John Archibald Wheeler Quotes

We are today beginning to see work by very reputable scientists that says the universe is created by our observations. It is not a coincidence; we are actively involved in physically shaping the world that we experience.

The burgeoning field of computer science has shifted our view of the physical world from that of a collection of interacting material particles to one of a seething network of information. In this way of looking at nature, the laws of physics are a form of software, or algorithm, while the material world-the hardware-plays the role of a gigantic computer.

Bookstores, like libraries, are the physical manifestation of the wide world's longest, most thrilling conversation.

Living in a bookshop is like living in a warehouse of explosives. Those shelves are ranked with the most furious combustibles in the world--the brains of men.

My greatest concern was what to call it. I thought of calling it 'information,' but the word was overly used, so I decided to call it 'uncertainty.' When I discussed it with John von Neumann, he had a better idea. Von Neumann told me, 'You should call it entropy, for two reasons. In the first place your uncertainty function has been used in statistical mechanics under that name, so it already has a name. In the second place, and more important, no one really knows what entropy really is, so in a debate you will always have the advantage.'

The trend for documentaries will never go away, because everybody wants to learn about the world. The world is awful in parts, but there's always going to be briliant documentaries about it, and there's always going to be people who want to see them.

Ideas that require people to reorganize their picture of the world provoke hostility.

Dreams, though, are just one kind of inspiration - no more or less special than something in a newspaper article or from the world around you sparking inspiration.

I guess the idea of not wanting to choose to direct a film, for which I've not read a script. It's a tough decision to make without seeing any pages. That's not to say that I don't have all the faith in the world in the spectacular writers.

The beast is the modern world that we live in! The material world. The physical world. The world of illusion that we think is real. We live for it; we're enslaved by it. And it will ultimately be our undoing.

Nature is a tenacious recycler, every dung heap and fallen redwood tree a bustling community of saprophytes wresting life from the dead and discarded, as though intuitively aware that there is nothing new under the sun. Throughout the physical world, from the cosmic to the subatomic, the same refrain resounds. Conservation: it's not just a good idea, it's the law.

He wanted paper and something to write with, some way to sustain a thought, to place it in the world.

Just as entropy is a measure of disorganization, the information carried by a set of messages is a measure of organization. In fact, it is possible to interpret the information carried by a message as essentially the negative of its entropy, and the negative logarithm of its probability. That is, the more probable the message, the less information it gives. Cliches, for example, are less illuminating than great poems.

Always remember that renunciation is the root idea. Unless one is initiated into this idea, not even Brahma and the World - gods have the power to attain Mukti

I think that science fiction has a distinct therapeutic value because all of it has as its primary postulate that the world does change. I cannot overemphasize the importance of that idea.

[T]he atoms or elementary particles themselves are not real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts.

I have yet to see a successful prediction about the physical world that was inferred or extrapolated from the content of any religions document.

Everything that is observed in the physical world has as its source that which is invisible. This means we must surrender to the Spirit and to the invisible part of ourselves. Then learning to manifest is really nothing more than learning to manifest another aspect of ourselves.

May I propose a Herzog dictum? Those who read own the world, and those who watch television lose it.

No one has any idea what's going to happen. Not even Elon Musk. That's why he's building those rockets. He wants a 'Plan B' on another world.

The library is the biggest cracker box factory in the world. The more you eat, the more you want.

Unfortunately the necessity to promote a film sometimes works against it, in that you are forced to reveal information [about it] that in an ideal world you would hold back.

Wikipedia is the best thing ever. Anyone in the world can write anything they want about any subject. So you know you are getting the best possible information.

Our acquaintances—not our friends—are our greatest source of new ideas and information. the internet lets us exploit the power of these kinds of distant connections with marvellous efficiency.

The World requires at least ten years to understand a new idea, however important or simple it may be.