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Niels Henrik David Bohr
(1885 - 1962)
Danish physicist.
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Science Quotes by Niels Henrik David Bohr (13)
Contraria sunt complementa.
Opposites are complementary.
Opposites are complementary.
— Niels Henrik David Bohr
Motif on Niels Bohr's coat of arms.
See also: | Aphorism (8)
But, but, but ... if anybody says he can think about quantum theory without getting giddy it merely shows that he hasn't understood the first thing about it!
— Niels Henrik David Bohr
Quoted in Otto R. Frisch, What Little I Remember (1979), 95.
How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress.
— Niels Henrik David Bohr
Quoted in R. Moore, Niels Bohr, the Man and the Scientist (1967), 140.
If we couldn't laugh at ourselves, that would be the end of everything.
— Niels Henrik David Bohr
Comment made to Professor Erik Riidinger, 1962. Quotation supplied and translated by Professor Erik Rüdinger, Niels Bohr Archive.
See also: | Aphorism (8)
It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about Nature.
— Niels Henrik David Bohr
Quoted in Aage Petersen, 'The Philosophy of Niels Bohr', Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 1963, 19, 12.
Predictions can be very difficult—especially about the future.
— Niels Henrik David Bohr
Quoted in H. Rosovsky, The University: An Owners Manual (1991), 147. It is said that Bohr used to quote this saying to illustrate the differences between Danish and Swedish humour. Bohr always attributed the saying to Robert Storm Petersen (1882-1949), a well-known Danish artist and writer. However, the saying did NOT originate from Petersen. It may have been said in the Danish Parliament between 1935 and 1939 [Information supplied courtesy of Professor Erik Rüdinger, Niels Bohr Archive, Copenhagen].
The existence of life must be considered as an elementary fact that can not be explained, but must be taken as a starting point in biology, in a similar way as the quantum of action, which appears as an irrational element from the point of view of classical mechanical physics, taken together with the existence of elementary particles, forms the foundation of atomic physics. The asserted impossibility of a physical or chemical explanation of the function peculiar to life would in this sense be analogous to the insufficiency of the mechanical analysis for the understanding of the stability of atoms.
— Niels Henrik David Bohr
'Light and Life', Nature, 1933, 131, 458.
The old saying of the two kinds of truth. To the one kind belongs statements so simple and clear that the opposite assertion obviously could not be defended. The other kind, the so-called 'deep truths', are statements in which the opposite also contains deep truth.
— Niels Henrik David Bohr
Niels Bohr, 'Discussion with Einstein on Epistemological Problems in Atomic Physics', in P. A. Schilpp (ed.), Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist (1949), 240.
See also: | Truth (125)
The present state of atomic theory is characterized by the fact that we not only believe the existence of atoms to be proved beyond a doubt, but also we even believe that we have an intimate knowledge of the constituents of the individual atoms.
— Niels Henrik David Bohr
'The structure of the atom', Nobel Lecture, 11 December 1922. In Nobel Lectures: Physics 1922-1941 (1998), 5.
What is that we human beings ultimately depend on? We depend on our words. We are suspended in language. Our task is to communicate experience and ideas to others.
— Niels Henrik David Bohr
Quoted in Aage Petersen, 'The Philosophy of Niels Bohr', Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 1963, 19, 10.
When it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry.
— Niels Henrik David Bohr
Quoted in K. C. Cole, 'On Imagining the Unseeable', Discover, 1982, 3, 70.
When searching for harmony in life one must never forget that in the drama of existence we are ourselves both actors and spectators.
— Niels Henrik David Bohr
Niels Bohr, 'Discussion with Einstein on Epistemological Problems in Atomic Physics', in P. A. Schilpp (ed.), Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist (1949), 236.
See also: | Life (60)
You must come to Copenhagen to work with us. We like people who can actually perform thought experiments!
— Niels Henrik David Bohr
Said to Otto Frisch. Quoted in Otto R. Frisch, What Little I Remember (1979), 76.
See also: | Experiment (115)
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