Rennan Barkana's Feynman & Einstein tribute page

" Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars - mere globs of gas atoms. I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination - stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one - million - year - old light. A vast pattern - of which I am a part... What is the pattern, or the meaning, or the why? It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined it. Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent? "
--- Footnote in The Feynman Lectures on Physics

" From a very long view of the history of mankind - seen from, say, ten thousand years from now - there can be little doubt that the most significant event of the 19th century will be judged as Maxwell's discovery of the laws of electrodynamics. The American Civil War will fade into provincial insignificance in comparison with this important scientific event of the same decade. "
--- The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol. II

"I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell. It doesn't frighten me."
--- Feynman, PBS Interview, The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

" It doesn't seem to me that this fantastically marvelous universe, this tremendous range of time and space and different kinds of animals, and all the different planets, and all these atoms with all their motions, and so on, all this complicated thing can merely be a stage so that God can watch human beings struggle for good and evil - which is the view that religion has. The stage is too big for the drama. "
--- Feynman, 1959 Interview (From Genius by James Gleick)

" We cannot define anything precisely! If we attempt to, we get into that paralysis of thought that comes to philosophers, who sit opposite each other, one saying to the other, 'You don't know what you are talking about!' The second one says 'What do you mean by know? What do you mean by talking? What do you mean by you?', and so on. "
--- Feynman, The Character of Physical Law

" I was born not knowing and have only had a little time to change that here and there. "
--- Feynman, quoted in Genius by James Gleick

" For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled. "
--- Feynman's Appendix to the Rogers Commission Report on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident

" The real question of government versus private enterprise is argued on too philosophical and abstract a basis. Theoretically, planning may be good. But nobody has ever figured out the cause of government stupidity -- and until they do (and find the cure), all ideal plans will fall into quicksand. "
--- Personal letter from Feynman to wife Gweneth (1963)

" I'd hate to die twice. It's so boring. "
--- Feynman's last words

" Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. "
--- Einstein

" Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions. "
--- Einstein

" If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. ... I get the most joy in life out of music. "
--- Einstein, from an interview by G.S. Viereck in The Saturday Evening Post (October 1929)

" During the youthful period of mankind's spiritual evolution human fantasy created gods in man's own image, who, by the operations of their will were supposed to determine, or at any rate to influence the phenomenal world. Man sought to alter the disposition of these gods in his own favor by means of magic and prayer... The main source of the present-day conflicts between the spheres of religion and of science lies in this concept of a personal God... The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events the firmer becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature. "
--- Einstein, from a 1939 essay

" The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing. "
--- Einstein

" A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death. "
--- Einstein

" The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. "
--- Einstein

" Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler. "
--- Einstein

" Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence. "
--- Einstein

" The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible. "
--- Einstein

" Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love. "
--- Einstein

" Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen. "
--- Einstein

" A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. "
--- Einstein

" In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity. "
--- Einstein

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