Philip Warren Anderson quotes

Philip Warren Anderson was an American physicist renowned for his groundbreaking work in condensed matter physics. His research significantly impacted our understanding of magnetism, superconductivity, and emergent phenomena in complex systems. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in recognition of his outstanding contributions to science. Here are 24 of his quotes:

We atheists can... argue that, with the modern revolution in attitudes toward homosexuals, we have become the only group that may not reveal itself in normal social discourse.

Philip Warren Anderson

My belief is based on the fact that string theory is the first science in hundreds of years to be pursued in pre-Baconian fashion, without any adequate experimental guidance.

Philip Warren Anderson

All I can say to the younger theorists is: don't trust anyone over 45, except maybe me, and I'm not so sure about me.

Philip Warren Anderson

Although raised on the farm - my grandfather was an unsuccessful fundamentalist preacher turned farmer - my father and his brother both became professors.

Philip Warren Anderson

I acquired an admiration for Japanese culture, art, and architecture, and learned of the existence of the game of GO, which I still play.

Philip Warren Anderson

The ability to reduce everything to simple fundamental laws does not imply the ability to start from those laws and reconstruct the universe.

Philip Warren Anderson

The first months at Harvard were more than challenging, as I came to the realization that the humanities could be genuinely interesting, and, in fact, given the weaknesses of my background, very difficult.

Philip Warren Anderson

... the state of a really big system does not at all have to have the symmetry of the laws which govern it; in fact, it usually has less symmetry.

Philip Warren Anderson

By symmetry we mean the existence of different viewpoints from which the system appears the same. It is only slightly overstating the case to say that physics is the study of symmetry. The first demonstration of the power of this idea may have been by Newton, who may have asked himself the question: What if the matter here in my hand obeys the same laws as that up in the sky-that is, what if space and matter are homogeneous and isotropic?

Philip Warren Anderson

I learned, practically in my cradle (actually from Bill McMillan's thesis), that the ground state wave function of a system of bosons should necessarily be real and positive, a fact which made his early Monte Carlo simulations infinitely easier.

Philip Warren Anderson

My Harvard classmate, Thomas S. Kuhn wrote, some years ago, an influential book about scientific revolutions. Fortunately, many scientific revolutions do not follow his scenario, but the one he focused on, the discovery of quantum mechanics, is well described by his model, which is most valid for a revolution occurring in the central core of a mature science.

Philip Warren Anderson

The oxide superconductors, particularly those recently discovered that are based on La2CuO4, have a set of peculiarities that suggest a common, unique mechanism: they tend in every case to occur near a metal-insulator transition into an odd-electron insulator with peculiar magnetic properties. This insulating phase is proposed to be the long-sought "resonating-valence-bond" state or "quantum spin liquid" hypothesized in 1973. This insulating magnetic phase is favored by low spin, low dimensionality, and magnetic frustration. The preexisting magnetic singlet pairs of the insulating state become charged superconducting pairs when the insulator is doped sufficiently strongly.

Philip Warren Anderson

That Big Science culture in the USA, and similar groups elswhere, tended to have separate, direct access to government and hence to funding sources. It was independent to a great extent of the rest of science, of which it was never a majority component except in funding.

Philip Warren Anderson

Surely there are more levels of organization between human ethology and DNA than there are between DNA and quantum electrodynamics, and each level can require a whole new conceptual structure.

Philip Warren Anderson

The behavior of large and complex aggregates of elementary particles, it turns out, is not to be understood in terms of a simple extrapolation of a few particles. Instead, at each level of complexity entirely new properties appear, and the understanding of the new behaviors requires research which I think is as fundamental in its nature as any other.

Philip Warren Anderson

The field of quantum valence fluctuations was another older interest which became much more active during this period, partly as a consequence of my own efforts.

Philip Warren Anderson

I have also testified repeatedly and published some articles in favor of Small Science.

Philip Warren Anderson

An important impression was my father's one Sabbatical year, spent in England and Europe in 1937.

Philip Warren Anderson

The prize seemed to change my professional life very little.

Philip Warren Anderson

The Nobel Prize gives one the opportunity to take public stands.

Philip Warren Anderson

One of our brainchildren is a still viable Science and Society course.

Philip Warren Anderson