Talk:Physics

Cat + toast powered monorail

i highly doubt that robert j oppenheimer quote. -Cody

Googling suggests John Frazee in the Journal of Irreproducible Results, so I changed it to that. Maybe someone who reads that august journal can confirm. Dunno if that's the first occurrance of cat+toast jokes, maybe someone can shed some light on that too. -- Kevin Ryde 22:38, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

"Shut up and calculate!"

There are at least two ways of taking this.

The simple way is that the philosophy of science is not important. But not thinking deeply might have might have lead away from things like quantum computing and maybe even super conductors just as much as taking things like the Copenhagen Interpretation too seriously would have!

A more philosophical interpretation of this saying is that a Bertrand Russel logical approach is needed, not a Ludwig Wittgenstein ordinary language approach. That is, ordinary languages such as English are not capable of expressing deep philosophical aspects of quantum mechanics. To get from ordinary language to qm, one has to go through logic and higher mathematics. So one can reach a philosophical understanding while calculating but not while talking.

Unsourced

• Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?
  • Stephen Hawking

• Guests at a cocktail party in the Southern Hemisphere tend to circulate in an anticlockwise direction.
  • Corollary to Parkinson's 2nd Law

• I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.
  • Richard Feynman

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

• My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.
  • Stephen Hawking

• Nothing is more interesting to the true theorist than a fact which directly contradicts a theory generally accepted up to that time, for this is his particular work.
  • Max Planck

• Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
  • Richard Feynman

• The theory of quanta can be likened to medicine that cures the disease but kills the patient.
  • Hendrick Kramers

• Toast always lands buttered-side down, and a cat always lands feet first. I propose we strap buttered toast to the back of a cat; the two will hover, spinning inches from the ground. With a giant buttered-toast/cat array, a hovering monorail could easily link New York with Chicago.
  • John Frazee in the Journal of Irreproducible Results [1]