Physics Quote of the Day (March 15 - March 21)

"The principles of the theory are derived [...] from a very small number of primary facts." Joseph Fourier, born 21 March 1768.

"To have a good memory the first thing you must do is to trust your memory." Paul S. Epstein, born 20 March 1883.

"It is because I know all that science can bring to the world that I shall continue my efforts to ensure that it contributes to the happiness of all men, whether they be white, black, or yellow, and not to their annihilation in the name of some divine mission or other." Frédéric Joliot-Curie, born 19 March 1900.

"If you do so and so, then such and such will happen." Walter Shewhart, born 18 March 1891.

"Experimenters are taught in an explicit way, often, how to write up reports of their experiments. But the tradition here is like sports reporting. Only the results of the experiment are reported in any serious detail. The procedures are not." Patrick Suppes, born 17 March 1922.

"[The] aim [of this paper] is attained if by means of it the variety of facts be presented as unity to the mind." Georg Ohm, born 16 March 1789.

"An experiment is a question which we ask of Nature, who is always ready to give a correct answer, provided we ask properly, that is, provided we arrange a proper experiment." Charles V. Boys, born 15 March 1855.

Physics Quote of the Day (March 8 - March 14)

"A truly rational theory would allow us to deduce the elementary particles (electron,etc.) and not be forced to state them a priori." Albert Einstein, born 14 March 1879.

"... one can still say that quantum mechanics is the key to understanding magnetism. When one enters the first room with this key there are unexpected rooms beyond, but it is always the master key that unlocks each door." John_Van Vleck, born 13 March 1899.

"Look here, I have succeeded at last in fetching some gold from the sun." Gustav Kirchhoff, born 12 March 1824.

"Increased knowledge clearly implies increased responsibility." Nicolaas Bloembergen, born 11 March 1920.

"But mainly I learned, in approaching the measurement of new phenomena, not just to consider using existing apparatus but to allow the mind to wander freely and invent new ways of doing the job." Val Fitch, born 10 March 1923.

"Paris somehow lends itself to conceptual new ideas. I don't know why it is. There is a certain magic to that city." Walter Kohn, born 9 March 1923.

"Usually, a discovery is not made in the easiest but on a complicated way; the simple cases show up only later." Otto Hahn, born 8 March 1879.

Follow the Physics quotes of the Day on my Twitter timeline. You may also find them by the appropriate hashtag #pqotd Twitter search. All these quotes are also on Wikiquote.

Physics Quote of the Day (March 1 - March 7)

These (sometimes abridged) quotes are published daily on my Twitter timeline. You may also find them by the appropriate hashtag #pqotd Twitter search.

"Modern physics often advances only by sacrificing some of our traditional philosophical convictions." Fritz London, born 7 March 1900.

"The number of different optical phenomena has become in our time so great that caution must be taken so as to avoid being deceived, and also to refer the phenomena to the simple laws." Joseph von Fraunhofer, born 6 March 1787.

"What is familiar to professional scientists highly needs to be placed in the public domain." Jacques Babinet, born 5 March  1794.

"I feel that matter has properties which physics tells you." George Gamow, born 4 March 1904.

"Science is too important not to be a part of popular culture." Brian Cox, born 3 March 1968.

"If physics is too difficult for the physicists, the nonphysicist may wonder whether he should try at all to grasp its complexities and ambiguities. It is undeniably an effort, but probably one worth making, for the basic questions are important and the new experimental results are often fascinating. And if the layman runs into serious perplexities, he can be consoled with the thought that the points which baffle him are more than likely the ones for which the professionals have not found satisfactory answers." Edward Condon, born 2 March 1902.

"One of the best ways to keep a secret is to shout it." Edwin Land, died 1 March 1991.

Physics Quote of the Day (Feb 22 - Feb 28)

Here are the Physics Quotes of the Day for last week. These (sometimes abridged) quotes are published daily on my Twitter timeline. Feel free to follow me on Twitter @materion. You may also find them by the appropriate hashtag #pqotd Twitter search. All these quotes are also on Wikiquote.

"The only sane policy for the world is that of abolishing war." Linus Pauling, born 28 February 1901.

"The new and the old methods complete one another on numerous points, and their simultaneous use will increase our knowledge of the outer atmosphere of the Sun much more rapidly." Bernard Lyot, born 27 February 1897.

"I have discovered, in fact, that a man, whatever may have been his origin, his education, and his habits, is governed, under certain circumstances, much more by his stomach than by his intelligence and his heart." François Arago, born 26 February 1786.

"A time will come when men will stretch out their eyes. They should see planets like our Earth." Christopher Wren, died 25 February 1723.

"Young people must break machines to learn how to use them; get another made!" Henry Cavendish, died 24 February 1810.

"There is also hope that even in these days of increasing specialization there is a unity in the human experience." Allan McLeod Cormack, born 23 February 1924.

"If we wish to lend more color to the theory, there is nothing to prevent us from supplementing all this and aiding our powers of imagination by concrete representations of the various conceptions as to the nature of electric polarisation, the electric current, etc." Heinrich Hertz, born 22 February 1857.

Physics Quote of the Day (Feb 15 - Feb 21)

Here are the Physics Quotes of the Day for last week. As I want to do this on a regular basis, I decided to quote a physicist which has an event related to the day. In that way, I have good hope to last for a whole year. These (sometimes abridged) quotes are published daily on my Twitter timeline. Feel free to follow me on Twitter @materion. You may also find them by the appropriate hashtag #pqotd Twitter search. All these quotes are also on Wikiquote.

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"We do not aim at « mathematical rigour » of exposition, which in theoretical physics often amounts to self-deception." Lev Davidovich Landau and Evgenii Lifshitz, born 21 February 1915.

"Who sees the future? Let us have free scope for all directions of research; away with dogmatism, either atomistic or anti-atomistic!" Ludwig Boltzmann, born 20 February 1844.

"Mathematics is written for mathematicians." Nicolaus Copernicus, born 19 February 1473.

"All this, the positive and physical essence of mechanics, which makes its chief and highest interest for a student of nature, is in existing treatises completely buried and concealed beneath a mass of technical considerations." Ernst Mach, born 18 February 1838.

"Shall we do it?" "Well, then let's go, we shall do it!" Otto Stern (born 17 February 1888) asking, Walther Gerlach answering.

"... it is shameful that there are so few women in science ..." Chien-Shiung Wu, died 16 February 1997.

Bonus for February 16th:

"Erwin with his psi can do
Calculations quite a few.
But one thing has not been seen:
Just what does psi really mean?"
Erich Hückel, died 16 February 1980.

"In questions of science the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual." Galileo Galilei, born 15 February 1564.

Physics Quote of the Day (Feb 8 - Feb 14)

Here are the Physics Quotes of the Day for last week. All these quotes are now also on Wikiquote.

Feb 14 "As we can not give a general definition of energy, the principle of the conservation of energy signifies simply that there is something which remains constant." Henri Poincaré

Feb 13 "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." Werner Heisenberg

Feb 12 "I love fools' experiments. I am always making them." Charles Darwin

Feb 11 "One of the principal objects of research in my department of knowledge is to find the point of view from which the subject appears in the greatest simplicity." J.Willard Gibbs born on Feb 11 1839.

Feb 10 "...elementary particles are terribly boring, which is one reason why we're so interested in them." Steven Weinberg

Feb 9 "When you make the finding yourself — even if you're the last person on Earth to see the light — you never forget it." Carl Sagan

Feb 8 "Why did such serious people take so seriously axioms which now seem so arbitrary?" John S. Bell

Is quantum physics associated with common sense or is it flapdoodle?

I would like to thank those who prompted me on the apparent contradiction between "Common Sense" and "Quantum Physics", calling it an oxymoron.

A few month ago, in a discussion on sci.physics:

"Common Sense" Quantum Physics?
Now THERE is an oxymoron if ever there was one!

And recently, I was prompted by a tweet:

Common sense quantum physics sounds like an oxymoron to me!

Of course, I chose my blogtitle to be suggestive, even a bit provocative. But I wanted it also to be earnest. How is it possible that the most fundamental theoretical framework of nature is not considered as common sense? To me this is sufficient evidence that there is something wrong in our understanding and teaching of Quantum Physics.

My opinion is that our specialized physics education is responsible for that oxymoron. I've got children, one of them who's just got to high school. When they ask me about what I'm doing with my video-clips and I explain to them how quantum systems behave, they grasp it intuitively.

For instance, I'll explain that interference patterns with single particles are obtained because the single particle rides on a wave and that wave directs it at special places on a screen, that's how ordinary particles behave. But I'll never ever explain it through unnecessary hocus pocus quantum flapdoodle.  

All the same, they understand very well that we don't know whether Schrödinger's cat is dead or alive before we've opened the box. I'll never ever tell them that the cat is both dead and alive at the same time. I'll just say that because we don't know whether it is dead or alive, quantum physics has some rules that give odds for each possible result of the observation. That conforms to their perception of reality.

With respect to quantum mechanics, I find classical mechanics concepts like gravity harder to explain. The fact that the sun attracts the earth or that the earth attracts a falling apple is less intuitive than the fundamental quantum principles.

That's what I mean by "ordinary common sense quantum physics" with respect to "educated common sense classical physics".