Top 15 Max Born Quotes

The belief that there is only one truth and that oneself is in possession of it seems to me the root of all the evil that is in the world

I am now convinced that theoretical physics is actual philosophy.

There are two objectionable types of believers: those who believe the far-fetched, and those who believe that 'belief' must be discarded and replaced by the 'scientific method.' Between these two extremes there is enough scope for believing the reasonable and reasoning on sound beliefs.

I believe that ideas such as absolute certitude, absolute exactness, final truth, etc. are figments of the imagination which should not be admissible in any field of science... This loosening of thinking seems to me to be the greatest blessing which modern science has given to us. For the belief in a single truth and in being the possessor thereof is the root cause of all evil in the world.

I have tried to read philosophers of all ages and have found many illuminating ideas but no steady progress toward deeper knowledge and understanding. Science, however, gives me the feeling of steady progress: I am convinced that theoretical physics is actual philosophy. It has revolutionized fundamental concepts, e.g., about space and time (relativity), about causality (quantum theory), and about substance and matter (atomistics), and it has taught us new methods of thinking (complementarity) which are applicable far beyond physics.

Physics as we know it will be over in six months.

Intellect distinguishes between the possible and the impossible; reason distinguishes between the sensible and the senseless. Even the possible can be senseless.

We have sought for firm ground and found none.
The deeper we penetrate, the more restless becomes the universe; all is rushing about and vibrating in a wild dance.

But in practical affairs, particularly in politics, men are needed who combine human experience and interest in human relations with a knowledge of science and technology.

We, the atom and I, have been on friendly terms, until recently. I saw in it the key to the deepest secrets of Nature, and it revealed to me the greatness of creation and the Creator.

For all the communities available to us, there is not one I would want to devote myself to, except for the society of the true searchers, which has very few living members at any time.

I believe there is no philosophical high-road in science, with epistemological signposts. No, we are in a jungle and find our way by trial and error, building our road behind us as we proceed. We do not find signposts at crossroads, but our own scouts erect them, to help the rest.

Einstein would be one of the greatest theoretical physicists of all time even if he had not written a single line on relativity.

If alpha [the fine-structure constant] were bigger than it really is, we should not be able to distinguish matter from ether [the vacuum, nothingness], and our task to disentangle the natural laws would be hopelessly difficult. The fact however that alpha has just its value 1/137 is certainly no chance but itself a law of nature. It is clear that the explanation of this number must be the central problem of natural philosophy.

To come now to the last point: can we call something with which the concepts of position and motion cannot be associated in the usual way, a thing, or a particle? And if not, what is the reality which our theory has been invented to describe?

The answer to this is no longer physics, but philosophy, and to deal with it thoroughly would mean going far beyond the bounds of this lecture. I have given my views on it elsewhere. Here I will only say that I am emphatically in favour of the retention of the particle idea. Naturally, it is necessary to redefine what is meant. For this, well-developed concepts are available which appear in mathematics under the name of invariants in transformations. Every object that we perceive appears in innumerable aspects. The concept of the object is the invariant of all these aspects. From this point of view, the present universally used system of concepts in which particles and waves appear simultaneously, can be completely justified. The latest research on nuclei and elementary particles has led us, however, to limits beyond which this system of concepts itself does not appear to suffice.

The lesson to be learned from what I have told of the origin of quantum mechanics is that probable refinements of mathematical methods will not suffice to produce a satisfactory theory, but that somewhere in our doctrine is hidden a concept, unjustified by experience, which we must eliminate to open up the road.