One factor that has remained constant through all the twists and turns of the history of physical science is the decisive importance of the mathematical imagination.
Freeman DysonRead
I belonged to a small minority of boys who were lacking in physical strength and athletic prowess. ... We found our refuge in science. ... We learned that science is a revenge of victims against oppressors, that science is a territory of freedom and friendship in the midst of tyranny and hatred.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the power of science as a refuge for those excluded and oppressed, where it fosters freedom and camaraderie.
In this quote, Freeman Dyson highlights how science can serve as a sanctuary for individuals who may not possess physical strength or athletic abilities. He emphasizes that, for those marginalized by society, science offers a realm of freedom and friendship, acting as a form of resistance against oppression and animosity. It showcases the idea that intellectual pursuits can empower individuals and create communities despite societal challenges.
Themes
ScienceFreedomFriendshipOppressionIntellect
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of education, highlighting how science serves as a refuge for marginalized youth.
More from Freeman Dyson
All quotes →Biology is now bigger than physics, as measured by the size of budgets, by the size of the workforce, or by the output of major discoveries; and biology is likely to remain the biggest part of science through the twenty-first century.
Freeman DysonRead
As a working hypothesis to explain the riddle of our existence, I propose that our universe is the most interesting of all possible universes, and our fate as human beings is to make it so
Freeman DysonRead
It's not going to be just humans colonizing space, it's going to be life moving out from the Earth, moving it into its kingdom. And the kingdom of life, of course, is going to be the universe.
Freeman DysonRead
The bottom line for mathematicians is that the architecture has to be right. In all the mathematics that I did, the essential point was to find the right architecture. It's like building a bridge. Once the main lines of the structure are right, then the details miraculously fit. The problem is the overall design.
Freeman DysonRead
For some days I quietly worked out in my own mind the metaphysics of Cosmic Unity. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that it was the living truth. It was logically incontrovertible. It provided for the first time a firm foundation for ethics. It offered mankind the radical change of heart and mind that was our only hope of peace at a time of desperate danger. Only one small problem remained. I must find a way to convert the world to my way of thinking.
Freeman DysonRead
Similar quotes
As a physicist, I've always found cosmology to be a rational elixir; it distances me from ordinary concerns.
Lawrence M. KraussRead
"Half genius and half buffoon," Freeman Dyson ... wrote. ... [Richard] Feynman struck him as uproariously American-unbuttoned and burning with physical energy. It took him a while to realize how obsessively his new friend was tunneling into the very bedrock of modern science.
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By looking far out into space we are also looking far back into time, back toward the horizon of the universe, back toward the epoch of the Big Bang.
Carl SaganRead
For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined it. Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?
Richard P. FeynmanRead
In my relativity theory I set up a clock at every point in space, but in reality I find it difficult to provide even one clock in my room.
Albert EinsteinRead
The history is important because science is a discipline deeply immersed in history. In other words, every time you perform an experiment in science or in medicine, what you're actually doing is you're answering someone, answering a question raised by someone in the past.
Siddhartha MukherjeeRead