Banesh Hoffmann
(6 Sep 1906 - 5 Aug 1986)

English-American mathematician and physicist.

Science Quotes by Banesh Hoffmann (2)

Daddy,' she says, 'which came first, the chicken or the egg?'
Steadfastly, even desperately, we have been refusing to commit ourselves. But our questioner is insistent. The truth alone will satisfy her. Nothing less. At long last we gather up courage and issue our solemn pronouncement on the subject: 'Yes!'
So it is here.
'Daddy, is it a wave or a particle?' 'Yes.'
'Daddy, is the electron here or is it there?'
'Yes.'
'Daddy, do scientists really know what they are talking about?'
'Yes!'
— Banesh Hoffmann
The Strange Story of the Quantum (1947), 156-7.
See also:  |  Electron (27)  |  Particle (13)  |  Quantum Mechanics (8)  |  Wave (13)

It did not cause anxiety that Maxwell's equations did not apply to gravitation, since nobody expected to find any link between electricity and gravitation at that particular level. But now physics was faced with an entirely new situation. The same entity, light, was at once a wave and a particle. How could one possibly imagine its proper size and shape? To produce interference it must be spread out, but to bounce off electrons it must be minutely localized. This was a fundamental dilemma, and the stalemate in the wave-photon battle meant that it must remain an enigma to trouble the soul of every true physicist. It was intolerable that light should be two such contradictory things. It was against all the ideals and traditions of science to harbor such an unresolved dualism gnawing at its vital parts. Yet the evidence on either side could not be denied, and much water was to flow beneath the bridges before a way out of the quandary was to be found. The way out came as a result of a brilliant counterattack initiated by the wave theory, but to tell of this now would spoil the whole story. It is well that the reader should appreciate through personal experience the agony of the physicists of the period. They could but make the best of it, and went around with woebegone faces sadly complaining that on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays they must look on light as a wave; on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, as a particle. On Sundays they simply prayed.
— Banesh Hoffmann
The Strange Story of the Quantum (1947), 42.
See also:  |  Electron (27)  |  Interference (2)  |  Light (39)  |  James Clerk Maxwell (56)  |  Quantum Theory (18)  |  Wave (13)


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