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The bottom line for mathematicians is that the architecture has to be right. In all the mathematics that I did, the essential point was to find the right architecture. It's like building a bridge. Once the main lines of the structure are right, then the details miraculously fit. The problem is the overall design.

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
Building
Essential
Mathematician
Lines
Essentials
Bridge
Point
Fit
Bridges
Problem
Mathematics
Mathematical
Find
Structure
Math
Right
Bottom
Architecture
Miraculously
Like
Line
Main
Mathematicians
Design
Details
Overall

More quotes by Freeman Dyson

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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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You could say science also is an art.
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I like people who are working on practical things and who are working in teams. It's not so important to get the glory. It's much more important to get something that works. It's a better way to live.
Freeman Dyson
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So long as you have courage and a sense of humor, it is never too late to start life afresh.
Freeman Dyson
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If the tools are bad, nature's voice is muffled. If the tools are good, nature will give us a clear answer to a clear question.
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Aviation is the branch of engineering that is least forgiving of mistakes.
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I'm prejudiced about education altogether. I think it's terribly overrated.
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New directions in science are launched by new tools much more often than by new concepts. The effect of a concept-driven revolution is to explain old things in new ways. The effect of a tool-driven revolution is to discover new things that have to be explained.
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A model is done when nothing else can be taken out.
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It is not surprising that honest and well-informed experts can disagree about facts. But beyond the disagreement about facts, there is another deeper disagreement about values.
Freeman Dyson
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I am saying that all predictions concerning climate are highly uncertain.
Freeman Dyson
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If you go to London now, not everything is beautiful, but it's amazingly better than it was. And the Thames is certainly a lot better: There are fish in the Thames.
Freeman Dyson
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[John Wheeler] rejuvenated general relativity he made it an experimental subject and took it away from the mathematicians
Freeman Dyson
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Intelligence may indeed be a benign influence creating isolated groups of philosopher-kings far apart in the heavens... On the other hand, intelligence may be a cancer of purposeless technological exploitation, sweeping across a galaxy as irresistibly as it has swept across our own planet.
Freeman Dyson
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The purpose of thinking about the future is not to predict it but to raise people's hopes.
Freeman Dyson
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I mean science was blamed for all the horrors of World War I, just as it's blamed today for nuclear weapons and quite rightly.
Freeman Dyson
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The technologies which have had the most profound effects on human life are usually simple.
Freeman Dyson
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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.
Freeman Dyson
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Mind and intelligence are woven into the fabric of our universe in a way that altogether surpasses our understanding.
Freeman Dyson
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Humanity looks to me like a magnificent beginning but not the final word.
Freeman Dyson