Feynman, Richard (Richard Feynman)

Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry.
-- Richard Feynman

For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
-- Richard Feynman

I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there.
-- Richard Feynman

There are 10¹¹ stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.
-- Richard Feynman

The real question of government versus private enterprise is argued on too philosophical and abstract a basis. Theoretically, planning may be good. But nobody has ever figured out the cause of government stupidity and until they do (and find the cure) all ideal plans will fall into quicksand.
-- Richard Feynman

You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird... So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing -- that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.
-- Richard Feynman

Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.
-- Richard Feynman

There is one feature I notice that is generally missing in 'cargo cult science'... It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty
-- Richard Feynman

It's a great game to look at the past, at an unscientific era, look at something there, and say have we got the same thing now, and where is it? So I would like to amuse myself with this game. First, we take witch doctors. The witch doctor says he knows how to cure. There are spirits inside which are trying to get out. ... Put a snakeskin on and take quinine from the bark of a tree. The quinine works. He doesn't know he's got the wrong theory of what happens. If I'm in the tribe and I'm sick, I go to the witch doctor. He knows more about it than anyone else. But I keep trying to tell him he doesn't know what he's doing and that someday when people investigate the thing freely and get free of all his complicated ideas they'll learn much better ways of doing it. Who are the witch doctors? Psychoanalysts and psychiatrists, of course.

-- Richard Feynman

No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles, nor to prescribe in any way the character of the questions investigated. Neither may a government determine the aesthetic value of artistic creations, nor limit the forms of literacy or artistic expression. Nor should it pronounce on the validity of economic, historic, religious, or philosophical doctrines. Instead it has a duty to its citizens to maintain the freedom, to let those citizens contribute to the further adventure and the development of the human race.

-- Richard Feynman

I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. Of course, you only live one life, and you make all your mistakes, and learn what not to do, and that's the end of you.
-- Richard Feynman

Science alone of all the subjects contains within itself the lesson of the danger of belief in the infallibility of the greatest teachers in the preceding generation . . .Learn from science that you must doubt the experts. As a matter of fact, I can also define science another way: Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.
-- Richard Feynman

You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird... So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing
-- Richard Feynman

Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars
-- Richard Feynman

So, ultimately, in order to understand nature it may be necessary to have a deeper understanding of mathematical relationships. But the real reason is that the subject is enjoyable, and although we humans cut nature up in different ways, and we have different courses in different departments, such compartmentalization is really artificial, and we should take our intellectual pleasures where we find them.
-- Richard Feynman

I took this stuff I got out of your [O-ring] seal and I put it in ice water, and I discovered that when you put some pressure on it for a while and then undo it it doesn't stretch back. It stays the same dimension. In other words, for a few seconds at least, and more seconds than that, there is no resilience in this particular material when it is at a temperature of 32 degrees. I believe that has some significance for our problem.
-- Richard Feynman

For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.
-- Richard Feynman

I'd hate to die twice. It's so boring.
-- Richard Feynman

The third aspect of my subject is that of science as a method of finding things out. This method is based on the principle that observation is the judge of whether something is so or not. All other aspects and characteristics of science can be understood directly when we understand that observation is the ultimate and final judge of the truth of an idea. But "prove" used in this way really means "test," in the same way that a hundred-proof alcohol is a test of the alcohol, and for people today the idea really should be translated as, "The exception tests the rule." Or, put another way, "The exception proves that the rule is wrong." That is the principle of science. If there is an exception to any rule, and if it can be proved by observation, that rule is wrong.

-- Richard Feynman

All fundamental processes are reversible.
-- Richard Feynman

Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possible avoid it, "But how can it be like that?" because you will get "down the drain," into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that.
-- Richard Feynman

I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong.
-- Richard Feynman

I cannot define the real problem, therefore I suspect there's no real problem, but I'm not sure there's no real problem.
-- Richard Feynman

I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened by not knowing things; by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose
-- Richard Feynman

Listen, buddy, if I could tell you in a minute what I did, it wouldn't be worth the Nobel Prize.
-- Richard Feynman

Mathematics is not real, but it feels real. Where is this place?
-- Richard Feynman

Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry.
-- Richard Feynman

On the infrequent occasions when I have been called upon in a formal place to play the bongo drums the introducer never seems to find it necessary to mention that I also do theoretical physics.
-- Richard Feynman

People say to me, "Are you looking for the ultimate laws of physics?" No, I'm not... If it turns out there is a simple ultimate law which explains everything, so be it
-- Richard Feynman

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

Physics is to math what sex is to masturbation.
-- Richard Feynman

Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt.
-- Richard Feynman

The chance is high that the truth lies in the fashionable direction. But, on the off chance that it is in another direction
-- Richard Feynman

The same equations have the same solutions.
-- Richard Feynman

The wonderful thing about science is that it's alive.
-- Richard Feynman

There are 10¹¹ stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.
-- Richard Feynman

What does it mean, to understand? ... I don't know.
-- Richard Feynman

I think that it is much more likely that the reports of flying saucers are the result of the known irrational characteristics of terrestrial intelligence rather than the unknown rational efforts of extraterrestrial intelligence.
-- Richard Feynman

There is a computer disease that anybody who works with computers knows about. It's a very serious disease and it interferes completely with the work. The trouble with computers is that you 'play' with them!
-- Richard Feynman

-- Richard Feynman

What do I know of religion and politics? Several friends in the physics departments here and in other places laughed and said, "I'd like to come and hear what you have to say. I never knew you were interested very much in those things." They mean, of course, I am interested, but I would dare not talk about them.

-- Richard Feynman

The ideas I wish to describe are old ideas. There is practically nothing that I am going to say tonight that could not easily have been said by philosophers of the seventeenth century. Whty repeat all this? Because there are new generations born every day. Because there are great ideas developed in the history of man, and these ideas do not last unless they are passed purposely and clearly from generation to generation.

-- Richard Feynman

Many old ideas have become such common knowledge that it is not necessary to talk or explain them again. but the ideas associated with the problems of the development of science, as far as I can see by looking around me, are not of the kind that everyone appreciates.

-- Richard Feynman

What is science? The word is usually used to mean one of three things, or a mixture of them. I do not think we need be precise - it is not always a good idea to be too precise. Science means, sometimes, a special method of finding things out. Sometimes it means the body of knowledge arising from the things found out. It may also mean the new things you can do when you have found something out, or the actual doing of new things. This last field is usually called technology - but if you loo at the science section of Time magazine, you will find it covers about 50 percent what new things are found out and about 50 percent what new things can be and are being done. And so the popular definition of science is partly technology,too.

-- Richard Feynman

The production of this power is either good or evil, depending on how it is used. We like improved production, but we have problems with automation. We are happy with the development of medicine, and then we worry about the number of births and the fact that no one dies from the diseases we have eliminated. Or else, with the same knowledge of bacteria, we have hidden laboratories in which men are working as hard as they can to develop bacteria for which no one else will be able to find a cure. We are happy with the development of air transportation and are impressed by the great airplanes, but we are aware also of the severe horrors of air war. We are pleased by the ability to communicate between nations, and then we worry about the fact that we can be snooped upon so easily. We are excited by the fact that space can now be entered; well, we will undoubtedly have difficulty there, too. The most famous of all these imbalances is the development of nuclear energy and its obvious problems.

-- Richard Feynman

Once in Hawaii I was taken to see a Buddhist temple. In the temple a man said, "I am going to tell you something that you will never forget." And then he said, "To every man is give the key to the gates of heaven. The same key opens the gates of hell.

-- Richard Feynman

When the scientists is told that he must be more responsible for his effects on society, it is the applications of science that are referred to. If you work to develop nuclear energy you must also realize that it can also be used harmfully. Therefore, you would expect that, in a discussion of this kind by a scientist, this would be the most important topic. But I will not talk about it further. I think that to say these are scientific problems is an exaggeration. They are far more humanitarian problems. The fact that how to work the power is clear, but how to control it is not, is something not so scientific and is not something that the scientist knows much about.

-- Richard Feynman

Some time ago, in about 1949 or 1950, I went to Brazil to teach physics. There was a Point Four Program in those days, which was very exciting - everyone was going to help the underdeveloped countries. What they needed, of course, was technical know-how.

-- Richard Feynman

The work is not done for the sake of an application. It is done for the excitement of what is found out. Perhaps most of you know this. But to those of you who do not know it, it is almost impossible for me to convey in a lecture this important aspect, this exciting part, the real reason for science. And without understanding this you miss the whole point. You cannot understand science and its relation to anything else unless you understand and appreciate the great adventure of our time. You do not live in your time unless you unserstand that this is a tremendous adventure and a wild and exciting thing.

-- Richard Feynman

To give an example, I read Faraday's Chemical History of a Candle, a set of six Christmas lectures for children. The point of Faraday's lectures was that no matter what you look at, if you look at it closely enough, you are involved in the entire universe. And so he got, by looking at every feature of the candle, into combustion, chemistry, etc.

-- Richard Feynman

Words can be meaningless.

-- Richard Feynman

It was thought in the Middle Ages that people simply make many observations, and the observations themselves suggest the laws. But it does not work that way. It takes much more imagination than that. So the next thing we have to talk about is where the new ideas come from. Actually, it does not make any difference, as long as they come. We have a way of checking whether an idea is correct or not that has nothing to do with where it came from. We simply test it against observation. So in science we are not interested in where an idea comes from.

-- Richard Feynman

There is no authority who decides what is a good idea. .We have lost the need to go to an authority to find out whethere an idea is true or not. We can read an authority and let him suggest something; we can try it out and find out if it is true or not. If it is not true, so much the worse - so the "authorities" lose some of their "authority."

-- Richard Feynman

Most people find it surprising that in science there is no interest in the background of the author of an idea or in his motive in expounding it. You listen, and if it sounds like a thing worth trying, a thing that could be tried, is different, and is not obviously contrary to something observed before, it gets exciting and worthwhile. You do not have to worry about how long he has studied or why he wants you to listen to him. In that sense it makes no difference where the ideas come from. Their real origin is unknown; we call it the imagination of the human brain, the creative imagination - it is known; it is just one of those "oomphs."

-- Richard Feynman

It is surprising that people do not believe that there is imagination in science. It is a very interesting kind of imagination, unlike that of the artist. The great difficulty is in trying to imagine something that you have never seen, that is consistent in every detail with what has already been seen, and that is different from what has been thought of; furthermore, it must be definite and not a vague proposition. That is indeed difficult.

-- Richard Feynman

It is necessary and true that all of the things we say in science, all of the conclusions, are uncertain, because they are only conclusions. They are guesses as to what is going to happen, and you cannot know what will happen, because you have not made the most complete experiments.

-- Richard Feynman

When the scientist tells you he does not know the answer, he is an ignorant man. When he tells you he has a hunch about how it is going to work, he is uncertain about it. When he is pretty sure of how it is going to work, and he tells you, "This is the way it's going to work, I'll bet," he still is in some doubt. And it is of paramount importance, in order to make progress, that we recognize this ignorance and this doubt. Because we have the doubt, we then propose looking in new directions for new ideas. The rate of the development of science is not the rate at which you make observations alone but, much more important, the rate at which you create new things to test.

-- Richard Feynman

If we were not able or did not desire to look in any new direction, if we did not have a doubt or recognize ignorance, we would not get any new ideas. There would be nothing worth checking, because we would know what is true.

-- Richard Feynman

This freedom to doubt is an important matter in the sciences and, I believe, in other fields. It was born of a struggle. It was a struggle to be permitted to doubt, to be unsure. And I do not want us to forget the importance of the struggle and, by default, to let the thing fall away.

-- Richard Feynman

If you know that you are not sure, you have a chance to improve the situation. I want to demand this freedom for future generations.

-- Richard Feynman

...it is important to doubt and that doubt is not a fearful thing, but a thing of very great value.

-- Richard Feynman

At some time people thought that the potential that people had was not developed because everyone was ignorant and that education was the solution to the problem, that if all people were educated, we could perhaps all be Voltaires. But it turns out that falsehood and evil can be taught as easily as good. Education is a great power, but it can work either way.

-- Richard Feynman

I have heard it said that the communication between nations should lead to an understanding and thus a solution to the problem of developing the potentialities of man. But the means of communication can be channeled and choked. What is communicated can be lies as well as truth, propaganda as well as real and valuable information. Communication is a strong force, also, but either for good or evil.

-- Richard Feynman

I don't think of the problem as between socialism and capitalism but rather between suppression of ideas and free ideas.

-- Richard Feynman

Why do we grapple with problems? We are only in the beginning. We have plenty of time to solve the problems. The only way that we will make a mistake is that in the impetuous youth of humanity we weill decide we know the answer. This is it. No one else can think of anything else. And we will jam. We will confine man to the limited imagination of today's human beings.

-- Richard Feynman

Why do you want to know his bias? Form your own bias!

-- Richard Feynman

I can live with doubt and uncertainty, I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong.

-- Richard Feynman

I feel a responsibility as a scientist who knows the great value of a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance, and the progress made possible by such a philosophy, progress which is the fruit of freedom of thought... to proclaim the value of this freedom and to teach that doubt is not to be feared, but that it is to be welcomed as the possibility of a new potential for human beings. If you know that your are not sure, you have a chance to improve the situation. I want to demand this freedom for future generations.

-- Richard Feynman

I don't speak writable English.

-- Richard Feynman

The stage is too big for the drama.

-- Richard Feynman

What is not surrounded by uncertainty cannot be the truth.

-- Richard Feynman

My desire to resign is merely a personal one; it is not meant as a protest of any kind, or a criticism of the Academy or its activities. Perhaps it is just that enjoy being peculiar. My peculiarity is this: I find it psychologically very distasteful to judge people's "merit". So I cannot participate in the main activity of selecting people for membership. To be a member of a group, of which an important activity is to choose others deemed worthy of membership in that self-esteemed group, bothers me. The care with which we select "those worthy of honor"of joining the Academy feels to me like a form of self-praise. How can we say only the best may be allowed in to join those who are already in, without loudly proclaiming to our inner selves that we who are in must be very good indeed. Of course I believe I am very good indeed, but that is a private matter and I cannot publicly admit that I do so, to such an extent that I have the nerve to decide that this man, or that, is not worthy of joining my elite club.

-- Richard Feynman

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