As quoted in American Journal of Physics, Vol. 14 | (1946), p. 248
“The recognition of certain basic impossibilities has laid the foundations of some major principles of physics and chemistry; similarly, recognition of the impossibility of understanding living things in terms of physics and chemistry, far from setting limits to our understanding of life, will guide it in the right direction. And even if the demonstration of this impossibility should prove of no great advantage in the pursuit of discovery, such a demonstration would help to draw a truer image of life and man than that given us by the present basic concepts of biology.”
Life's irreducible structure (1968)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Michael Polanyi 15
Hungarian-British polymath 1891–1976Related quotes
Source: Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC
Appendix VI : A few principal rituals – Liber Reguli.
Magick Book IV : Liber ABA, Part III : Magick in Theory and Practice (1929)
Context: The discovery of radioactivity created a momentary chaos in chemistry and physics; but it soon led to a fuller interpretation of the old ideas. It dispersed many difficulties, harmonized many discords, and — yea, more! It shewed the substance of Universe as a simplicity of Light and Life, manners to compose atoms, themselves capable of deeper self-realization through fresh complexities and organizations, each with its own peculiar powers and pleasures, each pursuing its path through the world where all things are possible.
Source: Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science (2005), Chapter 13, “The Future of Science: Surprises or Revolutions” (p. 210)
“That life is chemistry is true but boring, like saying that football is physics.”
Source: Genome (1999), Chapter 1 “Life” (p. 15)
Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1966, p. 10.
Of Molecules and Men (1966)
1900s, God Does Not Exist (1904)
“Certainly nothing is unnatural that is not physically impossible.”
Act II, sc. i.
The Critic (1779)