For a physicist mathematics is not just a tool by means of which phenomena can be calculated, it is the main source of concepts and principles by means of which new theories can be created. Freeman Dyson More Quotes by Freeman Dyson More Quotes From Freeman Dyson I had the good luck a few years ago to visit the archeological site of Zippori in Israel ... I could see here displayed the Greek culture that Jesus decisively rejected, the same Greek culture that infiltrated the Christian religion soon after his death and has dominated Christianity ever since. Freeman Dyson good-luckchristianjesus In the end it is how you fight, as much as why you fight, that makes your cause good or bad. Freeman Dyson causesfightingends As finite creatures who think and feel, we can create islands of meaning in the sea of information. Freeman Dyson seaislandsthinking Most of what we see in the universe is dust. Freeman Dyson universedust Technology must be guided and driven by ethics if it is to do more than provide new toys for the rich. Freeman Dyson ethicstoystechnology And somehow mother nature manages to create this incredible biosphere, to create this incredibly rich environment of animals and plants with this amazingly small amount of data. Freeman Dyson datamotheranimal The analogies between science and art are very good as long as you are talking about the creation and the performance. The creation is certainly very analogous. The aesthetic pleasure of the craftsmanship of performance is also very strong in science. Freeman Dyson strongtalkingart The seeds from Ramanujan's garden have been blowing on the wind and have been sprouting all over the landscape. Freeman Dyson legacygardenwind The ground of science was littered with the corpses of dead unified theories. Freeman Dyson unifiedcorpsestheory The Ph.D. system was designed for a job in academics. And it works really well if you really want to be an academic, and the system actually works quite well. So for people who have the gift and like to go spend their lives as scholars, it's fine. But the trouble is that it's become a kind of a meal ticket - you can't get a job if you don't have a Ph.D. Freeman Dyson mealsjobspeople As far as I can see, our concentration of different abilities in one species - there's nothing I can see that in this Darwinian evolution that could've done that. So it seems to be a miracle of some sort. Freeman Dyson miracledifferentdone It's us that's really amazing. Freeman Dyson really-amazing Nothing is boring if you look at carefully. Freeman Dyson boringifslooks All the time worrying about pushing the children and getting them to be mathematically literate and all that stuff. It's terribly hard on the kids. It's also hard on the teachers. And I think it's totally useless. Freeman Dyson teacherkidschildren The world is just - it's wonderful when you look at all the detail. It's just amazing. Freeman Dyson detailslooksworld Of course, long-distance running has to do with the fact that we're hunters. Freeman Dyson distancerunninglong The science window gives you a view of the world, and the religion window gives you a totally different view. You can't look at both of them at the same time, but they're both true. Freeman Dyson differentviewsgiving I think the biggest misconception is that everybody has to learn mathematics. That seems to be a complete mistake. Freeman Dyson mathematicsmistakethinking You could say science also is an art. Freeman Dyson art Mathematics is really an art, not a science. You could say science also is an art. So I would say the difference is something you can't really describe - you can only recognize. You hear somebody playing the violin, and it was Fritz Kreisler or it was somebody else, and you can tell the difference. It is so in almost every art. We just don't understand why it is that there are just a few people who are just completely off the scale and the rest of them are just mediocre. And we don't know why. But I say it's certainly true of mathematics. Freeman Dyson mathematicspeopleart
