Web-Materials

More Quotes From Mainly Scientists and Engineers

"The detector is like the journalist who must determine what, where, when, which, and how?
What is the identity of the particle?
Exactly where is it when it is observed?
When does the particle get to the detector?
Which way is it going?
How fast is it moving?"

Sheldon L. Glashow
(Higgins Professor of Physics at Harvard University; Nobel Laureate, 1979)
Interactions
Warner Books, New York, 1988: p.101

"..., and things are obvious only after they had been pointed out"

[Sheldon Glashow talking about Murray Gell-Mann: "He is famous because he gets things done first, and things are obvious only after they had been pointed out"]

Sheldon L. Glashow
(Higgins Professor of Physics at Harvard University; Nobel Laureate, 1979)
Interactions
Warner Books, New York, 1988: p.108

"One quantum notion that mystifies the novice is the "wave-particle duality." Does light consist of a beam of particles or is it a wave phenomenon? the question is hundreds of years old. Newton thought light was probably a stream of particles. Maxwell seemed to answer the problem decisively by showing light to be an electromagnetic wave. Yet Einstein in 1905, demonstrated that under some circumstances light behaves as if it were a beam of discrete particles, which are now called photons."

Sheldon L. Glashow
(Higgins Professor of Physics at Harvard University; Nobel Laureate, 1979)
Interactions
Warner Books, New York, 1988: p.51

"Einstein examined the photoelectric effect, which is now so well understood that it is used to open the doors of supermarkets and elevators when you step through a beam of light. In 1905 it was still a mystery."

Sheldon L. Glashow
(Higgins Professor of Physics at Harvard University; Nobel Laureate, 1979)
Interactions
Warner Books, New York, 1988: p.52

"I have often said from the podium that although it is gravity that holds my feet to the ground, it is the electromagnetic force that stops me from falling through the ground. Electromagnetism binds the atoms together and puts a solid floor beneath my feet."

Sheldon L. Glashow
(Higgins Professor of Physics at Harvard University; Nobel Laureate, 1979)
Interactions
Warner Books, New York, 1988: p.73

"No matter how compelling or elegant it is, a theory of physics must be subjected to experimental verification or it differs little from medieval theology."

Sheldon L. Glashow
(Higgins Professor of Physics at Harvard University; Nobel Laureate, 1979)
Interactions
Warner Books, New York, 1988: p.77

"Much as a pitched baseball is give a spin about its axis, so also does the electron spin about. However, the microscopic quantum mechanical electron behaves very differently from a baseball. Baseballs can be old, new, clean, dirty, and can differ from one another in myriad ways. On the other hand, all electrons are absolutely identical to one anther.
There is a subtler difference as well. Baseballs may spin rapidly, slowly, or in the case of a knuckleball, not at all. Every electron in the universe (about 10⁸⁰ of them!) is spinning at exactly the same rate. The magnitude of electron spin is an intrinsic and immutable characteristic of the electron. Only the axis about which the electron spins can be changed."

Sheldon L. Glashow
(Higgins Professor of Physics at Harvard University; Nobel Laureate, 1979)
Interactions
Warner Books, New York, 1988: p.56

"Once upon a time, physicists wondered whether light was an electromagnetic wave or a beam of particles. Quantum mechanics revealed that this question is simply not meaningful since neither answer is quite correct. Light, and all other forms of electromagnetic radiation, sometimes displays particle-like properties as photons, and sometimes behaves like a wave. The same is true for the electron which is particulate as it produces a flash of light on the TV screen and wavelike as it passes through the electron microscope. In everyday life, when a pebble is thrown into a pond, the pebble is the particle and the ripple is the wave. In the quantum mechanical world, there is no such clear-cut distinction. The wave-particle duality is a universal attribute of material systems."

Sheldon L. Glashow
(Higgins Professor of Physics at Harvard University; Nobel Laureate, 1979)
Interactions
Warner Books, New York, 1988: p.87-88

"Then it was found that the rules of motions of particles were incorrect. The mechanical rules of "inertia" and "forces" are wrong - Newton's laws are wrong - in the world of atoms. Instead, it was discovered that things on a small scale behave nothing like things on a larger scale."

Richard P. Feynman
(19181988; Nobel Laureate, 1965)
The Feynman Lectures on Physics
Richard P. Feynman, Robert B. Leighton and Matthew Sands
Addison Wesley Publishing Company. Reading, MA, 1983, p.2.6

"The behavior of things on a very tiny scale is simply different. An atom does not behave like weight hanging on a spring and oscillating. An atom doe no behave like a miniature representation of the solar system with little planets going around orbits. Nor does it appear to be somewhat like a cloud or fog of some sort surrounding the nucleus. It behaves like nothing you have ever seen before."

Richard P. Feynman
(19181988; Nobel Laureate, 1965)
The Character of Physical Law
Penguin Book, London, England, 1992; First published by the BBC, 1965, p.128.

"A professor of theoretical physics always has to be told what to look for. He just uses his knowledge to explain the observations of the experimenters!"

Richard P. Feynman
(19181988; Nobel Laureate, 1965)
What Do You Care What Other People Think?
Unwin Paperbacks, Unwin Hyman Ltd., London, 1988, p.140

"Quantum mechanics has many aspects. In the first place, the idea that a particle has a definite location and a definite speed is no longer allowed; that is wrong."

"The introduction of optical fiber systems will revolutionize the communications network. The low transmission loss and the large bandwidth capability of the fiber systems allow signals to be transmitted for establishing communications contacts over large distances with few or no provisions of intermediate amplification."

Charles K. Kao
(at the time in 1992: Vice-President and Director of Engineering, Electro-Optical Products Division, ITT; he was one of the pioneering researchers on glass fibers for optical communications)
Optical Fiber Systems: Technology, Design, and Applications
McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, USA, 1982, p.3.

"An optical waveguide is a threadlike structure capable of handling the transportation of a large volume of information traffic. We need it as a building block of our information highway system to help us in managing our energy resources, transportation, and communications; delivering health care and community services; strengthening our military defense; developing business; and providing materials for our entertainment and education."

"Physically the fiber is small [narrow], flexible, lightweight, and inexpensive; optically it has a large bandwidth for information carrying and low loss and special properties which allow the transmission path to withstand extreme temperature range, resist electromagnetic radiation interference, and cause no electromagnetic interference or fire. These fiber characteristics distinguish fiber systems from others [information carrying systems]."

"But the practitioners of science are, after all, human beings. They are not immune to the normal influences of egotism, economic self-interest, fashion, wishful thinking and laziness. A scientist may try to steal credit, knowingly initiate a worthless project for gain, or take a conventional idea for granted instead of looking for a better explanation. From time to time scientists even fudge their results, breaking one of the most serious taboos of their profession."

Murray Gell-Mann
(Professor Emeritus, California Institute of Technology; Nobel Laureate 1969)
The Quark and the Jaguar
Adventures in the simple and the complex
W.H. Freeman and Company, New York, USA, 1994, p.80

"Unscientific approaches to the construction of models of the world around us have characterized much of human thinking since the time immemorial, and they are still widespread. Take, for example, the version of sympathetic magic based on the idea that similar things must be connected. It seems natural to many people around the world that, when in need of rain, they should perform a ceremony in which water is procured and poured on the ground."

"Maiman's announcement of the first operative laser came at a New York news conference on July 7, 1960. By February of 1961 Ali Javan and his associates W.R. Bennet, Jr. and D.R. Herriott had reported the successful operation of a continuous-wave (cw) helium-neon gas laser at 1152.3nm."

Eugene Hecht
Optics, Second Edition
Addison Wesley Publishing Company, Reading, MA, 1987, p.585

"Al Asuli writing in Bukhara some 900 years ago divided his pharmacopoeia into two parts, 'Diseases of the rich' and 'Diseases of the the poor'."

Abdus Salam
(1926-1997; Nobel Laureate, 1979)
Scientific World, 1963, No.3, p. 9 as quoted by Alan Mackay in A Dictionary of Scientific Quotations
Institute of Physics Publishing, Bristol, 1994 p. 216

"In the case of light, most people confidently speak of the wave as an electromagnetic wave, like a radio wave but with a much shorter wavelength. The associated light particle, called a photon, is not so confidently visualized, perhaps only because it is a newer idea. Conversely, most people have little difficulty visualizing the electron as a bit of stuff, while the nature of the associated wave seems rather obscure."

Alan Holden
The Nature of Solids
Columbia University Press, New York, 1965, p.139

"Our arrogance stems from the reductionist perception that ours is the ultimate science, and from our undoubted achievements over the past few years. What we promise, we generally deliver."
[Frank Tipler talking about physicists]

Frank J. Tipler
(Professor of Mathematical Physics at Tulane University)
The Physics of Immortality
Anchor Books, Doubleday, New York, 1994, p. XIV

"However, the problems which sex generates in our present life will not occur in the afterlife. The difficulties which humans currently have in finding a love partner are due to the fact that the sex/marriage market is a barter market, characterized by long search times and high transaction costs."

Frank J. Tipler
(Professor of Mathematical Physics at Tulane University)
The Physics of Immortality
Anchor Books, Doubleday, New York, 1994, p. 256

"Print is no longer the primary medium of information."

"One of the characteristics of online courses would be that the information would be constantly changing."

"In the 17th century The Royal Society was formed so that the individuals of like mind could meet together to exchange the latest information on a series of scholarly subjects; now that we have the Net the whole world can participate in such a process."

Dale Spender(Professor at the University of Queensland, Brisbane)
from article "Global Students" in Engineering Science and Education Journal (IEE)
Vol. 6, No 5 (October 1997), p.204

"....universities are moving from institutions which have been based on print, and the written word, to institutions that are part of the new digital age."

Dale Spender(Professor at the University of Queensland, Brisbane)
from article "Global Students" in Engineering Science and Education Journal (IEE), Vol. 6, No 5 (October 1997), p.202

"Concepts form the basis for any science. These are ideas, usually somewhat vague (especially when first encountered), which often defy really adequate definition. The meaning of a new concept can seldom be grasped from reading a one-paragraph discussion. There must be time to become accustomed to the concept, to investigate it with prior knowledge, and to associate it with personal experience. Inability to work with details of a new subject can often be traced to inadequate understanding of its basic concepts".

William C. Reynolds,
Thermodynamics
McGraw-Hill, New York, 1968

"During this decade of the 20th century, we're undergoing a technological transition of momentous proportionsone that eclipses other major technological milestones including invention of the printing press, the Industrial revolution and the coming of the jet age."

Barry Brown
(Professor of Educational Communications and Technology at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada)
On Campus News, Vol. 5, Number 8, January 9, 1997 (University of Saskatchewan), p.5

"A paradigm is a set of rules and regulations that defines boundaries and tells you what to do to be successful within those boundaries. The success of the paradigm is measured by the problems you solve using these rules and regulations. A paradigm shift is a change to a new mental model of reality – a new set of rules. When a new paradigm appears, everyone goes back to zero; this is part of the reason that many people resist paradigm shifts"

James L. Meska
(Dean of the College of Engineering, Iowa State University, 1997)
fom an article "Trends in engineering education in the USA"
Engineering Science and Education Journal (IEE)
Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1997, p. 241

"My belief is that the pairing condensation is what Mother Nature had in mind when she created these fascinating high-T_c, systems." [Robert Schrieffer talking about high-T_c superconductor in 1991]

Robert Schrieffer
(Nobel Laureate, 1972)
from an article "A Dialogue on the Theory of High Tc"
Physics Today, June 1991, p. 56

“One of the most striking things I've seen recently is the possibility of using gallium arsenide lasers and optical fibers in new transmission systems. Now you may observe that lasers and fibers will accomplish the same sorts of things as existing technology. But that's exactly what the transistor did: replaced the vacuum tube but at tremendous advantages in cost, power, space and reliability.”

William Shockley, March 1975
(Nobel Laureate, 1956; one of the inventors of the transistor)
as quoted by M. Sparks, Lester Hogan and J. Linville
in Physics Today, June 1991, p. 132

"Collecting fresh fruits becomes even harder as the tree of knowledge grows higher and wider. However, there are certain branches that provide surer footholds to the new growths, and teachers must search these out."

J.E. Carroll
(Professor of Engineering, University of Cambridge)
Rate equations in semiconductor electronics
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1985, p.vi.

"Normally these books make little reference to the third revolution; they omit to mention that, at its very heart, quantum mechanics is totally inexplicable."

Euan Squires
(Professor of Applied Mathematics, Durham University, UK)
The Mystery of the Quantum World, Second Edition
Institute of Physics Publishing, Bristol, 1994, p.3.

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