If we ask, for instance, whether the position of the electron remains the same, we must say 'no'; if we ask whether the electron's position changes with time, we must say 'no'; if we ask whether the electron is at rest, we must say 'no'; if we ask whether it is in motion, we must say 'no'.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

Categorized in : Position Instance Electrons

The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

inspirational life funny

Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds. (quoting the Bhagavad-Gita after witnessing the first Nuclear explosion.)

J. Robert Oppenheimer

gita nuclear world

There must be no barriers for freedom of inquiry... There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

errors doubt science

When we deny the EVIL within ourselves, we dehumanize ourselves, and we deprive ourselves not only of our own destiny but of any possibility of dealing with the EVIL of others.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

evil-within possibility destiny

No man should escape our universities without knowing how little he knows.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

education graduation inspirational

If atomic bombs are to be added as new weapons to the arsenals of a warring world, or to the arsenals of nations preparing for war, then the time will come when mankind will curse the names of Los Alamos and Hiroshima. The people must unite or they will perish.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

names war science

Access to the Vedas is the greatest privilege this century may claim over all previous centuries.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

atomic-weapons vedas may

There are no secrets about the world of nature. There are secrets about the thoughts and intentions of men.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

secret men world

We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and, to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

trying science people

Genius sees the answer before the question.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

genius answers

There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry... There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors. Our political life is also predicated on openness. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it and that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. And we know that as long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost, and science can never regress.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

freedom men science

Any man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

mistake men funny

Both the man of science and the man of art live always at the edge of mystery, surrounded by it. Both, as a measure of their creation, have always had to do with the harmonization of what is new with what is familiar, with the balance between novelty and synthesis, with the struggle to make partial order in total chaos.... This cannot be an easy life.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

struggle science art

The open society, the unrestricted access to knowledge, the unplanned and uninhibited association of men for its furtherance-these are what may make a vast, complex, ever growing, ever changing, ever more specialized and expert technological world, nevertheless a world of human community.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

men science knowledge

There are children playing in the streets who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

inspirational science children

It is perfectly obvious that the whole world is going to hell. The only possible chance that it might not is that we do not attempt to prevent it from doing so.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

chance might world

We may be likened to two scorpions in a bottle, each capable of killing the other, but only at the risk of his own life.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

scorpions risk two

Everyone wants rather to be pleasing to women and that desire is not altogether, though it is very largely, a manifestation of vanity. But one cannot aim to be pleasing to women any more than one can aim to have taste, or beauty of expression, or happiness; for these things are not specific aims which one may learn to attain; they are descriptions of the adequacy of one's living. To try to be happy is to try to build a machine with no other specification than that it shall run noiselessly.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

vanity expression running

Science is not everything, but science is very beautiful.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

very-beautiful beautiful science

The people of this world must unite or they will perish.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

this-world people world