Wilczek Frank Quotes & Sayings

No." Kanin's voice was suddenly hard, terrifying. "You are simply using your demon to hide from what you really feel. Because you are afraid of what that means, that it might be painful. It is far easier to be a monster than to confront the truth. — Julie Kagawa

I believe that everything you've said is not even wrong. — Frank Wilczek

We can roll up two-dimensional graphene to make one-dimensional tubes, the so-called nanotubes. This can be done in many ways, giving nanotubes with different radii and pitches (see plate FF). Nanotubes that differ only slightly in geometry can have radically different physical properties. It is a triumph of quantum theory that these delicate properties can be predicted unambiguously, purely through calculation, and that they agree with experimental measurements. — Frank Wilczek

For us, the great conclusion is this: all the colors can be obtained from any one of them, by motion, or, as we say, by making Galilean transformations. Because Galilean transformations are symmetries of the laws of Nature, any color is fully equivalent to any other. They all emerge as different views of the same thing, seen from different but equally valid perspectives. — Frank Wilczek

Theorists write all the popular books on science: Heinz Pagels, Frank Wilczek, Stephen Hawking, Richard Feynman, et al. And why not? They have all that spare time. — Leon M. Lederman

The human mind is our ultimate sense organ. Mind has discovered that there are invisible infinities hidden in light. Our perception of color projects the doubly infinite-dimensional space of physical color onto the three-dimensional wall of our inner Cave. — Frank Wilczek

As Nobel laureate physicist Frank Wilczek has put it, "The answer to the ancient question, 'Why is there something rather than nothing?' would then be that 'nothing' is unstable." ... In short, the natural state of affairs is something rather than nothing. An empty universe requires supernatural intervention
not a full one. Only by the constant action of an agent outside the universe, such as God, could a state of nothingness be maintained. The fact that we have something is just what we would expect if there is no God. — Victor J. Stenger

Very strange people, physicists, " he said as soon as they were outside again. "In my experience the ones who aren't actually dead are in some way very ill. — Douglas Adams

Yet it is beautiful to discover that there's another chapter to the story, where we discover deep unity beneath, and supporting, the diversity of appearance. All colors are one thing, seen in different states of motion. That is science's brilliantly poetic answer to Keats's complaint that science "unweaves a rainbow. — Frank Wilczek

We are not born innocent, simply unmeasured ... Until the outside is inflicted on the inside, then the brutal war begins. We are not born to compassion either - large wide eyes and sweet demeanor notwithstanding. — Steven Erikson

I'm convinced that art and science activate the same parts of the brain. — Frank Wilczek

One of them hissed-not the hiss of a cat, a long, steady tone-more like the hiss of air escaping the rubber raft that is all that lies between you and a dark sea full of sharks, the hiss of your life leaking out at the seams. — Christopher Moore

The main point is that quantum reality is REALLY, REALLY BIG. We'll build up a toy model that describes social life among the spins of just five particles, and we'll discover that it fills out a space of thirty-two dimensions. — Frank Wilczek

The legendary Danish physicist Niels Bohr distinguished two kinds of truths. An ordinary truth is a statement whose opposite is a falsehood. A profound truth is a statement whose opposite is also a profound truth. — Frank Wilczek

In physics, you don't have to go around making trouble for yourself - nature does it for you. — Frank Wilczek

What I liked in anthropology was its inexhaustible faculty of negation, its relentless definition of man, as though he were no better than God, in terms of what he is not. But my ideas on this subject were always horribly confused, for my knowledge of men was scant and the meaning of being beyond me. — Samuel Beckett

Our deepest description of physical reality, in quantum theory and in the four Core Theories of forces (gravitation, electromagnetism, strong and weak forces), bring in concepts that call to mind yin and yang. Niels Bohr, an influential founder of quantum theory, saw strong parallels between his concept of complementarity and the unified duality of yin-yang. He designed a coat of arms for himself, in which the yin-yang figures centrally (see figure 42, page 324). Our Core Theories center on the interplay between lightlike space filling fluids (yang) and substances (yin) they both direct and respond to. — Frank Wilczek

In short: the space of color information is infinite-dimensional, but we perceive, as color, only a three-dimensional surface, onto which those infinite dimensions project. — Frank Wilczek

There was a man who killed a buffalo bull to no purpose, only he wanted the blood on his hands. — N. Scott Momaday

Dynamical beauty transcends specific objects and phenomena, and invites us to imagine the expanse of possibilities. For example, the sizes and shapes of actual planetary orbits are not simple. They are neither the (compounded) circles of Aristotle, Ptolemy, and Nicolaus Copernicus, nor even the more nearly accurate ellipses of Kepler, but rather curves that must be calculated numerically, as functions of time, evolving in complicated ways that depend on the positions and masses of the Sun and the other planets. There is great beauty and simplicity here, but it is only fully evident when we understand the deep design. The appearance of particular objects does not exhaust the beauty of the laws. — Frank Wilczek

QED [quantum electrodynamics] reduces ... "all of chemistry and most of physics," to one basic interaction, the fundamental coupling of a photon to electric charge. The strength of this coupling remains, however, as a pure number, the so-called fine-structure constant, which is a parameter of QED that QED itself is powerless to predict. — Frank Wilczek

Despite its overwhelming virtues, the Core Theory is imperfect. Indeed, precisely because it is such a faithful description of reality, we must, in pursuit of our Question, hold it to the highest esthetic standards. So scrutinized, the Core Theory reveals flaws. Its equations are lopsided, and they contain several loosely connected pieces. Furthermore, the Core Theory does not account for so-called dark matter and dark energy. Although those tenuous forms of mater are negligible in our immediate neighborhood, they persist in the interstellar and intergalactic voids, and thereby come to dominate the overall mass of the Universe. For those and other reasons, we cannot remain satisfied. — Frank Wilczek

All the things that have happened to you, all them years. Where you've been and who you've been with. All the different people I've met. I always seem to get on with them. If I see people I always talk to people. That's just what I do. — Craig Taylor

Many of my heroes, like Galileo, Maxwell, Newton and, less explicitly, Einstein thought what they were doing was finding out what God is. All of them had this inspiration that if you want to find out what God is, you have to look at his work. — Frank Wilczek

In physics, your solution should convince a reasonable person. In math, you have to convince a person who's trying to make trouble. Ultimately, in physics, you're hoping to convince Nature. And I've found Nature to be pretty reasonable. — Frank Wilczek

I was spoiled and I was arrogant. I was very demanding, had an overblown image of who I was and got a reputation for being difficult. And rightfully so. — Judge Reinhold

The brain rewards us for interacting with beautiful things. In this way, evolution wants to encourage us to do what is good for us. — Frank Wilczek

I went off to college planning to major in math or philosophy
of course, both those ideas are really the same idea. — Frank Wilczek

She tends to get distracted. Her mind wanders and amuses itself elsewhere. — Terry Pratchett

Transient and Eternal
The state of the world is in flux, and every object within it is subject to change.
Concepts live outside of time and, because All Things Are Number, liberate us from it. — Frank Wilczek

An ordinary mistake is one that leads to a dead end, while a profound mistake is one that leads to progress. Anyone can make an ordinary mistake, but it takes a genius to make a profound mistake. — Frank Wilczek

I could feel the urgency in the driver's voice as he prodded the horses to greater momentum. The rumble of thunder could be heard rolling through the mountains as foreboding dark clouds rolled overhead obscuring the starry sky. The sun vanished with one last glimmer through the pine trees, then night took possession of the earth. — Rhiannon Frater

If you don't make mistakes, you're not working on hard enough problems. And that's a mistake. — Frank Wilczek

I've always wanted to be a mom. — Holly Madison

Two obsessions are the hallmarks of Nature's artistic style:
Symmetry- a love of harmony, balance, and proportion
Economy- satisfaction in producing an abundance of effects from very limited means — Frank Wilczek

In all of its varied and protean forms, love is the tether binding our whirling lives. Without that biological anchor, all of us are flung outward, singly into the encroaching dark. (225) — Thomas Lewis

The answer to the ancient question 'Why is there something rather than nothing?' would then be that 'nothing' is unstable. — Frank Wilczek

When religion talks about our aspirations and our sense of morality, I do not believe that science can contradict it. However, when religion contradicts science on matters of fact, religion must yield. — Frank Wilczek

In the US and Europe over the last year we've been focused on the prices of gasoline at the pump. While many worry about filling their gas tanks, many others around the world are struggling to fill their stomachs. And it's getting more and more difficult every day. — Robert Zoellick

Knowing how to calculate something is not the same as understanding it. Having a computer to calculate the origin of mass for us may be convincing, but is not satisfying. Fortunately we can understand it too. — Frank Wilczek

If an energetic and powerful Creator made the world, it could be that what moved Him - or Her, or Them, or It - to create was precisely an impulse to make something beautiful. — Frank Wilczek