Delight Springs

Wednesday, May 22, 2024

Four physicists

 and at least one philosopher.


Einstein, Hideki Yukawa, John Wheeler, and Homi Bhabha in Marquand Park, Princeton, N.J, 1954.
“It gives me great pleasure, indeed, to see the stubbornness of an incorrigible nonconformist warmly acclaimed.” – On receiving Lord & Taylor Award, 1953.
  • “At least once a day, allow yourself the freedom to think and dream for yourself.”
  • “I thought of that while riding my bicycle.”
  • “Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth”
  • “It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere."
  • “I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind." -to Rabbi Herbert Goldstein (1929)
  • "Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.”
  • “I don't try to imagine a personal God; it suffices to stand in awe at the structure of the world, insofar as it allows our inadequate senses to appreciate it.”
  • “Do not grow old, no matter how long you live. Never cease to stand like curious children before the Great Mystery into which we were born.”
  • “Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
  • “Strange is our situation here on Earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that man is here for the sake of other men - above all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness depends.”

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