Einstein, stop telling God what to do!
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of humility in scientific inquiry and the limits of human understanding.
Niels Bohr's quote is a witty reminder that scientists should not assume they can dictate the workings of the universe or the will of a higher power. It highlights the need for humility in the pursuit of knowledge, acknowledging that there are mysteries and complexities in nature that may remain beyond our comprehension, thereby urging scientists to approach their work with wonder rather than presumption.
In practice
In a lecture on the philosophy of science, one might quote this to encourage students to embrace uncertainty.
When asked ... [about] an underlying quantum world, Bohr would answer, 'There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract quantum physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about Nature.'
An independant reality in the ordinary physical sense can neither be ascribed to the phenomenon nor to the agencies of observation.
An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field.
Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it.
When searching for harmony in life one must never forget that in the drama of existence we are ourselves both actors and spectators.
And anyone who thinks they can talk about quantum theory without feeling dizzy hasn't yet understood the first thing about it.
The universe is very big - there's about 100,000 million galaxies in the universe, so that means an awful lot of stars. And some of them, I'm pretty certain, will have planets where there was life, is life, or maybe will be life. I don't believe we're alone.
It used to be thought that our genes were historically immutable and that it was not possible to imagine a conversation between culture and genetics.
If ever there was a slamming of the door in the face of constructive investigation, it is the word miracle. To a medieval peasant, a radio would have seemed like a miracle.
It is this potential for plasticity of the relatively stereotyped units of the nervous system that endows each of us with our individuality.
I would only have been too pleased if someone had asked me for my data. If you really believed in your data, you wouldn't mind someone looking at it. You should be able to respond that if you don't believe me go out and do the measurements yourself.
The central difficulty lies in the fact that all of the sciences have made such great progress during the last century that they have got quite beyond the reach of man
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