Eugene Wigner Quotes

The distinction between mathematics and science is pretty well settled. It remains mysterious to us why mathematics that is invented for reasons having nothing to do with nature often turns out to be useful in physical theories. In a famous article,8 the physicist Eugene Wigner has written of the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics. ~ Steven Weinberg

But why has our physical world revealed such extreme mathematical regularity that astronomy superhero Galileo Galilei proclaimed nature to be "a book written in the language of mathematics," and Nobel Laureate Eugene Wigner stressed the "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the physical sciences" as a mystery demanding an explanation? ~ Max Tegmark

The full meaning of life, the collective meaning of all human desires, is fundamentally a mystery beyond our grasp. As a young man, I chafed at this state of affairs. But by now I have made peace with it. I even feel a certain honor to be associated with such a mystery. ~ Eugene Wigner

When the rods were pushed back in and the clicking had died down, we suddenly experiences a let-down feeling, for all of us understood the language of the counter. Even though we had anticipated the success of the experiment, its accomplishment had a deep impact on us. For some time we had known that we were about to unlock a giant; still we could not escape an eerie feeling when we had actually done it. We felt as, I presume, everyone feels who has done something that he knowns will have very far-reaching consequences which he cannot foresee. ~ Eugene Wigner

OK, so the computer has understood, but what about me ? ~ Eugene Wigner

The world is very complicated and it is clearly impossible for the human mind to understand it completely. Man has therefore devised an artifice which permits the complicated nature of the world to be blamed on something which is called accidental and thus permits him to abstract a domain in which simple laws can be found. ~ Eugene Wigner

In this book, you will encounter various interesting geometries that have been thought to hold the keys to the universe. Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) suggested that "Nature's great book is written in mathematical symbols." Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) modeled the solar system with Platonic solids such as the dodecahedron. In the 1960s, physicist Eugene Wigner (1902-1995) was impressed with the "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences." Large Lie groups, like E8-which is discussed in the entry "The Quest for Lie Group E8 (2007)"- may someday help us create a unified theory of physics. in 2007, Swedish American cosmologist Max Tegmark published both scientific and popular articles on the mathematical universe hypothesis, which states that our physical reality is a mathematical structure-in other words, our universe in not just described by mathematics-it is mathematics. ~ Clifford A. Pickover

It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem. But I would like to understand it too. ~ Eugene Wigner

In science, it is not speed that is the most important. It is the dedication, the commitment, the interest and the will to know something and to understand it - these are the things that come first. ~ Eugene Wigner

There is no natural phenomenon that is comparable with the sudden and apparently accidentally timed development of science, except perhaps the condensation of a super-saturated gas or the explosion of some unpredictable explosives. ~ Eugene Wigner

The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. We should be grateful for it and hope that it will remain valid in future research and that it will extend, for better or for worse, to our pleasure, even though perhaps also to our bafflement, to wide branches of learning. ~ Eugene Paul Wigner

Mathematics is the science of skillful operations with concepts and rules invented just for this purpose. ~ Eugene Wigner

The enormous usefulness of mathematics in the natural sciences is something bordering on the mysterious and ... there is no rational explanation for it. - Eugene Wigner, 1960 ~ Max Tegmark

Youth may be admired for vigor, but gray hair gives prestige to old age. ~ Eugene H. Peterson

It's a struggle to achieve balance. It can be a futile search for the absolute truth or an endless certainty of lies. ~ Lisa Eugene

It wasn't the fog I minded, Cathleen. I really love fog. [ ... ] It hides you from the world and the world from you. You feel that everything has changed, and nothing is what it seemed to be. No one can find or touch you any more. ~ Eugene O'Neill

The unholy alliance of religion and politics collaborated in finding Jesus guilty. ~ Eugene H. Peterson

Freedom is a difficult burden to bear in an absurd world. ~ Eugene Webb

Jesus is the descent of God to our lives, just as they are, not the ascent of our lives to God, hoping he might approve when he sees how hard we try. ~ Eugene H. Peterson

There is a long and well-documented tradition of wisdom in the Christian faith that any venture into leadership, whether by laity or clergy, is hazardous. it is necessary that there be leaders, but woe to those who become leaders. ~ Eugene H. Peterson

One may not give one's soul to a devil of hate - and remain forever scatheless. ~ Eugene O'Neill

We may thank God that we can feel pain and know sadness, for these are the human sentiments that constitute our glory as well as our grief. ~ Eugene Kennedy

FIRE CHIEF: Life is very simple, really. [To the Smiths:] Go on and kiss each other. ~ Eugene Ionesco

This book is a guide to living life the right way, like the Bible is for crazies and weak people (JK, bro), this book should be to you. ~ Eugene Mirman

The minute the church and pastors start saying what do people want and then giving it to them, we betray our calling. We're called to have people follow Jesus. We're called to have people learn how to forgive their enemies. ~ Eugene H. Peterson

The so-called conscientiousness of the majority of painters is only perfection applied to the art of boring. ~ Eugene Delacroix

Congregation is composed of people, who, upon entering a church, leave behind what people on the street name or call them. ~ Eugene H. Peterson

We live most days and most of the hours of those days in a world permeated with the making and purchasing of idols. ~ Eugene H. Peterson

I am so far from being a pessimist ... on the contrary, in spite of my scars, I am tickled to death at life. ~ Eugene O'Neill

Once launched in the dizzy path of jealousy, lovers invariably give full sway to their imaginations and entertain the wildest ideas. ~ Eugene Sue

A man's work is in danger of deteriorating when he thinks he has found the one best formula for doing it. If he thinks that, he is likely to feel that all he needs is merely to go on repeating himself ... so long as a person is searching for better ways of doing his work, he is fairly safe. ~ Eugene O'Neill

The world is no longer man's theatre. Man has been made into a helpless spectator. The two evil forces he has created- science and the state- have combined into one monstrous body. We're at the mercy of our monster... ~ Eugene Burdick

In every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the People.
(Canton, OH, Anti-War Speech, June 16, 1918) ~ Eugene V. Debs

It is useful to reflect that the word 'liturgy' did not originate in church or worship settings. In the Greek world it referred to publish service, what a citizen did for the community. As the church used the word in relation to worship, ti kept this 'public service' quality - working for the community on behalf of or following orders from God. As we worship God, revealed personally as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in our Holy Scriptures, we are not doing something apart form or away from the non-Scripture=reading world; we do it for the world - bringing all creation and all history before God, presenting our bodies and all the beauties and needs of humankind before God in praise and intercession, penetrating and serving the world for whom Christ died in the strong name of the Trinity. ~ Eugene H. Peterson

Inexperienced players have a fear of this piece, which seems to them enigmatic, mysterious, and astonishing in its power. We must admit that it has remarkable characteristics which compel respect and occasionally surprise the most wary players. ~ Eugene Znosko-Borovsky

As she fell, Esther wasn't worried about being blown off course and plummeting into the rocks below. She wasn't worried about hitting the shallows and pin diving to the ocean floor and shattering her spine. She wasn't even worried about Cthulhu. (Okay, maybe a little.) What she worried about was Eugene's willingness to jump. The way he glanced down at the water far below and looked at it like it was home. The way he stepped lightly from the cliff's edge, and the way he fell through the air faster than she did, dragged down by earth's magnetic field. The way he flickered in the sunlight as he hit the water, the same way Tyler Durden flashed on-screen four times before you saw him solidly. Foreshadowing the twist to come. Eugene was afraid of demons, and monsters, and above all the dark, but he was not afraid of death. That scared her more than anything. ~ Krystal Sutherland

Of course, not everything is unsayable in words, only the living truth. ~ Eugene Ionesco

In 1922 everything changed again. The Eskimo pie was invented; James Joyce's Ulysses was printed in Paris; snow fell on Mauna Loa, Hawaii; Babe Ruth signed a three-year contract with the New York Yankees; Eugene O'Neill was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama; Frederick Douglass's home was dedicated as a national shrine; former heavyweight champion of the world Jack Johnson invented the wrench ... ~ Bernice L. McFadden

This time it was true death we heard - oblivion, void, the absolute - and the beauty of the experience was rooted in our sadness in acknowledging living within it. That's what True Death would say. Not I'm coming for you but You always dwell within me. ~ Eugene Lim

If we went back to the imprisonment rate we had in the early '70s, something like four out of five people employed in the prison industry would lose their jobs. That's what you're up against. ~ Eugene Jarecki

Her entire life she'd struggled to lose the extra weight that enjoyed residing at five foot four Maggie Lawson. PO Box ASS, Zip code THIGHS. Seems it was its permanent address, and she'd come to accept the houseguests. ~ Lisa Eugene

America leads the world at present in golden-calf production. ~ Eugene H. Peterson

Never have I found the limits of the photographic potential. Every horizon, upon being reached, reveals another beckoning in the distance. Always, I am on the threshold. ~ W. Eugene Smith

Intonation is important, especially when it is cold. ~ Eugene Ormandy

I was astonished to learn in one of these best-selling books (on church life) that the size of my church parking lot had far more to do with how things fared in my congregation than my choice of texts in preaching. I was being lied to and I knew it. ~ Eugene H. Peterson

I am guilty of believing that the human race can be humanized and enriched in every spiritual inference through the saner and more beneficent processes of peaceful persuasion applied to material problems rather than through wars, riots and bloodshed. ~ Eugene V. Debs

A further aspect I should like to discuss is what I call the practice of infinite escape clauses. I believe we developed this practice to avoid facing the conclusion that the probability of self-reproducing state is zero. This is what we must conclude from classical quantum mechanical principles as Wigner demonstrated ~ Sidney W. Fox

Theatre is simply what cannot be expressed by any other means; a complexity of words, movements, gestures that convey a vision of the world inexpressible in any other way. ~ Eugene Ionesco