Richard Feynman quotes - page 7

Science is only useful if it tells you about some experiment that has not been done; it is no good if it only tells you what just went on. (Richard Feynman)
I cannot define the real problem, therefore I suspect there's no real problem, but I'm not sure there's no real problem. View quote
Richard Feynman
They just went right on running rats in the same old way, and paid no attention to the great discoveries of Mr. Young, and his papers are not referred to, because he didn't discover anything about rats. In fact, he discovered all the things you have to do to discover something about rats. But not paying attention to experiments like that is a characteristic of cargo cult science. View quote
Richard Feynman
You'll have to accept it. It's the way nature works. If you want to know how nature works, we looked at it, carefully. Looking at it, that's the way it looks. You don't like it? Go somewhere else, to another universe where the rules are simpler, philosophically more pleasing, more psychologically easy. View quote
Richard Feynman
It's a feeling of awe - of scientific awe - which I felt could be communicated through a drawing to someone who had also had this emotion. It could remind him, for a moment, of this feeling about the glories of the universe. View quote
Richard Feynman
From a long view of the history of mankind - seen from, say, ten thousand years from now - there can be little doubt that the most significant event of the 19th century will be judged as Maxwell's discovery of the laws of electrodynamics. View quote
Richard Feynman
I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers, and possible beliefs, and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything. There are many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask "Why are we here?" View quote
Richard Feynman
Philosophers say a great deal about what is absolutely necessary for science, and it is always, so far as one can see, rather naive, and probably wrong. View quote
Richard Feynman
Physicists like to think that all you have to do is say, these are the conditions, now what happens next? View quote
Richard Feynman
You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird... So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing -- that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something. View quote
Richard Feynman
If our small minds, for some convenience, divide this glass of wine, this universe, into parts - physics, biology, geology, astronomy, psychology, and so on - remember that nature does not know it! (Richard Feynman)
The scientist has a lot of experience with ignorance and doubt and uncertainty, and this experience is of very great importance, I think. View quote
Richard Feynman
It appears that there are enormous differences of opinion as to the probability of a failure with loss of vehicle and of human life. View quote
Richard Feynman
There are all kinds of interesting questions that come from a knowledge of science, which only adds to the excitement and mystery and awe of a flower. It only adds. I don't understand how it subtracts. View quote
Richard Feynman
How can we draw inspiration to support these two pillars of western civilization so that they may stand together in full vigor, mutually unafraid? Is this not the central problem of our time? View quote
Richard Feynman
The fact that this danger did not lead to a catastrophe before is no guarantee that it will not the next time, unless it is completely understood. When playing Russian roulette the fact that the first shot got off safely is little comfort for the next. View quote
Richard Feynman
Theoretically, planning may be good. But nobody has ever figured out the cause of government stupidity - and until they do (and find the cure), all ideal plans will fall into quicksand. View quote
Richard Feynman
I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination - stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light. A vast pattern - of which I am a part... What is the pattern, or the meaning, or the why? It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined! Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent? View quote
Richard Feynman
In this age of specialization men who thoroughly know one field are often incompetent to discuss another. The great problems of the relations between one and another aspect of human activity have for this reason been discussed less and less in public. View quote
Richard Feynman
If you have a theory, you must try to explain what's good and what's bad about it equally. In science, you learn a kind of standard integrity and honesty. View quote
Richard Feynman
Do you seriously entertain the idea that without the observer there is no reality? (Richard Feynman)
In spite of these variations from case to case, officials behaved as if they understood it, giving apparently logical arguments to each other often depending on the "success" of previous flights. View quote
Richard Feynman
It is really quite impossible to say anything with absolute precision, unless that thing is so abstracted from the real world as to not represent any real thing. View quote
Richard Feynman
The old problems, such as the relation of science and religion, are still with us, and I believe present as difficult dilemmas as ever, but they are not often publicly discussed because of the limitations of specialization. View quote
Richard Feynman
Let us make recommendations to ensure that NASA officials deal in a world of reality in understanding technological weaknesses and imperfections well enough to be actively trying to eliminate them. View quote
Richard Feynman