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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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Werner Heisenberg
Age: 74 †
Born: 1901
Born: December 5
Died: 1976
Died: February 1
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Non-Fiction Writer
Nuclear Physicist
Physicist
Theoretical Physicist
University Teacher
Kreisfreie Stadt Würzburg
Werner Karl Heisenberg
Heisenberg
Werner K. Heisenberg
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More quotes by Werner Heisenberg

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Thus, the more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known, and conversely.
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It was about three o'clock at night when the final result of the calculation [which gave birth to quantum mechanics] lay before me ... At first I was deeply shaken ... I was so excited that I could not think of sleep. So I left the house ... and awaited the sunrise on top of a rock.
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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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Only a few know, how much one must know to know how little one knows.
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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 ontology of materialism rested upon the illusion that the kind of existence, the direct actuality of the world around us, can be extrapolated into the atomic range. This extrapolation is impossible, however.
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The one who insists on never uttering an error must remain silent.
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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 discontinuous 'reduction of the wave packets' which cannot be derived from Schroedinger's equation is ... a consequence of the transition from the possible to the actual.
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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.
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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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Nature allows only experimental situations to occur which can be described within the framework of the formalism of quantum mechanics
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The 'path' comes into existence only when we observe it.
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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?
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After the conversations about Indian philosophy, some of the ideas of Quantum Physics that had seemed so crazy suddenly made much more sense.
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...separation of the observer from the phenomenon to be observed is no longer possible.
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Every tool carries with it the spirit by which it has been created.
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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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Every experiment destroys some of the knowledge of the system which was obtained by previous experiments.
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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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