Science and Reason

Some recent work by E. Fermi and L. Szilard, which has been communicated to me in manuscript, leads me to expect that the element uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy in the immediate future. Certain aspects of the situation which has arisen seem to call for watchfulness and, if necessary, quick action on the part of the Administration.

The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility … The fact that it is comprehensible is a miracle.

I am convinced that He [God] does not play dice.

E = mc 2 .

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgement.

You know my methods. Apply them.

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?

New philosophy calls all in doubt.

Now, what I want is, Facts … Facts alone are wanted in life.

It is contrary to reason to say that there is a vacuum or space in which there is absolutely nothing.

By convention there is colour, by convention sweetness, by convention bitterness, but in reality there are atoms and space.

[Natural selection] has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker.

The expression often used by Mr Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate [than ‘Struggle for Existence’], and is sometimes equally convenient.

I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection.

In science, we must be interested in things, not in persons.

If you want to inspire confidence, give plenty of statistics.

‘What’s the good of Mercator’s North Poles and Equators,

‘Contrariwise,’ continued Tweedledee, ‘if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be: but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic.’

In science, read, by preference, the newest works; in literature, the oldest.

The essence of science: ask an impertinent question, and you are on the way to a pertinent answer.

The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation … The hand is the cutting edge of the mind.

The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set a limit to infinite error.

Anybody who is not shocked by this subject has failed to understand it.