Pastoral Resources

Indubitably, magic is one of the subtlest and most difficult of the sciences and arts. There is more opportunity for errors of comprehension, judgment and practice than in any other branch of physics.

A universe with a God would look quite different from a universe without one. A physics, a biology where there is a God is bound to look different. So the most basic claims of religion are scientific. Religion is a scientific theory.

Brian and I were both science students. You know science sort of math and physics side, you know.

I myself believe that there will one day be time travel because when we find that something isn't forbidden by the over-arching laws of physics we usually eventually find a technological way of doing it.

The fundamental laws necessary for the mathematical treatment of a large part of physics and the whole of chemistry are thus completely known, and the difficulty lies only in the fact that application of these laws leads to equations that are too complex to be solved.

I do not see how a man can work on the frontiers of physics and write poetry at the same time. They are in opposition.

The methods of theoretical physics should be applicable to all those branches of thought in which the essential features are expressible with numbers.

Just the actual physics of putting it all together, you know, the latter period is actually quite fragmented in terms of the licenses and all those things so it makes a compilation of the full twenty years really a technical minefield.

It is impossible to trap modern physics into predicting anything with perfect determinism because it deals with probabilities from the outset.

In physics, to be in two places at the same time would be a miracle; in politics it seems not merely normal, but natural.

It should be possible to explain the laws of physics to a barmaid.

I was always good at math and science and physics.

I like physics. I think it is the best science out of all three of them, because generally it's more useful. You learn about speed and velocity and time, and that's all clever stuff.

I entered the Physics Department in 1950, receiving a Master's degree in 1953 and a Ph.D. in 1956. It is difficult to convey the sense of excitement that pervaded the Department at that time.

Experimental high energy physics research is a group effort. I have been very fortunate to have had outstanding students and colleagues who have made invaluable contributions to the research with which I have been associated.

The abstract analysis of the world by mathematics and physics rests on the concepts of space and time.

How many of you have broken no laws this month? That's the kind of society I want to build. I want a guarantee - with physics and mathematics, not with laws - that we can give ourselves real privacy of personal communications.

That attitude does not exist so much today, but in those days there was a very sharp distinction between basic physics and applied physics. Columbia did not deal with applied physics.

In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.' I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.

I think the writing of literature should give pleasure. What else should it be about? It is not nuclear physics. It actually has to give pleasure or it is worth nothing.