All integral laws of spectral lines and of atomic theory spring originally from the quantum theory. It is the mysterious organon on which Nature plays her music of the spectra, and according to the rhythm...

There was, I think, a feeling that the best science was that done in the simplest way. In experimental work, as in mathematics, there was ‘style’ and a result obtained with simple equipment was more...

Energy is liberated matter, matter is energy waiting to happen.

The atom can’t be seen, yet its existence can be proved. And it is simple to prove that it can’t ever be seen. It has to be studied by indirect evidence — and the technical...

Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else.

The highest court is in the end one’s own conscience and conviction—that goes for you and for Einstein and every other physicist—and before any science there is first of all belief.

The fine structure constant is undoubtedly the most fundamental pure (dimensionless) number in all of physics. It relates the basic constants of electromagnetism (the charge of the electron), relativity (the speed of light), and quantum...

Nature is not embarrassed by difficulties of analysis. She avoids complication only in means. Nature seems to be proposed to do much with little: it is a principle that the development of physics constantly supports...

There is no logical staircase running from the physics of 10-28 cm. to the physics of 1028 light-years.

Physics is the story of matter, with strings or particles.

As for karma itself, it is apparently only that which binds “jiva” (sentience, life, spirit, etc.) with “ajiva” (the lifeless, material aspect of this world) – perhaps not unlike that which science seeks to bind...

He was a physicist, more precisely an astrophysicist, diligent and eager but without illusions: the Truth lay beyond, inaccessible to our telescopes, accessible to the initiates. This was a long road which he was traveling...

The biggest question, transcending physics and the realm of how he was able to do the extraordinary things he did, remained firmly rooted in the realm of metaphysics and begged an answer to why he...

I like physics, but I love cartoons.

The measured magnetic moment, together with fine structure constant determined by a different method, is the most stringent test of QED and the Standard Model of particle physics. The measured magnetic moment and QED theory...

One must divide one’s time between politics and equations. But our equations are much more important to me, because politics is for the present, while our equations are for eternity.

Let us begin with the fine-structure constant. … The fine-structure constant is really the ratio of two natural units or atoms of action. … We obtain action when we multiply energy by time. … We...

It must have appeared almost as improbable to the earlier geologists, that the laws of earthquakes should one day throw light on the origin of mountains, as it must to the first astronomers, that the...

Some people are ignorant of the world but educated in Scripture, and are therefore prone to missing the relevance of Scripture – these sometimes, later, amidst life’s challenges and doubts, turn from the faith; other...

The shortest interval between two points is the awareness that they are not two.

But every day I go to work I’m making a bet that the universe is simple, symmetric, and aesthetically pleasing—a universe that we humans, with our limited perspective, will someday understand.

The first principle of value that we need to rediscover is this: that all reality hinges on moral foundations. In other words, that this is a moral universe, and that there are moral laws of...

Despite my resistance to hyperbole, the LHC belongs to a world that can only be described with superlatives. It is not merely large: the LHC is the biggest machine ever built. It is not merely...

Physics is all about time.

Today most scientists would agree with the ancient Hindus that nothing exists or is destroyed, things merely change shape or form…the cosmic radiation that is thought to come from the explosion of creation strikes the...

Pauling was shocked by the freedom with which the X-ray crystallographers of the time, including particularly Astbury, played with the intimate chemical structure of their models. They seemed to think that if the atoms were...

We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and there is no learning. There is no learning without having to pose a question. And a question requires doubt. People search for...

I’ll be looking for you, Will, every moment, every single moment. And when we do find each other again, we’ll cling together so tight that nothing and no one’ll ever tear us apart. Every atom...

One of my friends compared me to Bruce Banner, due to my work with radiation and human health. So I looked up Bruce Banner and this is what I found: Banner, a physicist, is sarcastic...

You’re a physics virgin!

We are the last generation of humans on Earth!

If antimatter and matter make contact, both are destroyedinstantly. Physicists call the process ‘annihilation.

Many scientists have tried to make determinism and complementarity the basis of conclusions that seem to me weak and dangerous; for instance, they have used Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle to bolster up human free will, though...

We are surrounded by the absurd excess of the universe. By meaningless bulk, vastness without size, power without consequence. The stubborn iteration that is present without being felt. Nothing the spirit can marry. Merely phenomenon...

When we say two bodies ‘touch’, what we mean (without knowing it) is that both electromagnetic fields are interacting to avoid physical interpenetration and … that happens well before subatomic particles touch!

A billion neutrinos go swimming in heavy water: one gets wet.

Physics is the ultimate intellectual adventure, the quest to understand the deepest mysteries of our Universe. Physics doesn’t take something fascinating and make it boring. Rather, it helps us see more clearly, adding to the...

There are reasons to doubt that what we call the laws of physics necessarily apply everywhere in the universe—or that they were applicable to every time in its history.

We have a closed circle of consistency here: the laws of physics produce complex systems, and these complex systems lead to consciousness, which then produces mathematics, which can then encode in a succinct and inspiring...

Physics admits of a lovely unification, not just at the level of fundamental forces, but when considering its extent and implications. Classifications like “optics” or “thermodynamics” are just straitjackets, preventing physicists from seeing countless intersections.

CURIOSITY DEMANDS THAT WE ASK QUESTIONS,THAT WE TRY TO PUT THINGS TOGETHER AND TRY TO UNDERSTAND THIS MULTITUDE OF ASPECTSAS PERHAPS RESULTING FROM THE ACTION OF A RELATIVELY SMALL NUMBER OF ELEMENTALTHINGS AND FORCES ACTING...

The landed classes neglected technical education, taking refuge in classical studies; as late as 1930, for example, long after Ernest Rutherford at Cambridge had discovered the atomic nucleus and begun transmuting elements, the physics laboratory...

For the moment we might very well can them DUNNOS (for Dark Unknown Nonreflective Nondetectable Objects Somewhere).

Then there are those who think their bodies don’t exist. They live by mechanical time. They rise at seven o’clock in the morning. They eat their lunch at noon and their supper at six. They...

Kemia huunda mahusiano mema miongoni mwa watu.

After long reflection in solitude and meditation, I suddenly had the idea, during the year 1923, that the discovery made by Einstein in 1905 should be generalised by extending it to all material particles and...

Can there be a completely different set of laws of physics in a different universe, or do the laws of physics as we understand them hold true in all possible universes? If the answer is...

Some recent work by E. Fermi and L. Szilárd, which has been communicated to me in manuscript, leads me to expect that the element uranium may be turned into a new and important source of...

In the progressive growth of astronomy, physics or mechanical science was developed, and when this had been, to a certain degree, successfully cultivated, it gave birth to the science of chemistry.

Physics is the story of time, with everything or nothing.