Quotes About Physics

I like physics, but I love cartoons.

Mass is the property of objects that makes them resist changes in velocity. Simply

Yes, those ten-billion-dollar twenty-seven-kilometer-long machines are good for more than just finding bosons named after Peter Higgs.

Nap?íklad na urychlení jednoho párátka zhruba na 10 procent rychlosti sv?tla byste pot?ebovali raketu s nádrží v?tší než Jupiter.

Kvarky samy o sob? prakticky nic neváží! Každý z nich váží mí?, než kolik je 1 procento hmotnosti protonu. Ale jakmile dáte dva kvarky dohromady, kdovípro? se jejich hmotnost navýší na stonásobek. To je, jako kdybyste secvakli t?i kosti?ky lega a najednou zjistili, že váží jako t?ista kosti?ek lega.

the entire universe contained in a single point, a singularity, where the mass is enormous, the volume zero, the density infinite, and the parking impossible.

if you are on a rocket moving close to the speed of light relative to Earth, then your speed through space is very high. So in order for your total speed through space-time relative to Earth to stay within the speed limit of the universe, your speed through time has to decrease—as measured by clocks on Earth.

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 said on another occasion, is the technique of techniques and the ars combinatoria for fabricating machines. It is a knowledge which has scarcely anything to do with comprehension.

Time dilation, inconstancy of mass, and special relativity suggest that motion is indeed illusory.

since a practically engineerable open-systems physics implies the democratization not only of energy, but its corollaries, finance and political power, across a very broad spectrum of people, as a greater mass of people would be lifted up to greater wealth, freedom, and prosperity.

Unless your game is a just-for-fun simulation such as Super Mario Kart or Beetle Adventure Racing!, vehicle simulation is the most technologically oriented of games, so the core mechanics of the game are almost entirely about physics.

Splitting the atom is like trying to shoot a gnat in the Albert Hall at night and using ten million rounds of ammunition on the off chance of getting it. That should convince you that the atom will always be a sink of energy and never a reservoir of energy.

That which is not measurable is not science. That which is not physics is stamp collecting.

A great physicist is always a metaphysicist as well; he has a higher concept of his knowledge and his task.

Physics is experience, arranged in economical order.

The non-physicist finds it hard to believe that really the ordinary laws of physics, which he regards as the prototype of inviolable precision, should be based on the statistical tendency of matter to go over into disorder.

To the physicist – but only to him – I could hope to make my view clearer by saying: The living organism seems to be a macroscopic system which in part of its behaviour approaches to that purely mechanical (as contrasted with thermodynamical) conduct to which all systems tend, as the temperature approaches the absolute zero and the molecular disorder is removed.

Contrary to the common belief, the regular course of events, governed by the laws of physics, is never the consequence of one well-ordered configuration of atoms – not unless that configuration of atoms repeats itself a great number of times, either as in the periodic crystal or as in a liquid or in a gas composed of a great number of identical molecules.

A permanent state is reached, in which no observable events occur. The physicist calls this the state of thermodynamical equilibrium, or of 'maximum entropy'. Practically, a state of this kind is usually reached very rapidly. Theoretically, it is very often not yet an absolute equilibrium, not yet the true maximum of entropy. But then the final approach to equilibrium is very slow. It could take anything between hours, years, centuries,

entropy taken with a negative sign', which by the way is not my invention. It happens to be precisely the thing on which Boltzmann's original argument turned.

It has been explained in chapter 1 that the laws of physics, as we know them, are statistical laws.2 They have a lot to do with the natural tendency of things to go over into disorder.

The physicist is familiar with the fact that the classical laws of physics are modified by quantum theory, especially at low temperature. There are many instances of this. Life seems to be one of them, a particularly striking one. Life seems to be orderly and lawful behaviour of matter, not based exclusively on its tendency to go over from order to disorder, but based partly on existing order that is kept up.

To the physicist – but only to him – I could hope to make my view clearer by saying: The living organism seems to be a macroscopic system which in part of its behaviour approaches to that purely mechanical (as contrasted with thermodynamical) conduct to which all systems tend, as the temperature approaches the absolute zero and

The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. We should be grateful for it and hope that it will remain valid in future research and that it will extend, for better or for worse, to our pleasure, even though perhaps also to our bafflement, to wide branches of learning.