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You're unlikely to discover something new without a lot of practice on old stuff, but further, you should get a heck of a lot of fun out of working out funny relations and interesting things. -- Richard P. Feynman
Victory usually goes to those green enough to underestimate the monumental hurdles they are facing. -- Richard P. Feynman
What did you ASK at school today? -- Richard P. Feynman
The drawing teacher has this problem of communicating how to draw by osmosis and not by instruction, while the physics teacher has the problem of always teaching techniques, rather than the spirit, of how to go about solving physical problems. -- Richard P. Feynman
In any decision for action, when you have to make up your mind what to do, there is always a 'should' involved, and this cannot be worked out from, 'If I do this, what will happen?' alone. -- Richard P. Feynman
Nature's imagination far surpasses our own. -- Richard P. Feynman
Our poets do not write about it; our artists do not try to portray this remarkable thing. I don't know why. Is nobody inspired by our present picture of the universe? The value of science remains unsung by singers ... This is not yet a scientific age ... -- Richard P. Feynman
Quarks came in a number of varieties - in fact, at first, only three were needed to explain all the hundreds of particles and the different kinds of quarks - they are called u-type, d-type, s-type. -- Richard P. Feynman
In a way, the Nobel Prize has been something of a pain in the neck, though there was at least one time that I got some fun out of it, Shortly after I won the Prize, Gweneth and I received an invitation from the Brazilian government to be the guests of honor at the Carnaval celebrations in Rio. -- Richard P. Feynman
It is the fact that the electrons cannot all get on top of each other that makes tables and everything else solid. -- Richard P. Feynman
It is impossible, by the way, when picking one example of anything, to avoid picking one which is atypical in some sense. -- Richard P. Feynman
The beauty that is there is also available for me, too. But I see a deeper beauty that isn't so readily available to others ... I don't see how studying a flower ever detracts from its beauty. It only adds -- Richard P. Feynman
Since then I never pay attention to anything by "experts". I calculate everything myself. -- Richard P. Feynman
Because atomic behavior is so unlike ordinary experience, it is very difficult to get used to, and it appears peculiar and mysterious to everyone - both to the novice and to the experienced physicist. -- Richard P. Feynman
[B]eyond poverty, beyond the point that the material needs are reasonably satisfied, only from within is peace. -- Richard P. Feynman
I do believe that there is a conflict between science and religion ... the spirit or attitude toward the facts is different in religion from what it is in science. The uncertainty that is necessary in order to appreciate nature is not easily correlated with the feeling of certainty in faith. -- Richard P. Feynman
I want to marry Arline because I love her - which means I want to take care of her. That is all there is to it. I want to take care of her. I am anxious for the responsibilities and uncertainties of taking care of the girl I love. -- Richard P. Feynman
But logic is not all, one needs one's heart to follow an idea. -- Richard P. Feynman
The correct statement of the laws of physics involves some very unfamiliar ideas which require advanced mathematics for their description. Therefore, one needs a considerable amount of preparatory training even to learn what the words mean. -- Richard P. Feynman
So far as we know, all the fundamental laws of physics, like Newton's equations, are reversible. -- Richard P. Feynman
Science is of value because it can produce something. -- Richard P. Feynman
Do not read so much, look about you and think of what you see there. -- Richard P. Feynman
Einstein was a giant. His head was in the clouds, but his feet were on the ground. But those of us who are not that tall have to choose! -- Richard P. Feynman
We scientists are clever - too clever - are you not satisfied? Is four square miles in one bomb not enough? Men are still thinking. Just tell us how big you want it! -- Richard P. Feynman
When the problem [quantum chromodynamics] is finally solved, it will all be by imagination. Then there will be some big thing about the great way it was done. But it's simple -it will all be by imagination, and persistence. -- Richard P. Feynman
I find that teaching and the students keep life going, and I would never accept any position in which somebody has invented a happy situation for me where I don't have to teach. Never. -- Richard P. Feynman
I love only nature, and I hate mathematicians. -- Richard P. Feynman
It is always good to know which ideas cannot be checked directly, but it is not necessary to remove them all. It is not true that we can pursue science completely by using only those concepts which are directly subject to experiment. -- Richard P. Feynman
All the evidence, experimental and even a little theoretical, seems to indicate that it is the energy content which is involved in gravitation, and therefore, since matter and antimatter both represent positive energies, gravitation makes no distinction. -- Richard P. Feynman
I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there. -- Richard P. Feynman
Agnostic for me would be trying to weasel out and sound a little nicer than I am about this. -- Richard P. Feynman
The world is a dynamic mess of jiggling things -- Richard P. Feynman
It always seems odd to me that the fundamental laws of physics, when discovered, can appear in so many different forms that are not apparently identical at first, but, with a little mathematical fiddling, you can show the relationship. -- Richard P. Feynman
I practiced drawing all the time and became very interested in it. If I was at a meeting that wasn't getting anywhere - like the one where Carl Rogers came to Caltech to discuss with us whether Caltech should develop a psychology department - I would draw the other people. -- Richard P. Feynman
There is nothing in biology yet found that indicates the inevitability of death. This suggests to me that it is not at all inevitable and that it is only a matter of time before biologists discover what it is that is causing us the trouble. -- Richard P. Feynman
It is necessary to look at the results of observation objectively, because you, the experimenter, might like one result better than another. -- Richard P. Feynman
We have this terrible struggle to try to explain things to people who have no reason to want to know. -- Richard P. Feynman
When a Caltech student asked the eminent cosmologist Michael Turner what his "bias" was in favoring one or another particle as a likely candidate to compromise dark matter in the universe, Feynmann snapped, "Why do you want to know his bias? Form your own bias!" -- Richard P. Feynman
I don't believe I can really do without teaching. -- Richard P. Feynman
What goes on inside a star is better understood than one might guess from the difficulty of having to look at a little dot of light through a telescope, because we can calculate what the atoms in the stars should do in most circumstances. -- Richard P. Feynman
In the Raphael Room, the secret turned out to be that only some of the paintings were made by the great master; the rest were made by students. I had liked the ones by Raphael. This was a big jab for my self-confidence in my ability to appreciate art. -- Richard P. Feynman
People who wish to analyze nature without using mathematics must settle for a reduced understanding. -- Richard P. Feynman
One cannot understand ... the universality of laws of nature, the relationship of things, without an understanding of mathematics. There is no other way to do it. -- Richard P. Feynman
If we will only allow that, as we progress, we remain unsure, we will leave opportunities for alternatives. -- Richard P. Feynman
We seem gradually to be groping toward an understanding of the world of subatomic particles, but we really do not know how far we have yet to go in this task. -- Richard P. Feynman
I am going to tell you what nature behaves like. If you will simply admit that maybe she does behave like this, you will find her a delightful, entrancing thing. Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, 'But how can it be like that?' ... Nobody knows how it can be like that. -- Richard P. Feynman
Einstein's gravitational theory, which is said to be the greatest single achievement of theoretical physics, resulted in beautiful relations connecting gravitational phenomena with the geometry of space; this was an exciting idea. -- Richard P. Feynman
Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty
some most unsure, some nearly sure, none absolutely certain. -- Richard P. Feynman
It is necessary for the very existence of science that minds exist which do not allow that nature must satisfy some preconceived conditions. -- Richard P. Feynman
Science is a process for learning about nature in which competing ideas about how the world works are measured against observations. -- Richard P. Feynman
You can always recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity. -- Richard P. Feynman
Ordinarily it would take me about fifteen minutes to get a hallucination going," wrote Feynman, "but on a few occasions, when I smoked some marijuana beforehand, it came very quickly. -- Richard P. Feynman
It's the way I study - to understand something by trying to work it out or, in other words, to understand something by creating it. Not creating it one hundred percent, of course; but taking a hint as to which direction to go but not remembering the details. These you work out for yourself. -- Richard P. Feynman
Everything we know is only some kind of approximation, because we know that we do not know all the laws yet. Therefore, things must be learned only to be unlearned again or, more likely, to be corrected. -- Richard P. Feynman
When I was a young man, Dirac was my hero. He made a breakthrough, a new method of doing physics. He had the courage to simply guess at the form of an equation, the equation we now call the Dirac equation, and to try to interpret it afterwards. -- Richard P. Feynman
From the point of view of basic physics, the most interesting phenomena are, of course, in the new places, the places where the rules do not work - not the places where they do work! That is the way in which we discover new rules. -- Richard P. Feynman
There is no harm in doubt and skepticism, for it is through these that new discoveries are made. -- Richard P. Feynman
What I can't create I don't understand -- Richard P. Feynman
People are always asking for the latest developments in the unification of this theory with that theory, and they don't give us a chance to tell them anything about one of the theories that we know pretty well. They always want to know things that we don't know. -- Richard P. Feynman
Working out another system to replace Newton's laws took a long time because phenomena at the atomic level were quite strange. One had to lose one's common sense in order to perceive what was happening at the atomic level. -- Richard P. Feynman
Once I get on a puzzle, I can't get off. -- Richard P. Feynman
Europeans are much more serious than we are in America because they think that a good place to discuss intellectual matters is a beer party. -- Richard P. Feynman
Nature isn't classical, dammit, and if you want to make a simulation of nature, you'd better make it quantum mechanical, and by golly it's a wonderful problem, because it doesn't look so easy. -- Richard P. Feynman
There are all kinds of interesting questions that come from a knowledge of science, which only adds to the excitement and mystery and awe of a flower. -- Richard P. Feynman
Often one postulates that a priori, all states are equally probable. This is not true in the world as we see it. This world is not correctly described by the physics which assumes this postulate. -- Richard P. Feynman
Every instrument that has been designed to be sensitive enough to detect weak light has always ended up discovering that the same thing: light is made of particles. -- Richard P. Feynman
The electron is a theory we use; it is so useful in understanding the way nature works that we can almost call it real. -- Richard P. Feynman
Nature does not care what we call it, she just keeps on doing it. -- Richard P. Feynman
The real question of government versus private enterprise is argued on too philosophical and abstract a basis. Theoretically, planning may be good. But nobody has ever figured out the cause of government stupidity - and until they do (and find the cure), all ideal plans will fall into quicksand. -- Richard P. Feynman
It is important to realize that in physics today, we have no knowledge of what energy is -- Richard P. Feynman
Perhaps one day we will have machines that can cope with approximate task descriptions, but in the meantime, we have to be very prissy about how we tell computers to do things. -- Richard P. Feynman
Things on a very small scale behave like nothing that you have any direct experience about. They do not behave like waves, they do not behave like particles, they do not behave like clouds, or billiard balls, or weights on springs, or like anything that you have ever seen. -- Richard P. Feynman
It's because somebody knows something about it that we can't talk about physics. It's the things that nobody knows anything about we can discuss. -- Richard P. Feynman
I got a fancy reputation. During high school, every puzzle that was known to man must have come to me. Every damn, crazy conundrum that people had invented, I knew. -- Richard P. Feynman
It's amazing how many people even today use a computer to do something you can do with a pencil and paper in less time. -- Richard P. Feynman
It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong. -- Richard P. Feynman
The most obvious characteristic of science is its application: the fact that, as a consequence of science, one has a power to do things. And the effect this power has had need hardly be mentioned. The whole industrial revolution would almost have been impossible without the development of science. -- Richard P. Feynman
Science is a way for us to not fool ourselves. -- Richard P. Feynman
It is a curious historical fact that modern quantum mechanics began with two quite different mathematical formulations: the differential equation of Schroedinger and the matrix algebra of Heisenberg. The two apparently dissimilar approaches were proved to be mathematically equivalent. -- Richard P. Feynman
The idea is to try to give all the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another. -- Richard P. Feynman
So this piece of dirt waits four and a half billion years and evolves and changes, and now a strange creature stands here with instruments and talks to the strange creatures in the audience. What a wonderful world! -- Richard P. Feynman
It is simple, therefore it is beautiful -- Richard P. Feynman
Scientific knowledge is an enabling power to do either good or bad - but it does not carry instructions on how to use it. -- Richard P. Feynman
The most important thing I found out from [my father] is that if you asked any question and pursued it deeply enough, then at the end there was a glorious discovery of a general and beautiful kind. -- Richard P. Feynman
If the professors of English will complain to me that the students who come to the universities, after all those years of study, still cannot spell 'friend,' I say to them that something's the matter with the way you spell friend. -- Richard P. Feynman
I don't like honors ... I've already got the prize: the prize is the pleasure of finding the thing out, the kick in the discovery, the observation that other people use it. Those are the real things. -- Richard P. Feynman
The easiest person to fool is yourself. -- Richard P. Feynman
With the exception of gravitation and radioactivity, all of the phenomena known to physicists and chemists in 1911 have their ultimate explanation in the laws of quantum electrodynamics. -- Richard P. Feynman
Once we were driving in the midwest and we pulled into a McDonald's. Someone came up to me and asked me why I have Feynman diagrams all over my van. I replied, "Because I am Feynman!" The young man went, "Ahhhhh!" -- Richard P. Feynman
That is the logical tight-rope on which we have to walk if we wish to interpret nature. -- Richard P. Feynman
If all of this, all the life of a stream of water, can be nothing but a pile of atoms, how much more is possible? -- Richard P. Feynman
There is nothing that living things do that cannot be understood from the point of view that they are made of atoms acting according to the laws of physics. -- Richard P. Feynman
Science alone of all the subjects contains within itself the lesson of the danger of belief in the infallibility of the greatest teachers of the preceding generation. -- Richard P. Feynman
There is always another way to say the same thing that doesn't look at all like the way you said it before. I don't know what the reason for this is. I think it is somehow a representation of the simplicity of nature. -- Richard P. Feynman
Everybody who reasons carefully about anything is making a contribution ... and if you abstract it away and send it to the Department of Mathematics they put it in books. -- Richard P. Feynman
Today, all physicists know from studying Einstein and Bohr that sometimes an idea which looks completely paradoxical at first, if analyzed to completion in all detail and in experimental situations, may, in fact, not be paradoxical. -- Richard P. Feynman
The truth always turns out to be simpler than you thought. -- Richard P. Feynman
Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. -- Richard P. Feynman
[When a young person loses faith in his religion because he begins to study science and its methodology] it isn't that [through the obtaining of real knowledge that] he knows it all, but he suddenly realizes that he doesn't know it all. -- Richard P. Feynman
The internal machinery of life, the chemistry of the parts, is something beautiful. And it turns out that all life is interconnected with all other life. -- Richard P. Feynman
If you can find any other view of the world which agrees over the entire range where things have already been observed, but disagrees somewhere else, you have made a great discovery. -- Richard P. Feynman
I have argued flying saucers with lots of people. I was interested in possible. They do not appreciate that the problem is not to demonstrate whether it's possible or not but whether it's going on or not. -- Richard P. Feynman
Scientific views end in awe and mystery, lost at the edge in uncertainty, but they appear to be so deep and so impressive that the theory that it is all arranged as a stage for God to watch man's struggle for good and evil seems inadequate. -- Richard P. Feynman
I have the advantage of having found out how hard it is to get to really know something. How careful you have to be about checking your experiments. How easy it is to make mistakes and fool yourself. I know what it means to know something. -- Richard P. Feynman
I wanted very much to learn to draw, for a reason that I kept to myself: I wanted to convey an emotion I have about the beauty of the world. -- Richard P. Feynman
Winning a Nobel Prize is no big deal, but winning it with an IQ of 124 is really something. -- Richard P. Feynman
Gravitation is, so far, not understandable in terms of other phenomena. -- Richard P. Feynman
Listen, I mean that from my knowledge of the world that I see around me, I think that it is much more likely that the reports of flying saucers are the results of the known irrational characteristics of terrestrial intelligence than of the unknown rational efforts of extra-terrestrial intelligence. -- Richard P. Feynman
When I was about thirteen, the library was going to get 'Calculus for the Practical Man.' By this time I knew, from reading the encyclopedia, that calculus was an important and interesting subject, and I ought to learn it. -- Richard P. Feynman
Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, 'But how can it be like that?' because you will get 'down the drain,' into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that. -- Richard P. Feynman
I was terrible in English. I couldn't stand the subject. It seemed to me ridiculous to worry about whether you spelled something wrong or not, because English spelling is just a human convention - it has nothing to do with anything real, anything from nature. -- Richard P. Feynman
It is our responsibility to leave the people of the future a free hand. -- Richard P. Feynman
Just as a poet often has license from the rules of grammar and pronunciation, we should like to ask for 'physicists' license from the rules of mathematics in order to express what we wish to say in as simple a manner as possible. -- Richard P. Feynman
I don't think that the laws can be considered to be like God because they have been figured out. -- Richard P. Feynman
What we need is imagination, but imagination in a terrible strait-jacket. -- Richard P. Feynman
Some people say, "How can you live without knowing?" I do not know what they mean. I always live without knowing. That is easy. How you get to know is what I want to know. -- Richard P. Feynman
It is in the admission of ignorance and the admission of uncertainty that there is a hope for the continuous motion of human beings in some direction that doesn't get confined, permanently blocked, as it has so many times before in various periods in the history of man. -- Richard P. Feynman
We find that the statements of science are not of what is true and what is not true, but statements of what is known with different degrees of certainty: "It is very much more likely that so and so is true than that it is not true". -- Richard P. Feynman
Whenever you see a sweeping statement that a tremendous amount can come from a very small number of assumptions, you always find that it is false. There are usually a large number of implied assumptions that are far from obvious if you think about them sufficiently carefully. -- Richard P. Feynman
But the real glory of science is that we can find a way of thinking such that the law is evident. -- Richard P. Feynman
If science is to progress, what we need is the ability to experiment, honesty in reporting results - the results must be reported without somebody saying what they would like the results to have been - and finally - an important thing - the intelligence to interpret the results. -- Richard P. Feynman
The extreme weakness of quantum gravitational effects now poses some philosophical problems; maybe nature is trying to tell us something new here: maybe we should not try to quantize gravity. -- Richard P. Feynman
I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy. -- Richard P. Feynman
The same equations have the same solutions -- Richard P. Feynman
Don't pay attention to "authorities," think for yourself. -- Richard P. Feynman
If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics. -- Richard P. Feynman
Maybe that is why young people make success. They don't know enough. -- Richard P. Feynman
Before I was born, my father told my mother, 'If it's a boy, he's going to be a scientist.' -- Richard P. Feynman
No man is rich who is unsatisfied, but who wants nothing possess his heart's desire. -- Richard P. Feynman
We do not know what the rules of the game are; all we are allowed to do is to watch the playing. Of course, if we watch long enough, we may eventually catch on to a few of the rules. The rules of the game are what we mean by fundamental physics. -- Richard P. Feynman
We need to teach how doubt is not to be feared but welcomed. It's OK to say, "I don't know." -- Richard P. Feynman
If we have an atom that is in an excited state and so is going to emit a photon, we cannot say when it will emit the photon. It has a certain amplitude to emit the photon at any time, and we can predict only a probability for emission; we cannot predict the future exactly. -- Richard P. Feynman
A great deal more is known than has been proved. -- Richard P. Feynman
I've always been very one-sided about science, and when I was younger, I concentrated almost all my effort on it. -- Richard P. Feynman
Therefore psychologically we must keep all the theories in our heads, and every theoretical physicist who is any good knows six or seven different theoretical representations for exactly the same physics. -- Richard P. Feynman
If you keep proving stuff that others have done, getting confidence, increasing the complexities of your solutions - for the fun of it - then one day you'll turn around and discover that nobody actually did that one! -- Richard P. Feynman
Have no respect whatsoever for authority; forget who said it and instead look what he starts with, where he ends up, and ask yourself, "Is it reasonable?" -- Richard P. Feynman
As usual, nature's imagination far surpasses our own, as we have seen from the other theories which are subtle and deep. -- Richard P. Feynman
While I am describing to you how Nature works, you won't understand why Nature works that way. But you see, nobody understands that. -- Richard P. Feynman
If I say [electrons] behave like particles I give the wrong impression; also if I say they behave like waves. They behave in their own inimitable way, which technically could be called a quantum mechanical way. They behave in a way that is like nothing that you have seen before. -- Richard P. Feynman
If there is something very slightly wrong in our definition of the theories, then the full mathematical rigor may convert these errors into ridiculous conclusions. -- Richard P. Feynman
There in wine is found the great generalization: all life is fermentation. -- Richard P. Feynman
I was a very shy character, always feeling uncomfortable because everybody was stronger than I, and always afraid I would look like a sissy. Everybody else played baseball; everybody else did all kinds of athletic things. -- Richard P. Feynman
I thought one should have the attitude of 'What do you care what other people think!' -- Richard P. Feynman
When you get as old as I am, you start to realize that you've told most of the good stuff you know to other people anyway. -- Richard P. Feynman
A person talks in such generalities that everyone can understand him and it's considered to be some deep philosophy . However, I would like to be very rather more special and I would like to be understood in an honest way, rather than in a vague way. -- Richard P. Feynman
We are never right, we can only be sure we are wrong. -- Richard P. Feynman
Today's brains are yesterday's mashed potatoes. -- Richard P. Feynman
Unless a thing can be defined by measurement, it has no place in a theory. And since an accurate value of the momentum of a localized particle cannot be defined by measurement it therefore has no place in the theory. -- Richard P. Feynman
It does not matter who you are, or how smart you are, or what title you have, or how many of you there are, and certainly not how many papers your side has published, if your prediction is wrong then your hypothesis is wrong. Period. -- Richard P. Feynman
We're always, by the way, in fundamental physics, always trying to investigate those things in which we don't understand the conclusions. After we've checked them enough, we're okay. -- Richard P. Feynman
The first amazing fact about gravitation is that the ratio of inertial mass to gravitational mass is constant wherever we have checked it. The second amazing thing about gravitation is how weak it is. -- Richard P. Feynman
The fact that the colors in the flower have evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; that means insects can see the colors. That adds a question: does this aesthetic sense we have also exist in lower forms of life? -- Richard P. Feynman
It appears that there are enormous differences of opinion as to the probability of a failure with loss of vehicle and of human life. The estimates range from roughly 1 in 100 to 1 in 100,000. The higher figures come from the working engineers, and the very low figures from management. -- Richard P. Feynman
Once you have a computer that can do a few things - strictly speaking, one that has a certain 'sufficient set' of basic procedures - it can do basically anything any other computer can do. This, loosely, is the basis of the great principle of 'Universality'. -- Richard P. Feynman
I don't understand what it's all about or what's worth what, but if the people in the Swedish Academy decide that x, y or z wins the Nobel Prize, then so be it. -- Richard P. Feynman
When a photon comes down, it interacts with electrons throughout the glass, not just on the surface. The photon and electrons do some kind of dance, the net result of which is the same as if the photon hit only on the surface. -- Richard P. Feynman
If a guy tells me the probability of failure is 1 in 100,000, I know he's full of crap. -- Richard P. Feynman
I'm trying to find out NOT how Nature could be, but how Nature IS. -- Richard P. Feynman
When I would hear the rabbi tell about some miracle such as a bush whose leaves were shaking but there wasn't any wind, I would try to fit the miracle into the real world and explain it in terms of natural phenomena. -- Richard P. Feynman
There is enough energy in a single cubic meter of space to boil all the oceans in the world. -- Richard P. Feynman
The test of all knowledge is experiment. Experiment is the sole judge of scientific truth. -- Richard P. Feynman
To develop working ideas efficiently, I try to fail as fast as I can. -- Richard P. Feynman
This attitude of mind - this attitude of uncertainty - is vital to the scientist, and it is this attitude of mind which the student must first acquire. It becomes a habit of thought. Once acquired, we cannot retreat from it anymore. -- Richard P. Feynman
God was invented to explain mystery. God is always invented to explain those things that you do not understand. -- Richard P. Feynman
It requires a much higher degree of imagination to understand the electromagnetic field than to understand invisible angels ... I speak of the E and B fields and wave my arms and you may imagine that I can see them ... [but] I cannot really make a picture that is even nearly like the true waves. -- Richard P. Feynman
Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend those things which are there. -- Richard P. Feynman
To decide upon the answer is not scientific. In order to make progress, one must leave the door to the unknown ajar ajar only. -- Richard P. Feynman
We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress, we must recognize our ignorance and leave room for doubt. -- Richard P. Feynman
Is science of any value? I think a power to do something is of value. Whether the result is a good thing or a bad thing depends on how it is used, but the power is a value. -- Richard P. Feynman
If you have any talent, or any occupation that delights you, do it, and do it to the hilt. Don't ask why, or what difficulties you may get into. -- Richard P. Feynman
If you don't like it, go somewhere else, to another universe where the rules are simpler. -- Richard P. Feynman
Physics has a history of synthesizing many phenomena into a few theories. -- Richard P. Feynman
To test whether you have learned an idea or a definition, rephrase what you just learned without using the new word. -- Richard P. Feynman
To not know math is a severe limitation to understanding the world. -- Richard P. Feynman
Until I began to learn to draw, I was never much interested in looking at art. -- Richard P. Feynman
Only realistic flight schedules should be proposed, schedules that have a reasonable chance of being met. If in this way the government would not support them, then so be it. NASA owes it to the citizens from whom it asks support to be frank, honest, and informative. -- Richard P. Feynman
The inside of a computer is as dumb as hell but it goes like mad! -- Richard P. Feynman
People may come along and argue philosophically that they like one better than another; but we have learned from much experience that all philosophical intuitions about what nature is going to do fail. -- Richard P. Feynman
The present situation in physics is as if we know chess, but we don't know one or two rules. -- Richard P. Feynman
The universe is very large, and its boundaries are not known very well, but it is still possible to define some kind of a radius to be associated with it. -- Richard P. Feynman
The philosophical question before us is, when we make an observation of our track in the past, does the result of our observation become real in the same sense that the final state would be defined if an outside observer were to make the observation? -- Richard P. Feynman
If all of mathematics disappeared, physics would be set back by exactly one week. -- Richard P. Feynman
The ideas associated with the problems of the development of science, as far as I can see by looking around me, are not of the kind that everyone appreciates. -- Richard P. Feynman
All we know so far is what doesn't work. -- Richard P. Feynman
Another thing I must point out is that you cannot prove a vague theory wrong. -- Richard P. Feynman
The scale of light can be described by numbers called the frequency and as the numbers get higher, the light goes from red to blue to ultraviolet. We can't see ultraviolet light, but it can affect photographic plates. It's still light only the number is different. -- Richard P. Feynman
It is the facts that matter, not the proofs. Physics can progress without the proofs, but we can't go on without the facts ... if the facts are right, then the proofs are a matter of playing around with the algebra correctly. -- Richard P. Feynman
First figure out why you want the students to learn the subject and what you want them to know, and the method will result more or less by common sense. -- Richard P. Feynman
Computer science is not as old as physics; it lags by a couple of hundred years. However, this does not mean that there is significantly less on the computer scientist's plate than on the physicist's: younger it may be, but it has had a far more intense upbringing! -- Richard P. Feynman
You do not know anything until you have practiced. -- Richard P. Feynman
Nature ... cannot be fooled! -- Richard P. Feynman
I got a signed document from Bullock's saying that they had such-and-such drawings on consignment. Of course, nobody bought any of them, but otherwise, I was a big success: I had my drawings on sale at Bullock's! -- Richard P. Feynman
Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so that each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry. -- Richard P. Feynman
There were several possible solutions of the difficulty of classical electrodynamics, any one of which might serve as a good starting point to the solution of the difficulties of quantum electrodynamics. -- Richard P. Feynman
As revealed by physics, the truth is so remarkable, so amazing! -- Richard P. Feynman
It is not unscientific to make a guess, although many people who are not in science think it is. -- Richard P. Feynman
I think we can safely assume that no one understands quantum mechanics. -- Richard P. Feynman
Turbulence is the most important unsolved problem of classical physics. -- Richard P. Feynman
Outside of their particular area of expertise scientists are just as dumb as the next person. -- Richard P. Feynman
In its efforts to learn as much as possible about nature, modern physics has found that certain things can never be "known" with certainty. Much of our knowledge must always remain uncertain. The most we can know is in terms of probabilities. -- Richard P. Feynman
The exception tests the rule. -- Richard P. Feynman
When I found out that Santa Claus wasn't real, I wasn't upset; rather, I was relieved that there was a much simpler phenomenon to explain how so many children all over the world got presents on the same night! The story had been getting pretty complicated
it was getting out of hand. -- Richard P. Feynman
If you know that you are not sure, you have a chance to improve the situation. I want to demand this freedom for future generations. -- Richard P. Feynman
The 'paradox' is only a conflict between reality and your feeling of what reality 'ought to be. -- Richard P. Feynman
Doubt is clearly a value in science. It is important to doubt and that the doubt is not a fearful thing, but a thing of great value. -- Richard P. Feynman
In talking about the impact of ideas in one field on ideas in another field, one is always apt to make a fool of oneself. -- Richard P. Feynman
Few people realize the number of things that are possible. -- Richard P. Feynman
To guess what to keep and what to throw away takes considerable skill. Actually it is probably merely a matter of luck, but it looks as if it takes considerable skill. -- Richard P. Feynman
It is odd, but on the infrequent occasions when I have been called upon in a formal place to play the bongo drums, the introducer never seems to find it necessary to mention that I also do theoretical physics. -- Richard P. Feynman
Observation, reason, and experiment make up what we call the scientific method. -- Richard P. Feynman
This is the key of modern science and is the beginning of the true understanding of nature . This idea . That to look at the things, to record the details, and to hope that in the information thus obtained, may lie a clue to one or another of a possible theoretical interpretation. -- Richard P. Feynman
Some people think Wheeler's gotten crazy in his later years, but he's always been crazy. -- Richard P. Feynman
Science is uncertain. -- Richard P. Feynman
Progress in science comes when experiments contradict theory. -- Richard P. Feynman
All theoretical chemistry is really physics; and all theoretical chemists know it. -- Richard P. Feynman
Although it is uncertain, it is necessary to make science useful. Science is only useful if it tells you about some experiment that has not been done; it is not good if it only tells you what just went on. -- Richard P. Feynman
Don't worry about anything ... Go out and have a good time. -- Richard P. Feynman
We can deduce, often, from one part of physics like the law of gravitation, a principle which turns out to be much more valid than the derivation. -- Richard P. Feynman
The fact that you are not sure means that it is possible that there is another way someday. -- Richard P. Feynman
The situation in the sciences is this: A concept or an idea which cannot be measured or cannot be referred directly to experiment may or may not be useful. It need not exist in a theory. -- Richard P. Feynman
Strange! I don't understand how it is that we can write mathematical expressions and calculate what the thing is going to do without being able to picture it. -- Richard P. Feynman
You can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity. When you get it right, it is obvious that it is right
at least if you have any experience
because usually what happens is that more comes out than goes in. -- Richard P. Feynman
Each piece, or part, of the whole of nature is always merely an approximation to the complete truth, or the complete truth so far as we know it. In fact, everything we know is only some kind of approximation because we know that we do not know all the laws as yet. -- Richard P. Feynman
The unanswerable mysteries ... the attitude that all is uncertain ... to summarize it - the humility of the intellect. -- Richard P. Feynman
What would happen if we could arrange the atoms one by one the way we want them? -- Richard P. Feynman
Because the theory of quantum mechanics could explain all of chemistry and the various properties of substances, it was a tremendous success. But still there was the problem of the interaction of light and matter. -- Richard P. Feynman
The original reason to start the project, which was that the Germans were a danger, started me off on a process of action, which was to try to develop this first system at Princeton and then at Los Alamos, to try to make the bomb work. -- Richard P. Feynman
What one fool can understand, another can. -- Richard P. Feynman
We do not know where to look, or what to look for, when something is memorized. We do not know what it means, or what change there is in the nervous system, when a fact is learned. This is a very important problem which has not been solved at all. -- Richard P. Feynman
We've learned from experience that the truth will come out. -- Richard P. Feynman
We decided that 'trivial' means 'proved'. So we joked with the mathematicians: We have a new theorem- that mathematicians can prove only trivial theorems, because every theorem that's proved is trivial. -- Richard P. Feynman
Investigating the forces that hold the nuclear particles together was a long task. -- Richard P. Feynman
It has not yet become obvious to me that there's no real problem. I cannot define the real problem; therefore, I suspect there's no real problem, but I'm not sure there's no real problem. -- Richard P. Feynman
The theoretical broadening which comes from having many humanities subjects on the campus is offset by the general dopiness of the people who study these things ... -- Richard P. Feynman
No one really understands quantum mechanics. -- Richard P. Feynman
We are not to tell nature what she's gotta be. She's always got better imagination than we have. -- Richard P. Feynman
This is not yet a scientific age. -- Richard P. Feynman
I don't believe in honors - it bothers me. Honors bother: honors is epaulettes; honors is uniforms. My papa brought me up this way. -- Richard P. Feynman
There's so much distance between the fundamental rules and the final phenomenon, that it's almost unbelievable that the final variety of phenomenon can come from such a steady operation of such simple rules. -- Richard P. Feynman
The Quantum Universe has a quotation from me in every chapter - but it's a damn good book anyway. -- Richard P. Feynman
I decided to sell my drawings. However, I didn't want people to buy my drawings because the professor of physics isn't supposed to be able to draw - isn't that wonderful - so I made up a false name. -- Richard P. Feynman
The whole question of imagination in science is often misunderstood by people in other disciplines ... They overlook the fact that whatever we are allowed to imagine in science must be consistent with everything else we know. -- Richard P. Feynman
If you can't explain something to a first year student, then you haven't really understood . -- Richard P. Feynman
There is no learning without having to pose a question. And a question requires doubt. -- Richard P. Feynman
Start out understanding religion by saying everything is possibly wrong ... As soon as you do that, you start sliding down an edge which is hard to recover from ... -- Richard P. Feynman
Energy is a very subtle concept. It is very, very difficult to get right. -- Richard P. Feynman
This is not very important what I'm doing. I'm just proving something. -- Richard P. Feynman
It does not make any difference how beautiful your guess is. It does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is if it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. That is all there is to it. -- Richard P. Feynman
By honest I don't mean that you only tell what's true. But you make clear the entire situation. You make clear all the information that is required for somebody else who is intelligent to make up their mind. -- Richard P. Feynman
Today we say that the law of relativity is supposed to be true at all energies, but someday somebody may come along and say how stupid we were. -- Richard P. Feynman
Know how to solve every problem that has been solved. -- Richard P. Feynman
Some things that satisfy the rules of algebra can be interesting to mathematicians even though they don't always represent a real situation. -- Richard P. Feynman
Mathematics is not just a language. Mathematics is a language plus reasoning. -- Richard P. Feynman
There is one simplification at least. Electrons behave ... in exactly the same way as photons; they are both screwy, but in exactly in the same way ... -- Richard P. Feynman
The most remarkable discovery in all of astronomy is that the stars are made of atoms of the same kind as those on the earth. -- Richard P. Feynman
See that the imagination of nature is far, far greater than the imagination of man. -- Richard P. Feynman
The electron is a theory. But the theory is so good we can almost consider them real. -- Richard P. Feynman
There is a computer disease that anybody who works with computers knows about. It's a very serious disease and it interferes completely with the work. The trouble with computers is that you 'play' with them! -- Richard P. Feynman
I have to disregard everybody else, and then I can do my own work. -- Richard P. Feynman
Atoms are very special: they like certain particular partners, certain particular directions, and so on. It is the job of physics to analyze why each one wants what it wants. -- Richard P. Feynman
If I could explain it to the average person, I wouldn't have been worth the Nobel Prize. -- Richard P. Feynman
The thing that doesn't fit is the thing that's the most interesting: the part that doesn't go according to what you expected. -- Richard P. Feynman
Science is what we do to keep us from lying to ourselves -- Richard P. Feynman
People often think I'm a faker, but I'm usually honest, in a certain way - in such a way that often nobody believes me! -- Richard P. Feynman
Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts. -- Richard P. Feynman
The basis of action on love, the brotherhood of all men, the value of the individual ... the humility of the spirit. -- Richard P. Feynman
I am not interested in what today's mathematicians find interesting. -- Richard P. Feynman
Phenomena complex-laws simple ... Know what to leave out. -- Richard P. Feynman
As you know, a theory in physics is not useful unless it is able to predict underlined effects which we would otherwise expect. -- Richard P. Feynman
Experiment is the sole judge of the validity of any idea. -- Richard P. Feynman
A scientist is never certain ... We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and there is no learning. -- Richard P. Feynman
Work hard to find something that fascinates you. -- Richard P. Feynman
Scientists are explorers. Philosophers are tourists. -- Richard P. Feynman
If an apple was magnified to the size of the Earth, then the atoms in the apple would be approximately the size of the original apple. -- Richard P. Feynman
Precise language is not the problem. Clear language is the problem. -- Richard P. Feynman
The problem of creating something new, but which is consistent with everything which has been seen before, is one of extreme difficulty. -- Richard P. Feynman
There is no authority who decides what is a good idea. -- Richard P. Feynman
There's plenty of room at the bottom. -- Richard P. Feynman
The only way to deep happiness is to do something you love to the best of your ability -- Richard P. Feynman
Work as hard and as much as you want to on the things you like to do the best. -- Richard P. Feynman