Physics Research Quotes

I had imagined doing nuclear physics and cosmic ray work in greater style in peace time. To do modern physics in a small way is of no use of all.

What we observe is not nature itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning. Our scientific work in physics consists in asking questions about nature in the language that we possess and trying to get an answer from experiment by the means that are at our disposal.

The publicity of the Nobel Prize has made clear that the research work connected with the Quantum Hall Effect was so successful because a tremendous large number of institutions and individuals supported this activity.

In theoretical physics, one can, in principle, work from anyplace as long as one has a computer and Internet connection. So I do not find any disadvantage of being in Allahabad.

Ernest Rutherford's 1908 Nobel Prize in Chemistry wasn't given for the nuclear power station - he wouldn't have survived that long - it was given for showing how interesting atomic physics could be.

Why spend billions on a super collider, when we already have John Sununu?

Astronomers ought to be able to ask fundamental questions without accelerators.

I would say in one sentence my goal is to at least be part of the journey to find the unified theory that Einstein himself was really the first to look for.

I am a particle physicist, which is the nearest branch to nuclear physics. So in that sense I was the sort of right connection with the subject of nuclear energy and so on.

Janet Landis came to work in my group in the summer of 1957 when our first bubble-chamber was churning out its earliest pictures.

I'm not a science fiction writer, I'm a physicist. These are scientists who are making the future in their laboratories.

In 1974/75, I spent a sabbatical year with Professor Vince Jaccarino and Dr. Alan King at the University of California in Santa Barbara to get a taste of nuclear magnetic resonance. We solved a specific problem on the bicritical point of MnF2, their home-base material. We traded experience, NMR, and critical phenomena.

If I were not a writer, I would spend more time doing the things that I am already doing, which include doing research in physics, teaching, and running a nonprofit organization with a mission to empower women in Cambodia.

My interest in matters more directly concerned with the handling of particles was growing, in the meantime, stimulated by many contacts with people understanding accelerators.

In the late '30's when I was in college, physics - and in particular, nuclear physics - was the most exciting field in the world.

Most physicists like myself won't believe the result until every possible caveat has been investigated and/or the result is confirmed elsewhere.

I'm doing physics because I'm curious about how it works - full speed ahead, damn the torpedoes, don't worry about whether somebody is going to be able to do an experiment next week, just figure it out.

Soon I knew the craft of experimental physics was beyond me - it was the sublime quality of patience - patience in accumulating data, patience with recalcitrant equipment - which I sadly lacked.

While at Chicago my interest in the new field of particle physics was stimulated by a course given by Gell- Mann, who was developing his ideas about Strangeness at the time.

I vowed to myself that when I grew up and became a theoretical physicist, in addition to doing research, I would write books that I would have liked to have read as a child. So whenever I write, I imagine myself, as a youth, reading my books, being thrilled by the incredible advances being made in physics and science.

There is not a soul on Earth who can read the deluge of physics publications in its entirety. As a result, it is sad but true that physics has irretrievably fallen apart from a cohesive to a fragmented discipline. ... It was not that long ago that people were complaining about two cultures. If we only had it that good. today.

I think telepathy exists, and I think quantum physics will help us understand its basic properties.

With the discovery of the Higgs boson, one of the questions has been ticked off the list, but there are many others. We hope that we can find answers or hints for answers to at least some of them. But of course, this is in the hands of nature.

This is often the way it is in physics - our mistake is not that we take our theories too seriously, but that we do not take them seriously enough. It is always hard to realize that these numbers and equations we play with at our desks have something to do with the real world. Even worse, there often seems to be a general agreement that certain phenomena are just not fit subjects for respectable theoretical and experimental effort.

I was interested in nuclei originally with my deuteron photo work because that was one of the fundamental forces, and the measurement was basic to new science.