Our task is not to penetrate the essence of things, the meaning of which we do not know anyway, but rather to develop concepts which allow us to talk in a productive way about phenomena in nature
NIELS BOHROpposites are not contradictory but complementary.
More Niels Bohr Quotes
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In our description of nature the purpose is not to disclose the real essence of the phenomena but only to track down, so far as it is possible, relations between the manifold aspects of our experience.
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No paradox, no progress.
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It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we say about nature.
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And anyone who thinks they can talk about quantum theory without feeling dizzy hasn’t yet understood the first thing about it.
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What is that we human beings ultimately depend on? We depend on our words. We are suspended in language. Our task is to communicate experience and ideas to others.
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Isolated material particles are abstractions, their properties being definable and observable only through their interaction with other systems .
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If anybody says he can think about quantum physics without getting giddy, that only shows he has not understood the first thing about them.
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If you aren’t confused by quantum mechanics, you haven’t really understood it.
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If quantum mechanics hasn’t profoundly shocked you, you haven’t understood it yet.
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The great extension of our experience in recent years has brought light to the insufficiency of our simple mechanical conceptions and, as a consequence, has shaken the foundation on which the customary interpretation of observation was based.
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Truth is something that we can attempt to doubt, and then perhaps, after much exertion, discover that part of the doubt is not justified.
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A person who wasn’t outraged on first hearing about quantum theory didn’t understand what had been said.
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An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field.
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We are trapped by language to such a degree that every attempt to formulate insight is a play on words.
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How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress.
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