Quote

Every experiment destroys some of the knowledge of the system which was obtained by previous experiments.

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
System
Knowledge
Every
Obtained
Destroys
Previous
Experiment
Experiments

More quotes by Werner Heisenberg

Image
Even for the physicist the description in plain language will be a criterion of the degree of understanding that has been reached.
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
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
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.
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 more precise the measurement of position, the more imprecise the measurement of momentum, and vice versa.
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
Natural science, does not simply describe and explain nature it is part of the interplay between nature and ourselves
Werner Heisenberg
Image
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.
Werner Heisenberg
Image
...separation of the observer from the phenomenon to be observed is no longer possible.
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
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.
Werner Heisenberg
Image
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.
Werner Heisenberg
Image
My mind was formed by studying philosophy, Plato and that sort of thing.
Werner Heisenberg
Image
The one who insists on never uttering an error must remain silent.
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
The very act of observing disturbs the system.
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
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