Quote

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

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
Thing
Times
Waves
Time
Two
Motion
Exhibit
Cannot
Possess
Radiation
Form
Remarkable
Duality
Character
Wave
Properties
Matter
Concepts
Exhibits
Sometimes
Obvious
Composed
Different
Property
Particles

More quotes by Werner Heisenberg

Image
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
Image
Every tool carries with it the spirit by which it has been created.
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
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.
Werner Heisenberg
Image
The one who insists on never uttering an error must remain silent.
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
Thus, the more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known, and conversely.
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
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
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.
Werner Heisenberg
Image
Can quantum mechanics represent the fact that an electron finds itself approximately in a given place and that it moves approximately with a given velocity, and can we make these approximations so close that they do not cause experimental difficulties?
Werner Heisenberg
Image
The reality we can put into words is never reality itself.
Werner Heisenberg
Image
Nonsense. Space is blue and birds fly through it.
Werner Heisenberg
Image
Only a few know, how much one must know to know how little one knows.
Werner Heisenberg
Image
A consistent pursuit of classical physics forces a transformation in the very heart of that physics.
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
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
Image
Natural science, does not simply describe and explain nature it is part of the interplay between nature and ourselves
Werner Heisenberg
Image
I think that the discovery of antimatter was perhaps the biggest jump of all the big jumps in physics in our century.
Werner Heisenberg
Image
In general, scientific progress calls for no more than the absorption and elaboration of new ideas- and this is a call most scientists are happy to heed.
Werner Heisenberg