50+ Niels Bohr Quotes From The 1922 Nobel Prize In Physics
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Niels Bohr was a world-renowned Danish physicist, known for his work in the field of quantum mechanics and atomic structure.
One of his most significant statements regarding atomic structure states that electrons move in orbits of definite power but can jump from one to another if they get more energy. His theory about atomic structure is called the Bohr atomic model.
Niels Bohr was awarded the prestigious Nobel Prize in physics in 1922 for his contributions to his field. Learn all about him with these Niels Bohr quotes.
For more great quotes, check out these Max Planck quotes and physics quotes.
The Best Niels Bohr Quotes
Read iconic Niels Bohr quotes from the Danish physicist, including Niels Bohr atom quotes and a quantum physics quote here.
1. "An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field."
- Niels Bohr.
2. "How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress."
- Niels Bohr.
3. "The meaning of life consists in the fact that it makes no sense to say that life has no meaning."
- Niels Bohr.
4. "Every sentence I utter must be understood not as an affirmation, but as a question."
- Niels Bohr.
5. "When it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images."
- Niels Bohr.
6. "Criticism is exactly what I want, and I hope that you will find that the paper has been improved."
- Niels Bohr.
7. "The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth."
- Niels Bohr.
8. "I believe that a closer analysis offers the proper answer to such paradoxes regarding the nature of light as brought forward especially by Lewis."
- Niels Bohr.
9. "Every valuable human being must be a radical and a rebel, for what he must aim at is to make things better than they are."
- Niels Bohr.
10. “There are trivial truths and there are great truths. The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true.”
― Niels Bohr.
11. “We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough.”
― Niels Bohr.
12. "A point not directly referred to in the article but in which I have been very interested lately is the question of the uni-direction of time."
- Niels Bohr.
13. "Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real."
- Niels Bohr.
14. "I am not quite in agreement with your emphasis on the necessity to develop ‘new’ concepts."
- Niels Bohr.
15. "We have not only, as far as I can see, no basis for such a new-fashioning so far, but the ‘old’ empirical concepts appear to me to be inseparably linked to the foundations of the human means of visualization."
- Niels Bohr.
Famous Niels Bohr Quotes
Here are some famous Niels Bohr quotes from the Danish physicist, including Niels Bohr quotes about paradox, Niels Bohr quotes about beauty and Niels Bohr quotes about reality. Which of these Niels Bohr quotes is your favorite?
16. "We have to do with the recognition of an inescapable feature of complementarity that emerges in an analysis of the concept of observation and which in many respects recalls the recognition of the general [feature of] relativity."
- Niels Bohr.
17. "I believe that it is already possible to say that any application of classical concepts that permits an unambiguous definition, may also be ascribed a physical interpretation."
- Niels Bohr.
18. "In the case of interaction between several individuals - and altogether whenever there can be a question of quantization - the uncertainty relations must always be applied with caution."
- Niels Bohr.
19. "The range of values of the variables that may be experimentally ascertained is smaller, compared to the range of values of the individual eigensolutions, the larger the quantum number."
- Niels Bohr.
20. "In this connection the ascertainment that the atom is in a definite state is always associated with a renunciation of the knowledge of the phase of the corresponding eigensolution."
- Niels Bohr.
21. "All knowledge presents itself within a conceptual framework adapted to account for previous experience and that any such frame may prove too narrow to comprehend new experiences."
- Niels Bohr.
22. "If you have a correct statement, then the opposite of a correct statement is of course an incorrect statement, a wrong statement. But when you have a deep truth, then the opposite of a deep truth may again be a deep truth."
- Niels Bohr.
23. "I hope soon in a short note to be able to show that certain paradoxes in the quantum-theoretical treatment of radiation phenomena may be illuminated by the remark that the fixation of a direction of time is intimately related to the concept of observation."
- Niels Bohr.
24. "For a parallel to the lesson of atomic theory regarding the limited applicability of such customary idealizations, we must in fact turn to quite other branches of science…"
- Niels Bohr.
25. "After the many years of struggling in the dark, I feel perhaps especially strongly the fulfilment of the old hopes, brought about by the new discoveries of yourself and others."
- Niels Bohr.
Niels Bohr Quotes On Science
Looking for Niels Bohr quantum mechanics quotes and Niels Bohr quotes about physics? Read on!
26. "Isolated material particles are abstractions, their properties being definable and observable only through their interaction with other systems."
- Niels Bohr.
27. "Technology has advanced more in the last thirty years than in the previous two thousand."
- Niels Bohr.
28. "Our task is not to penetrate the essence of things, the meaning of which we do not know anyway, but rather to develop concepts which allow us to talk in a productive way about phenomena in nature."
- Niels Bohr.
29. "Physics is to be regarded not so much as the study of something a priori given, but rather as the development of methods of ordering and surveying human experience. "
- Niels Bohr.
30. "It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is."
- Niels Bohr.
31. "As the goal of science is to augment and order our experience, every analysis of the conditions of human knowledge must rest on considerations of the character and scope of our means of communication."
- Niels Bohr.
32. "I am absolutely prepared to talk about the spiritual life of an electronic computer: to state that it is reflecting or is in a bad mood…"
- Niels Bohr.
33. “It seems necessary to introduce in the laws in question a quantity foreign to classical electrodynamics, I.e., Planck's constant, or as it is often called, the elementary quantum of action.”
- Niels Bohr.
34. “Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it.”
- Niels Bohr.
35. "In the final analysis mathematics is a mental game that we can play or not play as we choose."
- Niels Bohr.
36. "Opposites are not contradictory but complementary."
- Niels Bohr.
37. “An independent reality in the ordinary physical sense can neither be ascribed to the phenomena nor to the agencies of observation.”
- Niels Bohr.
More Great Niels Bohr Quotes
Learn more from these Niels Bohr quotes.
38. "Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think."
- Niels Bohr.
39. "The measurement we get when we measure something is not a property of the thing measured."
- Niels Bohr.
40. "Stop telling God what to do with his dice."
- Niels Bohr.
41. “In mathematics we can take our inner distance from the content of our statements.
- Niels Bohr.
42. "When searching for harmony in life one must never forget that in the drama of existence we are ourselves both actors and spectators."
- Niels Bohr.
43. "Physics is the belief that a simple and consistent description of nature is possible."
- Niels Bohr.
44. "The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness."
- Niels Bohr.
45. "Physics concerns what we say about nature."
- Niels Bohr.
46. "We are trapped by language to such a degree that every attempt to formulate insight is a play on words."
- Niels Bohr.
47. "We depend on our words. We are suspended in language. Our task is to communicate experience and ideas to others."
- Niels Bohr.
48. “Religion helps to make social life more harmonious; its most important task is to remind us, in the language of pictures and parables, of the wider framework within which our life is set.”
- Niels Bohr.
49. "Truth is something that we can attempt to doubt, and then perhaps, after much exertion, discover that part of the doubt is not justified."
- Niels Bohr.
50. "The exponential increase in advancement will only continue. "
- Niels Bohr.
Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotes for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for Niels Bohr quotes, why not take a look at these Ada Lovelace quotes or Alan Turing quotes too?
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