The Quotable Feynman by Feynman Richard P.; Feynman Michelle

Author:Feynman, Richard P.; Feynman, Michelle
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2017-06-28T16:00:00+00:00

The Quantum World

We physicists are always checking to see if there is something the matter with the theory. That’s the game, because if there is something the matter, it’s interesting! But so far, we have found nothing wrong with the theory of quantum electrodynamics. It is therefore, I would say, the jewel of physics — our proudest possession.

– QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter, p. 8

What I am going to tell you about is what we teach our physics students in the third or fourth year of graduate school — and you think I’m going to explain it to you so you can understand it? No, you’re not going to be able to understand it. Why, then, am I going to bother you with all this? Why are you going to sit here all this time, when you won’t be able to understand what I am going to say? It is my task to convince you not to turn away because you don’t understand it. You see, my physics students don’t understand it. That is because I don’t understand it. Nobody does.

– QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter, p. 9

The science fiction writers who have interpreted my view of the positron as an electron going backward in time have not realized that the theory is completely consistent with causality principles and in no way implies that we can travel backward in time.

– Correspondence with David Paterson (BBC), February 1976

All my mature life I have been trying to distill the strangeness of quantum mechanics into simpler and simpler circumstances. I have given many lectures of ever increasing simplicity and purity.

– Letter to Dr. N. David Mermin, March 1984 (Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track, p. 368)

Maybe gravity is a way that quantum mechanics fails at large distances.

– Letter to Dr. Victor F. Weisskopf, January–February 1961

Before and after are not absolute ideas; they depend on the point of view. It is similar to the question of what is in front and what is in back. If I turn a little bit, I can change the arrangement. Two things may appear to be at the same distance from one man, but appear to be at different distances from another. Likewise, it is true that two events which may appear to be at the same from one point of view may not do so from another. This leads us to the idea of the representation of time as a fourth geometrical dimension.

– From notes for “About Time” program, 1957

I really do believe that quantum mechanics is fundamentally correct, and that all this is simply psychological trouble. It is extremely difficult to get used to it because it’s so much common sense and common knowledge that gets this idea that when you’re not looking at something, it’s either this way or that way. And to be able to say, “By God, you can’t even say it’s either this way or that way when you don’t look at it? But it

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