An independant reality in the ordinary physical sense can neither be ascribed to the phenomenon nor to the agencies of observation.
Niels BohrRead
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.'
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes that physics describes nature through abstractions rather than revealing an ultimate reality.
Niels Bohr's quote highlights the distinction between the tangible world of nature and the abstract representations that physics provides. He argues that physics should not be viewed as a means to uncover the true essence of reality but rather as a discipline focused on the predictive descriptions and relationships that we can observe and articulate about nature, suggesting that our knowledge is inherently limited to these abstractions.
Themes
QuantumPhysicsDescriptionNatureAbstraction
In practice
Example use cases
In a science lecture discussing the philosophy of physics.
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