Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science QUOTES

1 " Whether we like it or not, modern ways are going to alter and in part destroy traditional customs and values. "

― Werner Heisenberg , Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science

2 " Whenever we proceed from the known into the unknown we may hope to understand, but we may have to learn at the same time a new meaning of the word 'understanding. "

― Werner Heisenberg , Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science

3 " Here the attention of the research workers is primarily directed to the problem of reconciling the claims of the special relativity theory with those of the quantum theory. The extraordinary advances made in this field by Dirac ... leave open the question whether it will be possible to satisfy the claims of the two theories without at the same time determining the Sommerfeld fine-structure constant. "

― Werner Heisenberg , Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science

4 " What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning. "

― Werner Heisenberg , Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science

5 " If we wanted to construct a basic philosophical attitude from these scientific utterances of Pauli's, at first we would be inclined to infer from them an extreme rationalism and a fundamentally skeptical point of view. In reality however, behind this outward display of criticism and skepticism lay concealed a deep philosophical interest even in those dark areas of reality of the human mind which elude the grasp of reason. And while the power of fascination emanating from Pauli's analyses of physical problems was admittedly due in some measure to the detailed and penetrating clarity of his formulations, the rest was derived from a constant contact with the field of creative processes, for which no rational formulation as yet exists. "

― Werner Heisenberg , Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science

6 " Modern physics plays perhaps only a small role in this dangerous process of unification. But it helps at two very decisive points to guide the development into a calmer kind of evolution. First, it shows that the use of arms in the process would be disastrous and, second, through its openness for all kinds of concepts it raises the hope that in the final state of unification many different cultural traditions may live together and may combine different human endeavors into a new kind of balance between thought and deed, between activity and meditation. "

― Werner Heisenberg , Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science

7 " There is a general awareness that contenporary physics has broughy about an important revision in man's conception of the universe and his relation to it. In no portion of physics does this suggestion show itself more pointedly than in the principle of indeterminacy of quantum mechanics. "

― Werner Heisenberg , Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science