David Goodstein Quotes & Sayings

The key to teaching anything is to remember what it was like not to understand that thing. That's a very hard thing to do. Every time you come to understand something you didn't understand before, you are transformed. You become a different person from who you were before. The key to teaching someone else to understand that same thing is to remember your former, untransformed self. If you can do that, I think you can teach anything, even physics. — David Goodstein

No matter what else happens, this is the century in which we must learn to live without fossil fuel. — David Goodstein

Civilization as we know it will come to an end sometime in this century unless we can find a way to live without fossil fuels. — David Goodstein

Ludwig Boltzmann, who spent much of his life studying statistical mechanics, died in 1906 by his own hand. Paul Ehrenfest, carrying on the work, died similarly in 1933. Now it is our turn to study statistical mechanics. — David Goodstein

The world will soon start to run out of conventionally produced, cheap oil ... . We [will] start to run out of all fossil fuels by the end of this century. — David Goodstein