Werner Heisenberg Quotes

Werner Heisenberg on Death

• “Die Quantentheorie ist so ein wunderbares Beispiel dafür, daß man einen Sachverhalt in völliger Klarheit verstanden haben kann und gleichzeitig doch weiß, daß man nur in Bildern und Gleichnissen von ihm reden kann.”

  Quantum theory provides us with a striking illustration of the fact that we can fully understand a connection though we can only speak of it in images and parables .

• “Der Teil und das Ganze. Gespräche im Umkreis der Atomphysik (1969); also in "Kein Chaos, aus dem nicht wieder Ordnung würde", Die Zeit No. 34 (22 August 1969) ; as translated in Physics and Beyond : Encounters and Conversation (1971)”

  Quantum theory provides us with a striking illustration of the fact that we can fully understand a connection though we can only speak of it in images and parables .

• “Ein Fachmann ist ein Mann, der einige der gröbsten Fehler kennt, die man in dem betreffenden Fach machen kann, und der sie deshalb zu vermeiden versteht.”

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

Werner Heisenberg on God

• Attributed to Werner Heisenberg:

  “The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.”

Werner Heisenberg on Happiness

• “In general, scientific progress calls for no more than the absorption and elaboration of new ideas — and this is a call most scientists are happy to heed.”

  Physics and Beyond : Encounters and Conversation (1971), p. 70

Werner Heisenberg on Knowledge

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

  Ein Fachmann ist ein Mann, der einige der gröbsten Fehler kennt, die man in dem betreffenden Fach machen kann, und der sie deshalb zu vermeiden versteht. | Der Teil und das Ganze. Gespräche im Umkreis der Atomphysik (1969); also in "Kein Chaos, aus dem nicht wieder Ordnung würde", Die Zeit No. 34 (22 August 1969); as translated in Physics and Beyond : Encounters and Conversation (1971)

• “The more precise the measurement of position, the more imprecise the measurement of momentum, and vice versa.”

  Initial statement of the Uncertainty principle in "Über den anschaulichen Inhalt der quantentheoretischen Kinematik und Mechanik" in Zeitschrift für Physik , 43 (1927) | Variant translation: The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa. As quoted in "The Uncertainty Principle" at the American Institute of Physics

• “Initial statement of the Uncertainty principle in "Über den anschaulichen Inhalt der quantentheoretischen Kinematik und Mechanik" in Zeitschrift für Physik , 43 (1927)”

  The more precise the measurement of position, the more imprecise the measurement of momentum, and vice versa.

• “Variant translation: The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa. As quoted in "The Uncertainty Principle" at the American Institute of Physics”

  The more precise the measurement of position, the more imprecise the measurement of momentum, and vice versa.

• “Every experiment destroys some of the knowledge of the system which was obtained by previous experiments.”

  Critique of the Physical Concepts of the Corpuscular Theory" in The Physical Principles of the Quantum Theory (1930) as translated by Carl Eckhart and Frank C. Hoyt, p. 20; also in "The Uncertainty Principle" in The World of Mathematics : A Small Library of the Literature of Mathematics (1956) by James Roy Newman, p. 1051

• “Quantum theory provides us with a striking illustration of the fact that we can fully understand a connection though we can only speak of it in images and parables .”

  Die Quantentheorie ist so ein wunderbares Beispiel dafür, daß man einen Sachverhalt in völliger Klarheit verstanden haben kann und gleichzeitig doch weiß, daß man nur in Bildern und Gleichnissen von ihm reden kann. | Der Teil und das Ganze. Gespräche im Umkreis der Atomphysik (1969); also in "Kein Chaos, aus dem nicht wieder Ordnung würde", Die Zeit No. 34 (22 August 1969) ; as translated in Physi

• “Whenever we proceed from the known into the unknown we may hope to understand, but we may have to learn at the same time a new meaning of the word " understanding ."”

  Physics and Philosophy(1958)

Read all Werner Heisenberg quotes on Knowledge

Werner Heisenberg on Mind

• “I think that modern physics has definitely decided in favor of Plato . In fact the smallest units of matter are not physical objects in the ordinary sense; they are forms, ideas which can be expressed unambiguously only in mathematical language.”

  Das Naturgesetz und die Struktur der Materie (1967), as translated in Natural Law and the Structure of Matter (1981), p. 34

Werner Heisenberg on Nature

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

  We have to remember that what we observe is not nature herself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.

• Attributed to Werner Heisenberg:

  “Not only is the universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think.”

• “Light and matter are both single entities, and the apparent duality arises in the limitations of our language . It is not surprising that our language should be incapable of describing the processes occurring within the atoms, for, as has been remarked, it was invented to describe the experiences of daily life , and these consist only of processes involving exceedingly large numbers of atoms. Furt”

  Introductory" in The Physical Principles of the Quantum Theory (1930) as translated by Carl Eckhart and Frank C. Hoyt, p. 10

• “Critique of the Physical Concepts of the Corpuscular Theory" in The Physical Principles of the Quantum Theory (1930) as translated by Carl Eckhart and Frank C. Hoyt, p. 20; also in "The Uncertainty Principle" in The World of Mathematics : A Small Library of the Literature of Mathematics (1956) by James Roy Newman, p. 1051”

  Every experiment destroys some of the knowledge of the system which was obtained by previous experiments.

Read all Werner Heisenberg quotes on Nature

Werner Heisenberg on Time

• “After a great war, history is written by the victors and legends develop which glorify them.”

  from p. 35 of "The Third Reich and The Atomic Bomb [Review of The Virus House by David Irving]" in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Pp. 34-35, June 1968), translated from the German by Margaret Seckel.

Werner Heisenberg on Truth

• Attributed to Werner Heisenberg:

  “We have to remember that what we observe is not nature in itself, but nature subjected to our way of asking questions.”