An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field.
Interpretation
Expertise comes from learning through experience and making mistakes.
This quote by Niels Bohr emphasizes that true expertise is not just about theoretical knowledge, but rather an accumulation of practical experiences, including errors and failures encountered in a specific domain. It highlights the importance of learning from mistakes as a fundamental part of becoming an expert in any field.
In practice
A mentor might use this quote while encouraging students to embrace their mistakes as learning opportunities.
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.
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.
Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.
How do you listen? Do you listen with your projections, through your projection, through your ambitions, desire, fears, anxieties, through hearing only what you want to hear, only what will be satisfactory, what will gratify, what will give comfort, what will for the moment alleviate your suffering? If you listen through the screen of your desires, then you obviously listen to your own voice.
The children would remember for the rest of their lives the august solemnity with which their father, devastated by his prolonged vigil and by the wraith of his imagination, revealed his discovery to them: 'The world is round, like an orange.
The question is not what you look at β but how you look & whether you see.
By watching the mechanics of the mind, you step out of its resistance patterns, and you can then allow the present moment to be.
My opponents make good moves too. Sometimes I don't take these things into consideration
Put a bridle on thy tongue; set a guard before thy lips, lest the words of thine own mouth destroy thy peace... on much speaking cometh repentance, but in silence is safety.
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