Anybody who has been seriously engaged in scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: 'Ye must have faith.'
Max PlanckRead
Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Science offers tools to understand nature, but some mysteries remain unsolvable because we are part of that mystery.
This quote by Max Planck reflects on the limitations of scientific inquiry. While science can provide insights and explanations for many phenomena in nature, it acknowledges that we, as conscious beings, are inherently intertwined with the mysteries of existence. Ultimately, our quest for understanding is influenced by the very essence of who we are, which complicates our ability to fully resolve the enigmas of the universe.
Themes
ScienceMysteryNatureUnderstandingConsciousness
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on the limits of scientific inquiry, I quoted Planck to illustrate our relationship with nature.
More from Max Planck
All quotes βNo burden is so heavy for a man to bear as a succession of happy days.
Max PlanckRead
It is not the possession of truth, but the success which attends the seeking after it, that enriches the seeker and brings happiness to him.
Max PlanckRead
We have no right to assume that any physical laws exist, or if they have existed up until now, that they will continue to exist in a similar manner in the future.
Max PlanckRead
Experiment is the only means of knowledge at our disposal. Everything else is poetry, imagination.
Max PlanckRead
There is no matter as suchβmind is the matrix of all matter.
Max PlanckRead
Similar quotes
I picture the vast realm of the sciences as an immense landscape scattered with patches of dark and light. The goal towards which we must work is either to extend the boundaries of the patches of light, or to increase their number. One of these tasks falls to the creative genius; the other requires a sort of sagacity combined with perfectionism.
Denis DiderotRead
The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he is one who asks the right questions.
Claude Levi-StraussRead
Yet is it possible in terms of the motion of atoms to explain how men can invent an electric motor, or design and build a great cathedral? If such achievements represent anything more than the requirements of physical law, it means that science must investigate the additional controlling factors, whatever they may be, in order that the world of nature may be adequately understood.
Arthur ComptonRead
My own field of paleontology has strongly challenged the Darwinian premise that life's major transformations can be explained by adding up, through the immensity of geological time, the successive tiny changes produced generation after generation by natural selection.
Stephen Jay GouldRead
Mathematics is not only real, but it is the only reality.
Martin GardnerRead
Half of what we know is wrong, the purpose of science is to determine which half.
Arthur KornbergRead