Niels Bohr Quotes on Knowledge
Niels Bohr (1885–1962) was the principal architect, with Heisenberg, of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, whose philosophical core is the doctrine of complementarity: the experimental conditions under which the wave description of a quantum system is appropriate are mutually exclusive with those under which the particle description is appropriate, and any complete account of the phenomenon requires both. Atomic Theory and the Description of Nature (1934) and Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge (1958) extend the framework beyond physics to a general epistemology in which the classical concepts of object and observer can no longer be sharply separated.
Quotes
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“The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.”
Two sorts of truth: profound truths recognized by the fact that the opposite is also a profound truth, in contrast to trivialities where opposites are obviously absurd. -
“Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.”
As quoted in Meeting the Universe Halfway (2007) by Karen Michelle Barad, p. 254, with a footnote citing The Philosophical Writings of Niels Bohr (1998). | Variants: Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum mechanics cannot possibly have understood it. Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it. Anyone who is not sho -
“An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.”
As quoted by Edward Teller , in Dr. Edward Teller's Magnificent Obsession by Robert Coughlan, in LIFE magazine (6 September 1954), p. 62 | Variant: An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field. As quoted by Edward Teller (10 October 1972), and A Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (1991) by Alan L. Mackay, p. 35 -
Attributed to Niels Bohr:
“Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.”
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“We must be clear that when it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry.”
In his first meeting with Werner Heisenberg in early summer 1920, in response to questions on the nature of language, as reported in Discussions about Language (1933); quoted in Defense Implications of International Indeterminacy (1972) by Robert J. Pranger, p. 11, and Theorizing Modernism : Essays in Critical Theory (1993) by Steve Giles, p. 28 -
“Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it.”
In a 1952 conversation with Heisenberg and Pauli in Copenhagen; quoted in Heisenberg, Werner, Physics and Beyond . (New York: Harper & Row, 1971) p. 206. -
“In a 1952 conversation with Heisenberg and Pauli in Copenhagen; quoted in Heisenberg, Werner, Physics and Beyond . (New York: Harper & Row, 1971) p. 206.”
Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it. -
“Niels Bohr's speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm (December 10, 1922)”
The grand discoveries which scientific experiment yielded at and about the turn of the century, in which investigators in many countries took an eminent part and which were destined all unexpectedly to give us a fresh insight into the structure of atoms, were due in the first instance, as all are aware, to the work of the great investigators of the English school, Sir Joseph Thomson and Sir Ernest -
“The great extension of our experience in recent years has brought light to the insufficiency of our simple mechanical conceptions and, as a consequence, has shaken the foundation on which the customary interpretation of observation was based.”
Niels Bohr , "Atomic Physics and the Description of Nature" (1934) -
“Isolated material particles are abstractions , their properties being definable and observable only through their interaction with other systems .”
Atomic Physics and the Description of Nature" (1934)