Quotes of The Enlightened Quantum Physicists
Below are some examples of quotes from quantum physicists that parallel the ideas of ancient wisdoms.
MAX PLANCK
"I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness."
"Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and therefore part of the mystery that we are trying to solve."
"The entire world we apprehend through our senses is no more than a tiny fragment in the vastness of Nature."
"As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter."
"There can never be any real opposition between religion and science; for the one is the complement of the other."
NIELS BOHR
"Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real."
"For a parallel to the lesson of atomic 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 like Buddha and Lao Tzu have been confronted, when trying to harmonize our position as spectators and actors in the great drama of existence."
"The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth."
"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."
"Some subjects are so serious that one can only joke about them."
WERNER HEISENBERG
"Not only is the Universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think."
"We have to remember that what we observe is not nature herself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning."
"The atoms or elementary particles themselves are not real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts."
"It will never be possible by pure reason to arrive at some absolute truth."
"Whenever we proceed from the known into the unknown we may hope to understand, but we may have to learn at the same time a new meaning of the word "understanding."
ERWIN SCHRÖDINGER
"The world is given to me only once, not one existing and one perceived. Subject and object are only one. The barrier between them cannot be said to have broken down as a result of recent experience in the physical sciences, for this barrier does not exist."
"There is obviously only one alternative, namely the unification of minds or consciousnesses. Their multiplicity is only apparent, in truth there is only one mind."
"The present is the only things that has no end."
MAX BORN
"The belief that there is only one truth and that oneself is in possession of it seems to me the deepest root of all evil that is in the world."
"The dance of atoms, electrons and nuclei, which in all its fury is subject to God's eternal laws, has been entangled with another restless Universe which may well be the Devil's: the human struggle for power and domination, which eventually becomes history."
"I am now convinced that theoretical physics is actually philosophy."
JOHN VON NEUMANN
"Anyone who attempts to generate random numbers by deterministic means is, of course, living in a state of sin."
