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There is a fundamental error in separating the parts from the whole, the mistake of atomizing what should not be atomized. Unity and complementarity constitute reality.

Werner Heisenberg

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Werner Heisenberg
Age: 74 †
Born: 1901
Born: December 5
Died: 1976
Died: February 1
Academic
Mathematician
Mountaineer
Non-Fiction Writer
Nuclear Physicist
Physicist
Theoretical Physicist
University Teacher
Kreisfreie Stadt Würzburg
Werner Karl Heisenberg
Heisenberg
Werner K. Heisenberg
Errors
Complementarity
Parts
Atomized
Mistake
Separating
Humanity
Constitute
Reality
Error
Whole
Fundamental
Fundamentals
Unity

More quotes by Werner Heisenberg

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The solution of the difficulty is that the two mental pictures which experiment lead us to form - the one of the particles, the other of the waves - are both incomplete and have only the validity of analogies which are accurate only in limiting cases.
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In the strict formulation of the law of causality—if we know the present, we can calculate the future—it is not the conclusion that is wrong but the premise. On an implication of the uncertainty principle.
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Both matter and radiation possess a remarkable duality of character, as they sometimes exhibit the properties of waves, at other times those of particles. Now it is obvious that a thing cannot be a form of wave motion and composed of particles at the same time - the two concepts are too different
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...separation of the observer from the phenomenon to be observed is no longer possible.
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The one who insists on never uttering an error must remain silent.
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I believe that the existence of the classical path can be pregnantly formulated as follows: The path comes into existence only when we observe it.
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The world thus appears as a complicated tissue of events, in which connections of different kinds alternate or overlap or combine and thereby determine the texture of the whole.
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What we observe is not nature itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning. Our scientific work in physics consists in asking questions about nature in the language that we possess and trying to get an answer from experiment by the means that are at our disposal.
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Many people will tell you that an expert is someone who knows a great deal about the subject. To this I would object that one can never know much about any subject. I would much prefer the following definition: an expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in the subject, and how to avoid them.
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The structure underlying the phenomena is not given by material objects like the atoms of Democritus but by the form that determines the material objects. The Ideas are more fundamental than the objects.
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An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in his subject and how to avoid them.
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The existing scientific concepts cover always only a very limited part of reality, and the other part that has not yet been understood is infinite.
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Nonsense. Space is blue and birds fly through it.
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After the conversations about Indian philosophy, some of the ideas of Quantum Physics that had seemed so crazy suddenly made much more sense.
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The reality we can put into words is never reality itself.
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Every word or concept, clear as it may seem to be, has only a limited range of applicability.
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Every tool carries with it the spirit by which it has been created.
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[T]he atoms or elementary particles themselves are not real they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts.
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Science clears the fields on which technology can build.
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It is probably true quite generally that in the history of human thinking the most fruitful developments frequently take place at those points where two different lines of thought meet.
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