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...

Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler.

We have learnt that the exploration of the external world by the methods of physical science leads not to a concrete reality but to a shadow world of symbols, beneath which those methods are unadapted...

knowledge” of angels, and he devoted far more of his massive Summa Theologica to them than to physics.

Everyone now agrees that a physics lacking all connection with mathematics … would only be an historical amusement, fitter for entertaining the idle than for occupying the mind of a philosopher.

From the age of 13, I was attracted to physics and mathematics. My interest in these subjects derived mostly from popular science books that I read avidly. Early on I was fascinated by theoretical physics...

[Regarding mathematics,] there are now few studies more generally recognized, for good reasons or bad, as profitable and praiseworthy. This may be true; indeed it is probable, since the sensational triumphs of Einstein, that stellar...

The great object is to find the theory of the matter [of X-rays] before anyone else, for nearly every professor in Europe is now on the warpath.

There is a philosophy that says that if something is unobservable — unobservable in principle — it is not part of science. If there is no way to falsify or confirm a hypothesis, it belongs...

Time break the laws of physics.

I was there!”-surely that is the answer to God’s question. For no matter how the universe came into being, most of the atoms in these fleeting assemblies that we think of as our bodies have...

If one is working from the point of view of getting beauty into one’s equation, … one is on a sure line of progress.

Physics isn’t the most important thing. Love is.

The universe as a giant harpstring, oscillating in and out of existence! What note does it play, by the way? Passages from the Numerical Harmonies, I supposed?

Time and space were, from Death’s point of view, merely things that he’d heard described. When it came to Death, they ticked the box marked Not Applicable. It might help to think of the universe...

The more I study physics, the more I am drawn to metaphysics.

A mathematician is an individual who calls himself a ‘physicist’ and does ‘physics’ and physical experiments with abstract concepts.

Conclusive evidence. A recent Scientific American article hailed New Physics as a surer path to Godthan religion itself.

In my schooling through high school, I excelled mainly in chemistry, physics and mathematics.

Unassuming in manner, genial and kindly in his intercourse with his fellow-men, never showing impatience or irritation, devoid of personal ambition of the baser sort or of the slightest desire to exalt himself… In the...

It is curious that the human mind could blindly accept an infinite speed but had reservations to accept a finite one, simply because it was too large!

[The fine structure constant] … defines how firmly atomic nuclei bind together and how all the atoms on Earth were made. Its value controls the power from the Sun and, more sensitively, how stars transmute...

Ronan didn’t need physics. He could intimidate even a piece of plywood into doing what he wanted.

The only thing that interests the physicist is finding out on what assumptions a framework of things can be constructed which will enable us to know how to use them mechanically. Physics, as I have...

There are considerable mysteries surrounding the strange values that Nature’s actual particles have for their mass and charge. For example, there is the unexplained ‘fine structure constant’ … governing the strength of electromagnetic interactions, ….

Wolfgang Pauli, in the months before Heisenberg’s paper on matrix mechanics pointed the way to a new quantum theory, wrote to a friend, “At the moment physics is again terribly confused. In any case, it...

A very great deal more truth can become known than can be proven.

Each of us is aware he’s a material being, subject to the laws of physiology and physics, and that the strength of all our emotions combined cannot counteract those laws. It can only hate them....

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...