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Richard Feynman: 362 quotes34 likes

“If we take everything into account — not only what the ancients knew, but all of what we know today that they didn't know — then I think that we must frankly admit that we do not know.”

Richard Feynman

The Value of Science (1955)

“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 Feynman book The Character of Physical Law

Source: The Character of Physical Law (1965), chapter 7, “Seeking New Laws,” p. 168

“Shut up and calculate!”

Richard Feynman

Probably a misattribution which instead originated with David Mermin; in "Could Feynman Have Said This?" http://scitation.aip.org/journals/doc/PHTOAD-ft/vol_57/iss_5/10_1.shtml?bypassSSO=1, by N. David Mermin, in Physics Today (May 2004), p. 10, he notes that in an earlier Physics Today (April 1989), p. 9, he had written what appears to be the earliest occurrence of the phrase:<br>If I were forced to sum up in one sentence what the Copenhagen interpretation says to me, it would be "Shut up and calculate!" <br class="br">Disputed and/or attributed

“Principles
You can't say A is made of B
or vice versa.
All mass is interaction.”

Richard Feynman

note (c. 1948), quoted in Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman (1992) by James Gleick, p. 5 (repeated p. 283)

“Light is something like raindrops — each little lump of light is called a photon — and if the light is all one color, all the "raindrops" are the same.”

Richard Feynman book QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter

Source: QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter (1985), p. 14

“In fact, the science of thermodynamics began with an analysis, by the great engineer Sadi Carnot, of the problem of how to build the best and most efficient engine, and this constitutes one of the few famous cases in which engineering has contributed to fundamental physical theory. Another example that comes to mind is the more recent analysis of information theory by Claude Shannon. These two analyses, incidentally, turn out to be closely related.”

Richard Feynman

volume I; lecture 44, "The Laws of Thermodynamics"; section 44-1, "Heat engines; the first law"; p. 44-2
The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1964)

“I don't know anything, but I do know that everything is interesting if you go into it deeply enough.”

Richard Feynman book The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

From Omni interview, "The Smartest Man in the World" (1979) p. 203
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out (1999)

“Nature's imagination far surpasses our own.”

Richard Feynman book The Character of Physical Law

Source: The Character of Physical Law (1965), chapter 7, “Seeking New Laws,” p. 162: video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2NnquxdWFk&t=29m20s

“One time I was in the men's room of the bar and there was a guy at the urinal. He was kind of drunk, and said to me in a mean-sounding voice, "I don't like your face. I think I'll push it in."I was scared green. I replied in an equally mean voice, "Get out of my way, or I'll pee right through ya!"”

Richard Feynman

Part 4: "From Cornell to Caltech, With a Touch of Brazil", "Any Questions?", p. 177
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (1985)

“I don't know what's the matter with people: they don't learn by understanding; they learn by some other way — by rote or something. Their knowledge is so fragile!”

Richard Feynman

Part 1: "From Rockaway to MIT", "Who Stole the Door?", p. 36-37
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (1985)

“There is one feature I notice that is generally missing in cargo cult science. … It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty — a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid — not only what you think is right about it; other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked — to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated. Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can — if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong — to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem. When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition. In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgement in one particular direction or another.”

Richard Feynman

" Cargo Cult Science http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm", adapted from a 1974 Caltech commencement address; also published in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, p. 341

“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 Feynman book The Character of Physical Law

Source: The Character of Physical Law (1965), chapter 6, “Probability and Uncertainty — the Quantum Mechanical View of Nature,” p. 127-128

“You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight. I was coming here, on the way to the lecture, and I came in through the parking lot. And you won't believe what happened. I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance that I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!”

Richard Feynman

from a public lecture, as quoted in David L. Goodstein, "Richard P. Feynman, Teacher," Physics Today, volume 42, number 2 (February 1989) p. 70-75, at p. 73
Republished in the "Special Preface" to Six Easy Pieces (1995), p. xxi.
Republished also in the "Special Preface" to the "definitive edition" of The Feynman Lectures on Physics, volume I, p. xiv.

“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 Feynman book The Character of Physical Law

Source: The Character of Physical Law (1965), chapter 1, “The Law of Gravitation,” p. 13: video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3mhkYbznBk&t=7m53s

“My mother … had a wonderful sense of humor, and I learned from her that the highest forms of understanding we can achieve are laughter and human compassion.”

Richard Feynman book What Do You Care What Other People Think?

"The Making of a Scientist," p. 19
What Do You Care What Other People Think? (1988)

“So far as we know, all the fundamental laws of physics, like Newton’s equations, are reversible.”

Richard Feynman

volume I; lecture 46, "Ratchet and Pawl"; section 46-5, "Order and entropy"; p. 46-8
The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1964)

“The imagination of nature is far, far greater than the imagination of man.”

Richard Feynman

The Value of Science (1955)

“Perhaps you will not only have some appreciation of this culture; it is even possible that you may want to join in the greatest adventure that the human mind has ever begun.”

Richard Feynman

volume III, "Feynman's Epilogue", p. 21-19 (closing sentence)
The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1964)

“We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and no learning. There is no learning without having to pose a question. And a question requires doubt. People search for certainty. But there is no certainty. People are terrified — how can you live and not know? It is not odd at all. You only think you know, as a matter of fact. And most of your actions are based on incomplete knowledge and you really don't know what it is all about, or what the purpose of the world is, or know a great deal of other things. It is possible to live and not know.”

Richard Feynman book The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

from lecture "What is and What Should be the Role of Scientific Culture in Modern Society", given at the Galileo Symposium in Italy (1964)
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out (1999)

“Incidentally, psychoanalysis is not a science: it is at best a medical process, and perhaps even more like witch-doctoring. It has a theory as to what causes disease—lots of different “spirits,” etc. The witch doctor has a theory that a disease like malaria is caused by a spirit which comes into the air; it is not cured by shaking a snake over it, but quinine does help malaria. So, if you are sick, I would advise that you go to the witch doctor because he is the man in the tribe who knows the most about the disease; on the other hand, his knowledge is not science. Psychoanalysis has not been checked carefully by experiment.”

Richard Feynman

volume I; lecture 3, "The Relation of Physics to Other Sciences"; section 3-6, "Psychology"; p. 3-8
The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1964)