What Do These Famous Quotes Reveal About the Minds of Great Scientists?

[Vanadium 50]

From the same paper:

TEP-1 does not deserve to be called a paradox (and certainly not an unresolved paradox, as many writers in philosophy still insist on claiming): it is merely an example of a screwed-up probability calculation

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[DanielMB]

"...I won't insist on any formal definition of 'cause' and will even admit that I have never seen anything in the life sciences that resembles the 'necessary and sufficient' conditions for causation that are so beloved of logicians..." Bill Shipley (Cause and Correlation in Biology, Cambridge, Second Edition)

 

[Auto-Didact]

The object of mathematical rigor is to sanction and legitimize the conquests of intuition, and there was never any other object for it.
- Jacques Hadamard

 

[Auto-Didact]

The really amazing thing is if you try doing this process again you get a sixteen dimensional algebra, but it's not a normed division algebra anymore; the machine breaks after four uses and there is no money back guarantee.
- John Baez

 

[Auto-Didact]

The best mathematics uses the whole mind, embraces human sensibility, and is not at all limited to the small portion of our brains that calculates and manipulates symbols. Through pursuing beauty we find truth, and where we find truth we discover incredible beauty.
– William Thurston

 

[Demystifier]

If different kinds of entropy are different tools in statisticalphysics, then Gibbs entropy is Swiss knife, while Boltzmann entropy is katana sword.
- Hrvoje Nikolić

 

[AlexCaledin]

 

[pinball1970]

View attachment 287628

A far out super smart guy but that quote is pure Deepak

 

[AlexCaledin]

 

[Twigg]

"Never measure anything but frequency!"
-Arthur Schawlow

It's creepy how well this advice has aged.

 

[AlexCaledin]

- so all the textbook quantum "collapses" must be coming from the universal collapse which is right outside the scope of science! (since it's determining our very thoughts)

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I thought I was at PF. But after reading the posts here I'm thinking I've stumbled into a Tao of Physics forum.

The last guest lecture I attended in college was given by a visiting professor who proved that useful [structured] information can do work. I have always suspected this is the new frontier.

 

[Hornbein]

I thought I was at PF. But after reading the posts here I'm thinking I've stumbled into a Tao of Physics forum.

The last guest lecture I attended in college was given by a visiting professor who proved that useful [structured] information can do work. I have always suspected this is the new frontier.

I'd like to know more. Any help?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I'd like to know more. Any help?

I need to be careful. I don't know the state of this school of thought. But the claim was that this explains the Maxwell's Demon paradox.

This is one example of something that was published [Nature Physics].

Maxwell's demon demonstration turns information into energy​

Scientists in Japan are the first to have succeeded in converting information into free energy in an experiment that verifies the "Maxwell demon" thought experiment devised in 1867.
https://phys.org/news/2010-11-maxwell-demon-energy.html

 

[arivero]

I thought I was at PF. But after reading the posts here I'm thinking I've stumbled into a Tao of Physics forum.

Wait, does such thing exist? The author was very disappointed, I think, after an interview with Chew.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Wait, does such thing exist?

Yes but it sends most physicists into fits.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I'd like to know more. Any help?

See also
The results also verified the generalized Jarzynski equation, which was formulated in 1997 by statistical chemist Christopher Jarzynski of the University of Maryland. The equation defines the amount of energy that could theoretically be converted from a unit of information.
https://phys.org/news/2010-11-maxwell-demon-energy.html

The Jarzynski equality (JE) is an equation in statistical mechanics that relates free energy differences between two states and the irreversible work along an ensemble of trajectories joining the same states. It is named after the physicist Christopher Jarzynski (then at the University of Washington and Los Alamos National Laboratory, currently at the University of Maryland) who derived it in 1996.[1][2] Fundamentally, the Jarzynski equality points to the fact that the fluctuations in the work satisfy certain constraints separately from the average value of the work that occurs in some process...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarzynski_equality

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Wait, does such thing exist? The author was very disappointed, I think, after an interview with Chew.

Yes but it sends most physicists into fits.

View attachment 290413

There was also a movie... in fact two movies.

SYNOPSIS: “Mindwalk,” like “My Dinner with Andre,” is a dialogue-driven film, which explores basic philosophical questions. In this case, the principal subject is holistic vs. atomistic ways of viewing the world. The film was directed by Austiran-born Bernt Capra, a Hollywood production designer. He also wrote the story behind the film, which he adapted from the popular book The Turning Point (1983) by his brother Fritjof Capra, noted physicist and environmentalist...
http://www.philfilms.utm.edu/1/mindwalk.htm

 

[arivero]

Yes but it sends most physicists into fits.

View attachment 290413

Do they actually read it? It is mostly a divulgative text on strong force as understood in the sixties, lot of flavour but not colours. The title is an obvious reference to the original theory of strings, which at that time was named "dual theory of hadrons". The chapter about "hinduism" is an attempt to support Chew's "nuclear democracy", one of the arguments of the bootstrap.

The movies, on the other hand... yes, they send me into fits.

PS: I was wondering about existence of the forum. I didn't know of the films.

 

[AlexCaledin]

 

[Demystifier]

Algebra is the offer made by the devil to the mathematician. The devil says: “I will give you this powerful machine, and it will answer any question you like. All you need to do is give me your soul: give up geometry and you will have this marvellous machine.” . . . the danger to our soul is there, because when you pass over into algebraic calculation, essentially you stop thinking: you stop thinking geometrically, you stop thinking about the meaning.

- Sir Michael Atiyah

 

[Monsterboy]

“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”
― Max Planck

Did this guy just had a bad time or is this always the case ? I haven't read his autobiography yet.

 

[gleem]

This is not particularly a unique observation. Conventual beliefs can be so strong that new or radical ideas are summarily rejected or ignored and was particularly common in the medical field. People hold dear that which they strongly believe.

 

[BillTre]

The idea was elaborated upon by Thomas Kuhn, a science historian/philosopher, in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
His major premise was that paradigms were concepts underlying a current understanding of a scientific field.
They provided a standard way to look at things and evaluate results in times of normal science.
However, during times of "crisis" when explanations, for some people, were not up to explaining things in the field, alternative paradigms would arise to explain that which was not being explained satisfactorily.
Since not everyone was in agreement, there will be disagreements.
Some of the people holding to the ideas might not change their minds, but not be convincing to those with the newer way of thinking of things. Their views would vanish from active science when they died off.

Many scientists like this because history and much of their scientific experience seems to support his basic idea.

 

[diogenesNY]

The idea was elaborated upon by Thomas Kuhn, a science historian/philosopher, in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
His major premise was that paradigms were concepts underlying a current understanding of a scientific field.
They provided a standard way to look at things and evaluate results in times of normal science.
However, during times of "crisis" when explanations, for some people, were not up to explaining things in the field, alternative paradigms would arise to explain that which was not being explained satisfactorily.
Since not everyone was in agreement, there will be disagreements.
Some of the people holding to the ideas might not change their minds, but not be convincing to those with the newer way of thinking of things. Their views would vanish from active science when they died off.

Many scientists like this because history and much of their scientific experience seems to support his basic idea.

BillTre,

Damn! you beat me to it!

+1 for Thomas Kuhn.

_Structures_ was considered very radical at the time (and still is). Kuhn actually considerably softened his views later in his life and career. I am still pretty fond of the radical Kuhn.

_Structures of Scientific Revolutions_, Columbia University Press 1966. Highly recommended, not the easiest read, but very worthwhile.

 

[George Jones]

And more than a little arrogance is required for creatures that evolved from quantum fluctuations and quark soup, that only exist for a short time and are stuck on a small backwater outpost to think that they might be able to understand the whole shebang.

Michael S. Turner

 

[Demystifier]

Einstein was a giant. His head was in the clouds, but his feet were on the ground. But those of us who are not that tall have to choose!
- Richard Feynman

 

[Vanadium 50]

My Dinner with Andre

I always thought The Princess Bride should have been subtitled My Dinner with Andre The Giant.

 

[bob012345]

The more we know, the more we think we know and the less we really know.
-Aristotle (paraphrased)

 

[Demystifier]

When someone tries to convince you that all philosophy is bad, ignore him. His argument can be nothing else but philosophy, and philosophy coming from someone who thinks that all philosophy is bad can be nothing else but bad philosophy.
- Hrvoje Nikolic