David Mermin quotes
-
“If I were forced to sum up in one sentence what the Copenhagen interpretation says to me, it would be 'Shut up and calculate!”
-- David MerminSource : N. David Mermin (2016). “Why Quark Rhymes with Pork: And Other Scientific Diversions”, p.38, Cambridge University Press
-
“I am awaiting the day when people remember the fact that discovery does not work by deciding what you want and then discovering it.”
-- David MerminSource : N. David Mermin (2016). “Why Quark Rhymes with Pork: And Other Scientific Diversions”, p.184, Cambridge University Press
-
“...contemporary physicists come in two varieties. Type 1 physicists are bothered by EPR and Bell's Theorem. Type 2 (the majority) are not, but one has to distinguish two subvarieties. Type 2a physicists explain why they are not bothered. Their explanations tend either to miss the point entirely (like Born's to Einstein) or to contain physical assertions that can be shown to be false. Type 2b are not bothered and refuse to explain why.”
-- David Mermin -
“Over the past fifty years or so, scientists have allowed the conventions of expression available to them to become entirely too confining.”
-- David MerminSource : N. David Mermin (1990). “Boojums All the Way Through: Communicating Science in a Prosaic Age”, p.11, Cambridge University Press
-
-
“coincident with the explosive growth of research, the art of writing science suffered a grave setback, and the stultifying convention descended that the best scientific prose should sound like a non-human author addressing a mechanical reader. ... We injure ourselves when we fail to make our discipline as clear and vibrant as we can to students - prospective scientists - and to the public who pay the taxes.”
-- David MerminSource : N. David Mermin (1990). “Boojums All the Way Through: Communicating Science in a Prosaic Age”, p.12, Cambridge University Press
-
“An extrapolation of its present rate of growth reveals that in the not too distant future Physical Review will fill bookshelves at a speed exceeding that of light. This is not forbidden by general relativity since no information is being conveyed.”
-- David Mermin -
“One of the most beautiful papers in physics that I know of is yours in the American Journal of Physics.”
-- David MerminSource : N. David Mermin (1990). “Boojums All the Way Through: Communicating Science in a Prosaic Age”, p.15, Cambridge University Press
-
“Everything, no matter how evident or obvious, should be doubted, questioned, viewed with suspicion....There is much to be gained from the discovery that one has been deeply, persistently, and utterly wrong.”
-- David Mermin -
-
Source : What to Listen for in Music (1939) ch. 2
-
“Faith does not increase, nor does it decrease; because a diminution in it would be unbelief.”
-
“The Giants were supposed to have a new motto, 'Shut up and deal.'”
-
“One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up.”
-
Source : Caroline B. Cooney (2012). “The Time Travelers: Volume One”, p.142, Laurel Leaf
You may also like:
-
Anton Zeilinger
Physicist -
Asher Peres
Physicist -
John Stewart Bell
Physicist -
John Ziman
Physicist -
Lev Landau
Physicist -
Philip Warren Anderson
Physicist