Heisenberg Quotes

“Standing in the middle between the idea of an event and the actual event, a strange kind of physical reality just in the middle between possibility and reality.”

“One hundred thirty-seven is the inverse of something called the fine-structure constant. ...The most remarkable thing about this remarkable number is that it is dimension-free. ...Werner Heisenberg once proclaimed that all the quandaries of quantum mechanics would shrivel up when 137 was finally explained.”

“Realizing its fundamental importance in understanding spectral lines, in atomic physics and in the theory of how light and electrons interact, quantum electrodynamics, Pauli and Heisenberg were determined to derive it from quantum theory rather than introducing it from the start. They believed that if they could find a version of quantum electrodynamics capable of producing the fine structure constant, it would not contain the infinities that marred their theories.”

“Heisenberg's uncertainty relation measures the amount by which the complementary descriptions of the electron, or other fundamental entities, overlap. Position is very much a particle property - particles can be located precisely. Waves, on the other hand, have no precise location, but they do have momentum. The more you know about the wave aspect of reality, the less you know about the particle, and vice versa. Experiments designed to detect particles always detect particles; experiments designed to detect waves always detect waves. No experiment shows the electron behaving like a wave and a particle at the same time.”

“Whoever dedicates his life to searching out particular connections of nature will spontaneously be confronted with the question how they harmoniously fit into the whole.”

“Natural science, does not simply describe and explain nature; it is part of the interplay between nature and ourselves.”

“What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.”

“An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in his subject and how to avoid them.”

“Revere those things beyond science which really matter and about which it is so difficult to speak.”

“An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in his subject, and how to avoid them.”