Quote

The conception of objective reality ... has thus evaporated ... into the transparent clarity of mathematics that represents no longer the behavior of particles but rather our knowledge of this behavior.

Werner Heisenberg

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Knowledge
Objective
Rather
Conception
Science
Objectives
Reality
Clarity
Mathematics
Evaporated
Thus
Particles
Behavior
Transparent
Longer
Represents

More quotes by Werner Heisenberg

Image
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
Werner Heisenberg
Image
The one who insists on never uttering an error must remain silent.
Werner Heisenberg
Image
It will never be possible by pure reason to arrive at some absolute truth.
Werner Heisenberg
Image
[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.
Werner Heisenberg
Image
Every word or concept, clear as it may seem to be, has only a limited range of applicability.
Werner Heisenberg
Image
Whenever we proceed from the known to the unkown we may hope to understand, but we may have to learn at the same time a new meaning of the word 'understanding'
Werner Heisenberg
Image
A consistent pursuit of classical physics forces a transformation in the very heart of that physics.
Werner Heisenberg
Image
Not only is the Universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think.
Werner Heisenberg
Image
An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in his subject and how to avoid them.
Werner Heisenberg
Image
Every tool carries with it the spirit by which it has been created.
Werner Heisenberg
Image
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.
Werner Heisenberg
Image
After the conversations about Indian philosophy, some of the ideas of Quantum Physics that had seemed so crazy suddenly made much more sense.
Werner Heisenberg
Image
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.
Werner Heisenberg
Image
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.
Werner Heisenberg
Image
It seems sensible to discard all hope of observing hitherto unobservable quantities, such as the position and period of the electron... Instead it seems more reasonable to try to establish a theoretical quantum mechanics, analogous to classical mechanics, but in which only relations between observable quantities occur.
Werner Heisenberg
Image
Uncertainty is NOT I don't know. It is I can't know. I am uncertain does not mean I could be certain.
Werner Heisenberg
Image
I think that modern physics has definitely decided in favor of Plato. In fact the smallest units of matter are not physical objects in the ordinary sense they are forms, ideas which can be expressed unambiguously only in mathematical language.
Werner Heisenberg
Image
Science no longer is in the position of observer of nature, but rather recognizes itself as part of the interplay between man and nature. The scientific method ... changes and transforms its object: the procedure can no longer keep its distance from the object.
Werner Heisenberg
Image
Nature is made in such a way as to be able to be understood. Or perhaps I should put it-more correctly-the other way around, and say that we are made in such a way as to be able to understand Nature.
Werner Heisenberg
Image
The basic idea is to shove all fundamental difficulties onto the neutron and to do quantum mechanics in the nucleus.
Werner Heisenberg