Physics Quotes

Scientists tell us that the fastest animal in the world, with a speed of 120 mph, is a cow dropped out of a helicopter.

I cannot seriously believe in it [quantum theory] because the theory cannot be reconciled with the idea that physics should represent a reality in time and space, free from spooky actions at a distance [spukhafte Fernwirkungen].

Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.

Time is just something we invented to make motion seem simple.

Relativity applies to physics, not ethics.

Physics is really figuring out how to discover new things that are counterintuitive, like quantum mechanics. It's really counterintuitive.

I think you should always bear in mind that entropy is not on your side.

The faster you go, the shorter you are.

The Prussian Academy of Sciences is a fast-track academic institute that requires a proactive, hands-on-type individual to overthrow the Newtonian conception of the universe. The successful candidate will have an excellent command of mass, energy, space, time and some maths. Bonus paid upon completion of proofs

What physics looks for: The simplest possible system of thought which will bind together the observed facts.

The gravity is the first thing which you don't think

This change in the conception of reality is the most profound and the most fruitful that physics has experienced since the time of Newton. Refering to James Clerk Maxwell's contributions to physics.

Quid quid movetur ab alio movetur"(nothing moves without having been moved).

If you are in a spaceship that is traveling at the speed of light, and you turn on the headlights, does anything happen?

...The entire preoccupation of the physicist is with things that contain within themselves a principle of movement and rest.

No one must think that Newton’s great creation can be overthrown in any real sense by this [Theory of Relativity] or by any other theory. His clear and wide ideas will for ever retain their significance as the foundation on which our modern conceptions of physics have been built.

It is perhaps just dawning on five or six minds that physics, too, is only an interpretation and exegesis of the world (to suit us, if I may say so!) and not a world-explanation.

In quitting this strange world he has once again preceded me by a little. That doesn't mean anything. For those of us who believe in physics, this separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, however tenacious.

Physics is essentially an intuitive and concrete science. Mathematics is only a means for expressing the laws that govern phenomena.

Inequality is the cause of all local movements.

If [quantum theory] is correct, it signifies the end of physics as a science.

Politics is more difficult than physics.

Physics is unable to stand on its own feet, but needs a metaphysics on which to support itself, whatever fine airs it may assume towards the latter.

E=mc2. Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. The original statement is: If a body gives off the energy L in the form of radiation, its mass diminishes by L/c2. Ist die Tragheit eines Korpers von Seinem Energieghalt Abhangig? 1905

Motion is created by the destruction of balance.

For any two portions of fire, small or great, will exhibit the same ratio of solid to void; but the upward movement of the greater is quicker than that of the less, just as the downward movement of a mass of gold or lead, or of any other body endowed with weight, is quicker in proportion to its size.

It is clear, then, that the earth must be at the centre and immovable, not only for the reasons already given, but also because heavy bodies forcibly thrown quite straight upward return to the point from which they started, even if they are thrown to an infinite distance. From these considerations then it is clear that the earth does not move and does not lie elsewhere than at the centre.

OK, so what's the speed of dark?

Only in mathematics and physics was I, through self-study, far beyond the school curriculum, and also with regard to philosophy as it was taught in the school curriculum.

The special theory of relativity owes its origins to Maxwell's equations of the electromagnetic field.

The electrical matter consists of particles extremely subtile, since it can permeate common matter, even the densest metals, with such ease and freedom as not to receive any perceptible resistance.If anyone should doubt whether the electrical matter passes through the substance of bodies, or only over along their surfaces, a shock from an electrified large glass jar, taken through his own body, will probably convince him.Electrical matter differs from common matter in this, that the parts of the latter mutually attract, those of the former mutually repel each other.

There is no place in this new kind of physics both for the field and matter, for the field is the only reality.

[Max Planck] was one of the finest people I have ever known... but he really didn't understand physics, [because] during the eclipse of 1919 he stayed up all night to see if it would confirm the bending of light by the gravitational field. If he had really understood [general relativity], he would have gone to bed the way I did

Time is what the clock says.

That body is heavier than another which, in an equal bulk, moves downward quicker.

People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.

It followed from the special theory of relativity that mass and energy are both but different manifestations of the same thing...

Each ray of light moves in the coordinate system 'at rest' with the definite, constant velocity V independent of whether this ray of light is emitted by a body at rest or a body in motion.

In the matter of physics, the first lessons should contain nothing but what is experimental and interesting to see. A pretty experiment is in itself often more valuable than twenty formulae extracted from our minds.

When forced to summarize the general theory of relativity in one sentence: Time and space and gravitation have no separate existence from matter.

The atom cannot disobey the law. Whether it is the mental or the physical atom, it must obey the law. "What is the use of [external restraint]?"

E=mc2. Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared

It followed from the special theory of relativity that mass and energy are both but different manifestations of the same thing - a somewhat unfamiliar conception for the average mind. Furthermore, the equation E = mc², in which energy is put equal to mass, multiplied by the square of the velocity of light, showed that very small amounts of mass may be converted into a very large amount of energy and vice versa.

The relativity principle in connection with the basic Maxwellian equations demands that the mass should be a direct measure of the energy contained in a body; light transfers mass. With radium there should be a noticeable diminution of mass. The idea is amusing and enticing; but whether the Almighty is laughing at it and is leading me up the garden path -- that I cannot know.

Even the most eminent persons are subject to the laws of gravity.

I was just more stubborn and more passionate than most about physics.

I assert that, in any particular natural science, one encounters genuine scientific substance only to the extent that mathematics is present.

The electrical matter consists of particles extremely subtile, since it can permeate common matter, even the densest metals, with such ease and freedom as not to receive any perceptible resistance.

What lead me more or less directly to the special theory of relativity was the conviction that the electromotive force acting on a body in motion in a magnetic field was nothing else but an electric field.

Classical thermodynamics ... is the only physical theory of universal content which I am convinced ... will never be overthrown.

If your car could travel at the speed of light, would your headlights work?

Weight, force and casual impulse, together with resistance, are the four external powers in which all the visible actions of mortals have their being and their end.

Anaximenes and Anaxagoras and Democritus say that its [the earth's] flatness is responsible for it staying still: for it does not cut the air beneath but covers it like a lid, which flat bodies evidently do: for they are hard to move even for the winds, on account of their resistance.

Physics is a good framework for thinking. ... Boil things down to their fundamental truths and reason up from there.

It would of course be a great step forward if we succeeded in combining the gravitational field and the electromagnetic field into a single structure. Only so could the era in theoretical physics inaugurated by Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell be brought to a satisfactory close.

Gravity is a response to geometry.

In every department of physical science there is only so much science, properly so-called, as there is mathematics.

On the left-hand side of the field equation we may add the fundamental tensor guv, multiplied by a universal constant, -λ, at present unknown, without destroying the general covariance.

Time has no independent existence apart from the order of events by which we measure it.