Both matter and radiation possess a remarkable duality of character, as they sometimes exhibit the properties of waves, at other times those of particles. Now it is obvious that a thing cannot be a form of wave motion and composed of particles at the same time – the two concepts are too different.

— Werner Heisenberg

Werner Heisenberg Quotes

Can quantum mechanics represent the fact that an electron finds itself approximately in a given place and that it moves approximately with a given velocity, and can we make these approximations so close that they do not cause experimental difficulties?

— Werner Heisenberg

The very act of observing disturbs the system.

— Werner Heisenberg

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.

— Werner Heisenberg

By getting to smaller and smaller units, we do not come to fundamental or indivisible units. But we do come to a point where further division has no meaning.

— Werner Heisenberg

The problems of language here are really serious. We wish to speak in some way about the structure of the atoms. But we cannot speak about atoms in ordinary language.

— Werner Heisenberg

I believe that the existence of the classical “path” can be pregnantly formulated as follows: The “path” comes into existence only when we observe it.

— Werner Heisenberg

I think that the discovery of antimatter was perhaps the biggest jump of all the big jumps in physics in our century.

— Werner Heisenberg

Nature allows only experimental situations to occur which can be described within the framework of the formalism of quantum mechanics.

— Werner Heisenberg

Nature is made in such a way as to be able to be understood. Or perhaps I should put it-more correctly-the other way around, and say that we are made in such a way as to be able to understand Nature.

— Werner Heisenberg

We will have to abandon the philosophy of Democritus and the concept of elementary particles. We should accept instead the concept of elementary symmetries.

— Werner Heisenberg

The basic idea is to shove all fundamental difficulties onto the neutron and to do quantum mechanics in the nucleus.

— Werner Heisenberg

Even for the physicist the description in plain language will be a criterion of the degree of understanding that has been reached.

— Werner Heisenberg

The exact sciences also start from the assumption that in the end it will always be possible to understand nature, even in every new field of experience, but that we may make no a priori assumptions about the meaning of the word understand.

— Werner Heisenberg

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

The Same organizing forces that have shaped nature in all her forms are also responsible for the structure of our minds.

— Werner Heisenberg

Natural science, does not simply describe and explain nature; it is part of the interplay between nature and ourselves.

— Werner Heisenberg

Every word or concept, clear as it may seem to be, has only a limited range of applicability.

— Werner Heisenberg

It is probably true quite generally that in the history of human thinking the most fruitful developments frequently take place at those points where two different lines of thought meet.

— Werner Heisenberg

A consistent pursuit of classical physics forces a transformation in the very heart of that physics.

— Werner Heisenberg

The solution of the difficulty is that the two mental pictures which experiment lead us to form – the one of the particles, the other of the waves – are both incomplete and have only the validity of analogies which are accurate only in limiting cases.

— Werner Heisenberg
More Werner Heisenberg Quote >>
Privacy Policy   5.50ms  0.71MB