Richard Feynman Quotes

I think a power to do something is of value. Whether the result is a good thing or a bad thing depends on how it is used, but the power is a value.

"Another most interesting change in the ideas and philosophy of science
brought about by quantum mechanics is this: it is not possible to predict exactly
what will happen in any circumstance. For example, it is possible to arrange an
atom which is ready to emit light, and we can measure when it has emitted light
by picking up a photon particle, which we shall describe shortly. We cannot,
however, predict when it is going to emit the light or, with several atoms, which
one is going to. You may say that this is because there are some internal "wheels"
which we have not looked at closely enough. No, there are no internal wheels;
nature, as we understand it today, behaves in such a way that it is fundamentally
impossible to make a precise prediction of exactly what will happen in a given
experiment."

I want to build a billion tiny factories, models of each other, which are manufacturing simultaneously… The principles of physics, as far as I can see, do not speak against the possibility of maneuvering things atom by atom. It is not an attempt to violate any laws; it is something, in principle, that can be done; but in practice, it has not been done because we are too big.

Once you start doubting, just like you’re supposed to doubt, you ask me if the science is true. You say no, we don’t know what’s true, we’re trying to find out and everything is possibly wrong.

I really can't do a good job, any job, of explaining magnetic force in terms of something you're more familiar with, because I do not understand it in terms of something you are more familiar with.

There are thousands of years in the past, and there is an unknown amount of time in the future. There are all kinds of opportunities, and there are all kinds of dangers.

You have to have absolute confidence. Keep right on going, and nothing will happen.

Is no one inspired by our present picture of the universe? This value of science remains unsung by singers, you are reduced to hearing not a song or poem, but an evening lecture about it. This is not yet a scientific age.

Now we have a problem. We can deduce, often, from one part of physics like the law of gravitation, a principle which turns out to be much more valid than the derivation. This doesn't happen in mathematics, that the theorems come out in places where they're not supposed to be!

I think, however, that there isn't any solution to this problem of education other than to realize that the best teaching can be done only when there is a direct individual relationship between a student and a good teacher — - a situation in which the student discusses the ideas, thinks about the things, and talks about the things.

Some people say, How can you live without knowing? I do not know what they mean. I always live without knowing. That is easy. How you get to know is what I want to know.

"More was discovered about the electrical force. The natural interpretation
of electrical interaction is that two objects simply attract each other: plus against
minus. However, this was discovered to be an inadequate idea to represent it.
A more adequate representation of the situation is to say that the existence of the
positive charge, in some sense, distorts, or creates a "condition" in space, so that
when we put the negative charge in, it feels a force. This potentiality for produc-
ing a force is called an electric field."

I want you to think of an arrow in another way... Here is an arrow... Now if we multiply, you have to think in a different way than for adding. There's an arrow... and imagine there's a [different] standard arrow... always horizontal and has unit length, that's the standard unit arrow. Now suppose I have a second arrow and I want to multiply them... [W]hat do I mean by multiplying? ...Let me first describe this [first] arrow [number 1] ...compare it to the standard arrow and ask for the relation... You can turn... and shrink it. So an arrow describes... how much I have to shrink the standard, and how much I have to rotate it to get the arrow I want. Now multiplication of arrows means that you do these rotations and shrinkings in succession. ...Now if I take this arrow [#2] ...this red [arrow #3] is the product [of arrow #1 and arrow #2].... It bears the same geometric relationship to the purple arrow [#2] as the blue one [arrow number 1] bears to the black one [standard arrow]. In other words it's supposed to be turned the same degree and shrunk the same degree as the blue one [arrow #2] is to the black [standard] one. In other words this [arrow #1] is to that [standard arrow], as this [arrow #3] arrow is to that [arrow #2].

I, therefore, did learn a lesson: The female mind is capable of understanding analytic geometry. Those people who have for years been insisting (in the face of all obvious evidence to the contrary) that the male and female are equally capable of rational thought may have something. The difficulty may just be that we have never yet discovered a way to communicate with the female mind. If it is done in the right way, you may be able to get something out of it.

Spanish…then I discovered I was going to Brazil…” Now I wanted to say, “So, I learned Portuguese,” but I couldn’t think of the word for “so.” I knew how to make BIG words,