Luck
Wall
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Technology has advanced more in the last thirty years than in the previous two thousand. The exponential increase in advancement will only continue. Anthropological Commentary The opposite of a trivial truth is false; the opposite of a great truth is also true.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Technology
Opposites
Years
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The old saying of the two kinds of truth. To the one kind belongs statements so simple and clear that the opposite assertion obviously could not be defended. The other kind, the so-called 'deep truths', are statements in which the opposite also contains deep truth.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Truth
Opposites
Simple
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Humanity will... be confronted with dangers of unprecedented character unless, in due time, measures can be taken to forestall a disastrous competition in such formidable armaments and to establish an international control of the manufacture and use of the powerful materials.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Competition
Formidable
Humanity
International
Materials
Powerful
Taken
Confronted
Due
Dangers
Disastrous
Establish
Manufacture
Measures
Unless
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When asked ... [about] an underlying quantum world, Bohr would answer, 'There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract quantum physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about Nature.'
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Nature
Science
Tasks
Thinking
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One thought spectra are marvellous, but it is not possible to make progress there. Just as if you have the wing of a butterfly then certainly it is very regular with the colors and so on, but nobody thought one could get the basis of biology from the coloring of the wing of a butterfly.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Science
Butterfly
Color
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While the finish given to our picture of the world by the theory of relativity has already been absorbed into the general scientific consciousness, this has scarcely occurred to the same extent with those aspects of the general problem of knowledge which have been elucidated by the quantum theory.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Knowledge
Consciousness
Quantum
Relativity
Theory
Picture
Absorb
Aspects
General
Extent
Finish
Occurred
Scarcely
Scientific
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The very nature of the quantum theory ... forces us to regard the space-time coordination and the claim of causality, the union of which characterizes the classical theories, as complementary but exclusive features of the description, symbolizing the idealization of observation and description, respectively.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Space
Causality
Unions
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A visitor to Niels Bohr's country cottage, noticing a horseshoe hanging on the wall, teasing the eminent scientist about this ancient superstition. "Can it be true that you, of all people, believe it will bring you luck?' 'Of course not,' replied Bohr, 'but I understand it brings you luck whether you believe it or not.'
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Believe
Country
Wall
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In physics we deal with states of affairs much simpler than those of psychology and yet we again and again learn that our task is not to investigate the essence of things-we do not at all know what this would mean&mash;but to develop those concepts that allow us to speak with each other about the events of nature in a fruitful manner.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Knowledge
Science
Mean
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Physics is to be regarded not so much as the study of something a priori given, but rather as the development of methods of ordering and surveying human experience. In this respect our task must be to account for such experience in a manner independent of individual subjective judgement and therefore objective in the sense that it can be unambiguously communicated in ordinary human language.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Development
Independent
Judgement
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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 messages do not thereby lose their objective or unambiguous character... We are suspended in language in such a way that we cannot say what is up and what is down. The word "reality" is also a word, a word which we must learn to use correctly.
Niels Bohr / Physicist
Character
Ideas
Reality
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Niels Bohr Quotes - Page 2

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