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The more precise the measurement of position, the more imprecise the measurement of momentum, and vice versa.

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
Measurement
Momentum
Precise
Vice
Vices
Position
Imprecise
Versa

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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.
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...separation of the observer from the phenomenon to be observed is no longer possible.
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By getting to smaller and smaller units, we do not come to fundamental or indivisible units. But we do come to a point where further division has no meaning.
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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.
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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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Natural science, does not simply describe and explain nature it is part of the interplay between nature and ourselves
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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 reality we can put into words is never reality itself.
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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.
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What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.
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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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A consistent pursuit of classical physics forces a transformation in the very heart of that physics.
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Looking at something changes it.
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Nature allows only experimental situations to occur which can be described within the framework of the formalism of quantum mechanics
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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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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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Where no guiding ideals are left to point the way, the scale of values disappears and with it the meaning of our deeds and sufferings, and at the end can lie only negation and despair. Religion is therefore the foundation of ethics, and ethics the presupposition of life.
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There are things that are so serious that you can only joke about them.
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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.
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