To this day I always insist on working out a problem from the beginning without reading up on it first, a habit that sometimes gets me into trouble b…

- Robert B. Laughlin

The modern concept of the vacuum of space, confirmed every day by experiment, is a relativistic ether.

- Robert B. Laughlin

A person obsessed with ultimate truth is a person asking to be relieved of money.

- Robert B. Laughlin

It is ironic that Einsteins most creative work, the general theory of relativity, should boil down to conceptualizing space as a medium when his orig…

- Robert B. Laughlin

It was at Bell Labs that I first made direct contact with real semiconductor experts and thus began to fully understand what amazing materials they w…

- Robert B. Laughlin

But the need for conflict to expose prejudice and unclear reasoning, which is deeply embedded in my philosophy of science, has its origin in these de…

- Robert B. Laughlin

I was an extremely reclusive and introverted boy.

- Robert B. Laughlin

In parallel with the development of my interests in technical gadgetry I began to acquire a profound love of and respect for the natural world which …

- Robert B. Laughlin

The questions worth asking, in other words, come not from other people but from nature, and are for the most part delicate things easily drowned out …

- Robert B. Laughlin