“Where in the Schrödinger equation do you put the joy of being alive?”
Eugene Paul Wigner (1902–1995) mathematician and Nobel Prize-winning physicist
As quoted by Freeman Dyson from a private conversation, Infinite in All Directions (1988)
Invited talk, delivered at the joint Indo-US Workshop on System of Systems Engineering http://www.bvinst.edu/gomatam/pub-2009-02.pdf, IIT-Kanpur, October 26-28, 2009. <br class="br">Context: The Schrödinger equation, which is at the heart of quantum theory, is applicable in principle to both microscopic and macroscopic regimes. Thus, it would seem that we already have in hand a non-classical theory of macroscopic dynamics, if only we can apply the Schrödinger equation to the macroscopic realm. However, this possibility has been largely ignored in the literature because the current statistical interpretation of quantum mechanics presumes the classicality of the observed macroscopic world to start with. But the Schrödinger equation does not support this presumption. The state of superposition never collapses under Schrödinger evolution.
“Where in the Schrödinger equation do you put the joy of being alive?”
Eugene Paul Wigner (1902–1995) mathematician and Nobel Prize-winning physicist
As quoted by Freeman Dyson from a private conversation, Infinite in All Directions (1988)
Frank Wilczek (1951) physicist
we must conclude that “God plays a deep yet strictly rule-based game, which looks like dice to us.”
Einstein’s Parable of Quantum Insanity (2015)
Jeffrey Tucker (1963) American writer
Source: "Jack Kemp, American Socialist" by Jeffrey Tucker, The Rothbard-Rockwell Report, September 1996, UNZ.org, 2016-05-22 http://www.unz.org/Pub/RothbardRockwellReport-1996sep-00001,
“[W]e must never allow the future to collapse under the burden of memory.”
Milan Kundera book The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Source: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Roger Penrose (1931) English mathematical physicist, recreational mathematician and philosopher
Foreword (March 2007) to Quantum Aspects of Life (2008), by Derek Abbott.
Context: Does life in some way make use of the potentiality for vast quantum superpositions, as would be required for serious quantum computation? How important are the quantum aspects of DNA molecules? Are cellular microtubules performing some essential quantum roles? Are the subtleties of quantum field theory important to biology? Shall we gain needed insights from the study of quantum toy models? Do we really need to move forward to radical new theories of physical reality, as I myself believe, before the more subtle issues of biology — most importantly conscious mentality — can be understood in physical terms? How relevant, indeed, is our present lack of understanding of physics at the quantum/classical boundary? Or is consciousness really “no big deal,” as has sometimes been expressed?
It would be too optimistic to expect to find definitive answers to all these questions, at our present state of knowledge, but there is much scope for healthy debate...
David Kaiser (1971) American physicist
Turning physicists into quantum mechanics (2007)
John Muir book A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf
Source: A Thousand-Mile Walk To the Gulf, 1916, chapter 6: Cedar Keys, page 160
Source: A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf