Murray Gell-Mann Quotes

Physics is really nothing more than a search for ultimate simplicity, but so far all we have is a kind of elegant messiness.

Physics is an otherworld thing, it requires a taste for things unseen, even unheard of- a high degree of abstraction... These faculties die off somehow when you grow up... profound curiosity happens when children are young. I think physicists are the Peter Pans of the human race... Once you are sophisticated, you know too much- far too much. Pauli once said to me, "I know a great deal. I know too much. I am a quantum ancient.".

There are very few things that can be proved rigorously in condensed matter physics.

There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now, All that remains is more and more precise measurement

… theoretical physics is actual philosophy. It has revolutionized fundamental concepts, e.g., about space and time (relativity), about causality (quantum theory), and about substance and matter (atomistics), and it has taught us new methods of thinking (complementarity) which are applicable far beyond physics.

I do not want chemistry to degenerate into a religion; I do not want the chemist to believe in the existence of atoms as the Christian believes in the existence of Christ in the communion wafer.

The biggest conceptual change over the last 100 years in the way physicists think about the world is symmetry.

I am not enough of a mathematician to be able to judge either the well-foundedness or the limits of relativity in physics.

There's branches of science which I don't understand; for example, physics. It could be said, I suppose, that I have faith that physicists understand it better than I do.

I thought I should study physics because it's fundamental to all science.

The upshot of all this is that we live in a universe whose age we can't quite compute, surrounded by stars whose distances we don't altogether know, filled with matter we can't identify, operating in conformance with physical laws whose properties we don’t truly understand.

I think science and spirituality are one and the same, I don't think they're really different. The film makes pretty clear that quantum physics is validating all kinds of spiritual teachings.

There is only one science, physics: everything else is social work.

The underlying physical laws necessary for the mathematical theory of a large part of physics and the whole of chemistry are thus completely known, and the difficulty is only that the exact application of these laws leads to equations much too complicated to be soluble. It therefore becomes desirable that approximate practical methods of applying quantum mechanics should be developed, which can lead to an explanation of the main features of complex atomic systems without too much computation.

A consistent pursuit of classical physics forces a transformation in the very heart of that physics.

I flipped back through the pad of paper while I thought about what Stephen Hawking would do next.

I think we can safely assume that no one understands quantum mechanics.

The smallest thought could not exist unless the entire universe and the laws of physics were in some way encouraging it.

...quantum mechanics—the physics of our world—requires that you hold such pedestrian complaints in abeyance.

Just because things get a little dingy at the subatomic level doesn't mean all bets are off.

Physicists are atoms' way of thinking about atoms.

Mathematics catalogues everything that is not self-contradictory; within that vast inventory, physics is an island of structures rich enough to contain their own beholders.

Modern physics has... revealed that every sub-atomic particle not only performs an energy dance, but also is an energy dance; a pulsating process of creation and destruction.

I like to think that Einstein would look at string theory’s journey and smile, enjoying the theory’s remarkable geometrical features while feeling kinship with fellow travelers on the long and winding road toward unification.

Physics is much too hard for physicists.