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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

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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
Uncertain
Arrogance
Uncertainty
Certain
Doe
Mean

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.
Werner Heisenberg
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The problems of language here are really serious. We wish to speak in some way about the structure of the atoms. But we cannot speak about atoms in ordinary language.
Werner Heisenberg
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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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There are things that are so serious that you can only joke about them.
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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
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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
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My mind was formed by studying philosophy, Plato and that sort of thing.
Werner Heisenberg
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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.
Werner Heisenberg
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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.
Werner Heisenberg
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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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The exact sciences also start from the assumption that in the end it will always be possible to understand nature, even in every new field of experience, but that we may make no a priori assumptions about the meaning of the word understand.
Werner Heisenberg
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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.
Werner Heisenberg
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What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.
Werner Heisenberg
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We will have to abandon the philosophy of Democritus and the concept of elementary particles. We should accept instead the concept of elementary symmetries.
Werner Heisenberg
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It will never be possible by pure reason to arrive at some absolute truth.
Werner Heisenberg
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The more closely you look at one thing, the less closely can you see something else.
Werner Heisenberg
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Even for the physicist the description in plain language will be a criterion of the degree of understanding that has been reached.
Werner Heisenberg
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Nature allows only experimental situations to occur which can be described within the framework of the formalism of quantum mechanics
Werner Heisenberg
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In my paper the fact the XY was not equal to YX was very disagreeable to me. I felt this was the only point of difficulty in the whole scheme...and I was not able to solve it.
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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.
Werner Heisenberg