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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

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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
Principles
Calculate
Present
Premise
Law
Premises
Wrong
Implications
Future
Strict
Uncertainty
Formulation
Conclusion
Implication
Principle
Causality

More quotes by Werner Heisenberg

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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'
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The world thus appears as a complicated tissue of events, in which connections of different kinds alternate or overlap or combine and thereby determine the texture of the whole.
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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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The basic idea is to shove all fundamental difficulties onto the neutron and to do quantum mechanics in the nucleus.
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My mind was formed by studying philosophy, Plato and that sort of thing.
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The reality we can put into words is never reality itself.
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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.
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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.
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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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Every word or concept, clear as it may seem to be, has only a limited range of applicability.
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Nonsense. Space is blue and birds fly through it.
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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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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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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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When I meet God, I am going to ask him two questions: Why relativity ? And why turbulence ? I really believe he will have an answer for the first.
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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.
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It will never be possible by pure reason to arrive at some absolute truth.
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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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A consistent pursuit of classical physics forces a transformation in the very heart of that physics.
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The very act of observing disturbs the system.
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