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When I found out that Santa Claus wasn't real, I wasn't upset rather, I was relieved that there was a much simpler phenomenon to explain how so many children all over the world got presents on the same night! The story had been getting pretty complicated -- it was getting out of hand.

Richard P. Feynman

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Richard P. Feynman
Age: 69 †
Born: 1918
Born: May 11
Died: 1988
Died: February 15
Inventor
Percussionist
Physicist
Politician
Quantum Physicist
Science Communicator
Theoretical Physicist
University Teacher
Writer
Far Rockaway
New York
Richard Phillips Feynman
Richard P. Feynman
Ofey
Hands
Wasn
Simpler
Stories
Pretty
Relieved
Many
Hand
Presents
Children
Getting
Santa
Real
Story
Phenomenon
Much
Rather
Upset
World
Found
Explain
Night
Complicated
Claus

More quotes by Richard P. Feynman

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To those who do not know mathematics it is difficult to get across a real feeling as to the beauty, the deepest beauty, of nature ... If you want to learn about nature, to appreciate nature, it is necessary to understand the language that she speaks in.
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Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself.
Richard P. Feynman
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Computer science is not as old as physics it lags by a couple of hundred years. However, this does not mean that there is significantly less on the computer scientist's plate than on the physicist's: younger it may be, but it has had a far more intense upbringing!
Richard P. Feynman
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Therefore psychologically we must keep all the theories in our heads, and every theoretical physicist who is any good knows six or seven different theoretical representations for exactly the same physics.
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Our freedom to doubt was born out of a struggle against authority in the early days of science. It was a very deep and strong struggle: permit us to question - to doubt - to not be sure. I think that it is important that we do not forget this struggle and thus perhaps lose what we have gained.
Richard P. Feynman
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From a long view of the history of mankind the most significant event of the nineteenth century will be judged as Maxwell's discovery of the laws of electrodynamics.
Richard P. Feynman
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Learn what the rest of the world is like. The variety is worthwhile.
Richard P. Feynman
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It is odd, but on the infrequent occasions when I have been called upon in a formal place to play the bongo drums, the introducer never seems to find it necessary to mention that I also do theoretical physics.
Richard P. Feynman
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The work I have done has, already, been adequately rewarded and recognized. Imagination reaches out repeatedly trying to achieve some higher level of understanding, until suddenly I find myself momentarily alone before one new corner of nature's pattern of beauty and true majesty revealed. That was my reward.
Richard P. Feynman
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All mass is interaction.
Richard P. Feynman
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In any organization there ought to be the possibility of discussion... fence sitting is an art, and it's difficult, and it's important to do, rather than to go headlong in one direction or the other. It's just better to have action, isn't it than to sit on the fence? Not if you're not sure which way to go, it isn't.
Richard P. Feynman
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You see, one thing is, I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things... It doesn't frighten me.
Richard P. Feynman
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All we know so far is what doesn't work.
Richard P. Feynman
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The worthwhile problems are the ones you can really solve or help solve, the ones you can really contribute something to... No problem is too small or too trivial if we can really do something about it.
Richard P. Feynman
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If you thought you were trying to find out more about it because you're gonna get an answer to some deep philosophical question...you may be wrong! It may be that you can't get an answer to that particular question by finding out more about the character of nature. But my interest in science is to simply find out about the world.
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To develop working ideas efficiently, I try to fail as fast as I can.
Richard P. Feynman
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No problem is too small or too trivial if we can really do something about it.
Richard P. Feynman
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Nature...cannot be fooled!
Richard P. Feynman
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Science alone of all the subjects contains within itself the lesson of the danger of belief in the infallibility of the greatest teachers of the preceding generation.
Richard P. Feynman
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I think we can safely assume that no one understands quantum mechanics.
Richard P. Feynman