Quotes from The Feynman Lectures on Physics Vol 1

“psychoanalysis is not a science: it is at best a medical process, and perhaps even more like witch-doctoring.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Feynman Lectures on Physics Vol 1

“It is probably better to realize that the probability concept is in a sense subjective, that it is always based on uncertain knowledge, and that its quantitative evaluation is subject to change as we obtain more information.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Feynman Lectures on Physics Vol 1

“Philosophers have said before that one of the fundamental requisites of science is that whenever you set up the same conditions, the same thing must happen. This is simply not true, it is not a fundamental condition of science.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Feynman Lectures on Physics Vol 1

“Mathematics is not a science from our point of view, in the sense that it is not a natural science. The test of its validity is not experiment.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Feynman Lectures on Physics Vol 1

“there is a physical problem that is common to many fields, that is very old, and that has not been solved. It is not the problem of finding new fundamental particles, but something left over from a long time ago—over a hundred years. Nobody in physics has really been able to analyze it mathematically satisfactorily in spite of its importance to the sister sciences. It is the analysis of circulating or turbulent fluids.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Feynman Lectures on Physics Vol 1

“There was an interesting early relationship between physics and biology in which biology helped physics in the discovery of the conservation of energy, which was first demonstrated by Mayer in connection with the amount of heat taken in and given out by a living creature.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Feynman Lectures on Physics Vol 1

“No phenomenon directly involving a frequency has yet been detected above approximately 10^12 cycles per second. We only deduce the higher frequencies from the energy of the particles, by a rule which assumes that the particle-wave idea of quantum mechanics is valid.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Feynman Lectures on Physics Vol 1

“One of the most impressive discoveries was the origin of the energy of the stars, that makes them continue to burn. One of the men who discovered this was out with his girlfriend the night after he realized that nuclear reactions must be going on in the stars in order to make them shine. She said “Look at how pretty the stars shine!” He said “Yes, and right now I am the only man in the world who knows why they shine.” She merely laughed at him. She was not impressed with being out with the only man who, at that moment, knew why stars shine. Well, it is sad to be alone, but that is the way it is in this world.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Feynman Lectures on Physics Vol 1

“else can you do with the law of gravitation? If we look at the moons of Jupiter we can understand everything about the way they move around that planet. Incidentally, there was once a certain difficulty with the moons of Jupiter that is worth remarking on. These satellites were studied very carefully by Rømer, who noticed that the moons sometimes seemed to be ahead of schedule, and sometimes behind. (One can find their schedules by waiting a very long time and finding out how long it takes on the average for the moons to go around.) Now they were ahead when Jupiter was particularly close to the earth and they were behind when Jupiter was farther from the earth. This would have been a very difficult thing to explain according to the law of gravitation—it would have been, in fact, the death of this wonderful theory if there were no other explanation. If a law does not work even in one place where it ought to, it is just wrong. But the reason for this discrepancy was very simple and beautiful: it takes a little while to see the moons of Jupiter because of the time it takes light to travel from Jupiter to the earth. When Jupiter is closer to the earth the time is a little less, and when it is farther from the earth, the time is more. This is why moons appear to be, on the average, a little ahead or a little behind, depending on whether they are closer to or farther from the earth. This phenomenon showed that light does not travel instantaneously, and furnished the first estimate of the speed of light. This was done in 1676.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Feynman Lectures on Physics Vol 1

“What else can you do with the law of gravitation? If we look at the moons of Jupiter we can understand everything about the way they move around that planet. Incidentally, there was once a certain difficulty with the moons of Jupiter that is worth remarking on. These satellites were studied very carefully by Rømer, who noticed that the moons sometimes seemed to be ahead of schedule, and sometimes behind. (One can find their schedules by waiting a very long time and finding out how long it takes on the average for the moons to go around.) Now they were ahead when Jupiter was particularly close to the earth and they were behind when Jupiter was farther from the earth. This would have been a very difficult thing to explain according to the law of gravitation—it would have been, in fact, the death of this wonderful theory if there were no other explanation. If a law does not work even in one place where it ought to, it is just wrong. But the reason for this discrepancy was very simple and beautiful: it takes a little while to see the moons of Jupiter because of the time it takes light to travel from Jupiter to the earth. When Jupiter is closer to the earth the time is a little less, and when it is farther from the earth, the time is more. This is why moons appear to be, on the average, a little ahead or a little behind, depending on whether they are closer to or farther from the earth. This phenomenon showed that light does not travel instantaneously, and furnished the first estimate of the speed of light. This was done in 1676.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Feynman Lectures on Physics Vol 1

“A description of nature is what we are concerned with here. From this point
of view, then, a gas, and indeed all matter, is a myriad of moving particles. Thus
many of the things we saw while standing at the seashore can immediately be
connected. First the pressure: this comes from the collisions of the atoms with
the walls or whatever; the drift of the atoms, if they are all moving in one direc-
tion on the average, is wind; the random internal motions are the heat. There are
waves of excess density, where too many particles have collected, and so as they
Tush off they push up piles of particles farther out, and so on. This wave of excess
density is sound. It is a tremendous achievement to be able to understand so much.
Some of these things were described in the previous chapter.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Feynman Lectures on Physics Vol 1

“If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generations of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis (or atomic fact, or whatever you wish to call it) that all things are made of atoms...(italics in original).”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Feynman Lectures on Physics Vol 1

“Only with quantitative observations can one arrive at quantitative relationships, which are the heart of physics.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Feynman Lectures on Physics Vol 1

“Even a very small effect sometimes requires profound changes in our ideas”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Feynman Lectures on Physics Vol 1

“...we do not yet know all the basic laws: there is an expanding frontier of ignorance”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Feynman Lectures on Physics Vol 1

“Now the jiggling motion is what we represent as heat:
when we increase the temperature, we increase the motion. If we heat the water,
the jiggling increases and the volume between the atoms increases, and if the
heating continues there comes a time when the pull between the molecules is not
enough to hold them together and they do fly apart and become separated from
one another. Of course, this is how we manufacture steam out of water—by
increasing the temperature; the particles fly apart because of the increased motion.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Feynman Lectures on Physics Vol 1

About the author

Popular quotes

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”
― Betty Edwards, quote from The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

“Yeah, listen you should really stop now, because I’m betting on the smartest thing that ever could come out of your mouth is a penis.”
― Christine Zolendz, quote from Fall From Grace

“What can it matter to you? You just drift along. You don't give a good godamm about the universal consequences that can flow from our most trifling acts, our most unforeseen thoughts . . . It's no skin off your ass . . . You're caulked . . . hermetically sealed . . . Nothing means anything to you . . . Am I right? Nothing. Eat! Drink! Sleep! Up there as cozy as you please . . . All warm and comfy on my couch . . . You've got everything you want . . . You wallow in well-being . . . the earth rolls on . . . How? Why? A staggering miracle . . . how it moves . . . the profound mystery of it . . . toward an infinite unforeseeable goal . . . in the sky all scintillating with comets . . . all unknown . . . from one rotation to the next . . . Each second is the culmination and also the prelude of an eternity of other miracles . . . of impenetrable wonders, thousands of them, Ferdinand! Millions! billions of trillions of years! . . . And you? What are you doing in the midst of this cosmologonic whirl? this vast sidereal wonder? Just tell me that! You eat! You fill your belly! You sleep! You don't give a damn . . . That's right! Salad! Swiss cheese! Sapience! Turnips! Everything! You wallow in your own muck! You'll loll around, befouled! Glutted! Satisfied! You don't ask for anything more! You pass through the stars . . . as if they were raindrops in May! . . . God, you amaze me, Ferdinand! Do you really think this can go on forever? . . ."

I didn't say a word . . . I had no set opinion about the stars or the moon, but I had one about him, the bastard. And the stinker knew it.”
― Louis-Ferdinand Céline, quote from Death on the Installment Plan

“She learned quickly that it was not good to be too different. Great differences caused envy, suspicion, fear, charges of witchcraft.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Wild Seed

“If we did not believe that truth is universal, why should so many missionaries endure these hardships? It is precisely because truth is common to all countries and all times that we call it truth. If a true doctrine were not true alike in Portugal and Japan we could not call it true.”
― Shūsaku Endō, quote from Silence

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.