Quotes About Physics

La magia es tan sólo una extensión de la física

Not even the Superintendent could play about with gravity.

Third, the atoms 'oscillated' within objects when bumped into by their neighbours.

It's physics. Pure physics, I'm falling fast and faster still. So fall with me. Fall down with me. And stay.

To go below one nanokelvin is like running a mile below four minutes for the first time.

What we mean when speaking of myth in general is story, the ability of story to explain ourselves to ourselves in ways that physics, philosophy, mathematics, chemistry—all very highly useful and informative in their own right—can't.

If there is enough uranium so that half the neutrons produce two others, the process is self-sustaining and a "critical mass" of uranium is said to be present.

The first person to measure the rate of acceleration of a free falling body was Father Giambattista Riccioli.

Father Roger Boscovich is often credited as the father of modern atomic theory.

We learn that it is not the rays which bodies absorb, but those which they reject, that give them the colours they are known by;

In fact a favourite problem of Tyndall is—Given the molecular forces in a mutton chop, deduce Hamlet or Faust therefrom. He is confident that the Physics of the Future will solve this easily.

In fact a favourite problem of [John Tyndall] is—Given the molecular forces in a mutton chop, deduce Hamlet or Faust therefrom. He is confident that the Physics of the Future will solve this easily.

Producing works of art doesn't often count as appropriate intellectual work in an arts department: yet the equivalent in a science department, doing physics or chemistry, does. So why is it that in universities writing about novels is thought to be a higher intellectual calling than writing novels; or rather, if writing novels is not thought to be intellectually valid, why is writing about them?

Both the old and new physics were dealing with shadow-symbols, but the new physics was forced to be aware of that fact - forced to be aware that it was dealing with shadows and illusions, not reality.

My father was on the faculty in the Chemistry Department of Harvard University my mother had one year of graduate work in physics before her marriage.

In 1948 I entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, undecided between studies of chemistry and physics, but my first year convinced me that physics was more interesting to me.

We can say, then, that the concept of libido in psychology has functionally the same significance as the concept of energy in physics since the time of Robert Mayer.32

Feynman was adamant in avoiding administrative duties because he knew they would only decrease his ability to do the one thing that mattered most in his professional life: "to do real good physics work.

To do real good physics work, you do need absolute solid lengths of time … it needs a lot of concentration … if you have a job administrating anything, you don't have the time. So I have invented another myth for myself: that I'm irresponsible. I'm actively irresponsible. I tell everyone I don't do anything. If anyone asks me to be on a committee for admissions, "no," I tell them: I'm irresponsible.

While twentieth-century physicists were not able to identify any convincing mathematical constants underlying the fine structure, partly because such thinking has normally not been encouraged, a revolutionary suggestion was recently made by the Czech physicist Raji Heyrovska, who deduced that the fine structure constant, ...really is defined by the [golden] ratio ....

Theoretically, I learned in physics that the universe is expanding at a rate of, like, forty-five miles a second, but it sure as shit doesn't feel that way when you're standing still.

Physics had never been Irene's strong point. In fact, it was on her list of weak points, along with visual art, human anatomy, and the ability to maintain a convincing American accent.)

The time seems right for revisiting D'Arcy Thompson's challenge: "How far even then mathematics will suffice to describe, and physics to explain, the fabric of the body, no man can foresee. It may be that all the laws of energy, and all the properties of matter, all . . . chemistry . . . are as powerless to explain the body as they are impotent to comprehend the soul. For my part, I think it is not so.

During each short time interval the motion is assumed to proceed with a constant velocity corresponding to that time, and the distance covered is equal to this velocity multiplied by the time interval.