"Edward Witten" interview, Superstrings: A Theory of Everything? (1992) ed. P.C.W. Davies, Julian Brown
Context: It's been said that string theory is part of the physics of the twenty-first century that fell by chance into the twentieth century. That's a remark that was made by a leading physicist about fifteen years ago.... String theory was invented essentially by accident in a long series of events, starting with the Veneziano model... No one invented it on purpose, it was invented in a lucky accident.... By rights, string theory shouldn't have been invented until our knowledge of some of the areas that are prerequisite... had developed to the point that it was possible for us to have the right concept of what it is all about.
“I don't think that any physicist would have been clever enough to have invented string theory on purpose… Luckily, it was invented by accident.”
as quoted by K.C. Cole, "A Theory of Everything" New York Times Magazine (1987) Oct.18
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Edward Witten 20
American theoretical physicist 1951Related quotes
“If Nature had been comfortable, mankind would never have invented architecture”
The Decay of Lying (1889)
Context: If Nature had been comfortable, mankind would never have invented architecture... In a house, we all feel of the proper proportions. Everything is subordinated to us, fashioned for our use and our pleasure.
"Einstein and the Search for Unification", p. 10 https://books.google.com/books?id=rEaUIxukvy4C&pg=PA10, in The legacy of Albert Einstein: a collection of essays in celebration of the year of physics (2007)
“I do not think you can name many great inventions that have been made by married men.”
Aphorism 109
Novum Organum (1620), Book I
Context: Another argument of hope may be drawn from this — that some of the inventions already known are such as before they were discovered it could hardly have entered any man's head to think of; they would have been simply set aside as impossible. For in conjecturing what may be men set before them the example of what has been, and divine of the new with an imagination preoccupied and colored by the old; which way of forming opinions is very fallacious, for streams that are drawn from the springheads of nature do not always run in the old channels.
Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995), New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World (1999)
Who were the Shudras? (1946)
“There are wonders enough out there without our inventing any.”
Source: The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark