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The reason why new concepts in any branch of science are hard to grasp is always the same contemporary scientists try to picture the new concept in terms of ideas which existed before.

Freeman Dyson

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Freeman Dyson
Age: 96 †
Born: 1923
Born: December 15
Died: 2020
Died: February 28
Mathematician
Nuclear Physicist
Physicist
Professor
Theoretical Physicist
Crowthorne
Berkshire
Freeman John Dyson
Freeman J. Dyson
Reason
Concept
Hard
Scientist
Trying
Concepts
Branch
Always
Picture
Grasp
Terms
Existed
Term
Scientists
Science
Branches
Ideas
Contemporary

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When I listen to the public debates about climate change, I am impressed by the enormous gaps in our knowledge, the sparseness of our observations and the superficiality of our theories.
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If women are doing a Ph.D., they have a conflict between raising a family or finishing the degree, which is just at the worst time - between the ages of 25 to 30 or whatever it is. It ruins the five years of their lives.
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The total disorder in the universe, as measured by the quantity that physicists call entropy, increases steadily over time. Also, the total order in the universe, as measured by the complexity and permanence of organized structures, also increases steadily over time.
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All the time worrying about pushing the children and getting them to be mathematically literate and all that stuff. It's terribly hard on the kids. It's also hard on the teachers. And I think it's totally useless.
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That's, of course, the beautiful thing about science - that it's all about things we don't understand, not just the things we do understand.
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The media always tries to make everything into a disaster, but it's mostly rubbish.
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It makes very little sense to believe the output of the climate models.
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Technology is a gift of God. After the gift of life it is perhaps the greatest of God's gifts. It is the mother of civilizations, of arts and of sciences.
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That was the wonderful thing about Ramanujan. He discovered so much, and yet he left so much more in his garden for other people to discover.
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I think the fact that Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World and talked about anthrax bombs probably helped because at least we... people had the understanding before the war began that's something we didn't want to get into.
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I think we're doing pretty well. It's clear the media, of course, always gives you the bad news.
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Most of the papers which are submitted to the Physical Review are rejected, not because it is impossible to understand them, but because it is possible. Those which are impossible to understand are usually published.
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For me, science is just a bunch of tools - it's like playing the violin.
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Younger people have so many opportunities. I don't see any pessimism among them.
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Technology must be guided and driven by ethics if it is to do more than provide new toys for the rich.
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The idea that God may be approached and understood through intellectual analysis is uniquely Christian... It is probably not an accident that modern science grew explosively in Christian Europe and left the rest of the world behind.
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Progress in science is often built on wrong theories that are later corrected. It is better to be wrong than to be vague.
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What the world needs is a small, compact, flexible fusion technology that could make electricity where and when it is needed. The existing fusion program is leading to a huge source of centralized power, at a price that nobody except a government can afford.
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For me, science is just a bunch of tools - it's like playing the violin. I just enjoy calculating, and it's an instrument I know how to play. It's almost an athletic performance, in a way. I was just watching the Olympics, and that's how I feel when proving a theorem.
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Technology without morality is barbarous morality without technology is impotent.
Freeman Dyson