Brian Greene Quotes

Truth in science can be defined as the working hypothesis best suited to open the way to the next better one.

Scientific research involves going beyond the well-trodden and well-tested ideas and theories that form the core of scientific knowledge. During the time scientists are working things out, some results will be right, and others will be wrong. Over time, the right results will emerge.

Every theory presented as a scientific concept is just that; it's a theory that tries to explain more about the world than previous theories have done. It is open to being challenged and to being proven incorrect.

Science isn't about authority or white coats; it's about following a method. That method is built on core principles: precision and transparency; being clear about your methods; being honest about your results; and drawing a clear line between the results, on the one hand, and your judgment calls about how those results support a hypothesis.

If you're a physicist, for heaven's sake, and here is the experiment, and you have a theory, and the theory doesn't agree with the experiment, then you have to cut out the theory. You were wrong with the theory.

I cannot stress often enough that what science is all about is not proving things to be true but proving them to be false.

In science, each new result, sometimes quite surprising, heralds a step forward and allows one to discard some hypotheses, even though one or two of these might have been highly favored.

A valid scientific theory is predictive, verifiable, and replicable. To me, that's beautiful.

We don't regard any scientific theory as the absolute truth.

The process of science is difficult and challenging. It involves always being aware that your ideas might be right or they might be wrong. I think it's that kind of balance that makes science so interesting.

Science, my lad, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.

When all is said and done, science actually takes hard work and a willingness to sometimes find out that your most cherished hypothesis is wrong.

In scientific work, those who refuse to go beyond fact rarely get as far as fact.

There is no falsification before the emergence of a better theory.

In science, we must be interested in things, not in persons.

The thrill of science is the process. It's a social process. It's a process of collective discovery. It's debate, it's experimentation and it's verification of claims that might be false. It's the greatest foundation for a society.

The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification.

Moreover, in the experimental sciences, the scientific fraternity must test a new theory to destruction, if possible.

Scientists are always skeptics.

Science is not a game in which arbitrary rules are used to decide what explanations are to be permitted.

Today's truth is tomorrow's null hypothesis-and next years's error.

One of the biggest and most important tools of theoretical physics is the wastebasket.

Science thrives on self-correction …. refutation almost always contains positive lessons that overwhelm disappointment.

Science is a series of judgments, revised without ceasing.

If you're a real scientist, you're constantly open to new data. Nothing is ever 100% validated.