Paul Dirac Quotes About Progress

Quotes about: Progress

• Scientific progress is measured in units of courage, not intelligence.

  Paul Dirac

  Progress, Units, Scientific Progress

• If you are receptive and humble, mathematics will lead you by the hand. Again and again, when I have been at a loss how to proceed, I have just had to wait until I have felt the mathematics led me by the hand. It has led me along an unexpected path, a path where new vistas open up, a path leading to new territory, where one can set up a base of operations, from which one can survey the surroundings and plan future progress.

  Paul Dirac

  Humble, Loss, Hands

  "The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom". Book by Graham Farmelo, 2009.

• Living is worthwhile if one can contribute in some small way to this endless chain of progress.

  Paul Dirac

  Progress, Way, Chains

  "Impact? I want an interstellar Higgs drive please" by Jon Butterworth, www.theguardian.com. July 16, 2012.

• The physicist, in his study of natural phenomena, has two methods of making progress: (1) the method of experiment and observation, and (2) the method of mathematical reasoning. The former is just the collection of selected data; the latter enables one to infer results about experiments that have not been performed. There is no logical reason why the second method should be possible at all, but one has found in practice that it does work and meets with reasonable success.

  Paul Dirac

  Math, Practice, Data

• It is more important to have beauty in one's equations than to have them fit experiment... It seems that if one is working from the point of view of getting beauty in one's equations, and if one has really a sound insight, one is on a sure line of progress. If there is not complete agreement between the results of one's work and experiment, one should not allow oneself to be too discouraged, because the discrepancy may well be due to minor features that are not properly taken into account and that will get cleared up with further developments of the theory.

  Paul Dirac

  Taken, Science, Views

  "The Evolution of the Physicist's Picture of Nature". Article republished from May 1963 issue of Scientific American, blogs.scientificamerican.com. June 25, 2010.

• Just by studying mathematics we can hope to make a guess at the kind of mathematics that will come into the physics of the future... If someone can hit on the right lines along which to make this development, it may lead to a future advance in which people will first discover the equations and then, after examining them, gradually learn how to apply them... My own belief is that this is a more likely line of progress than trying to guess at physical pictures.

  Paul Dirac

  Science, Discovery, People

  "The Evolution of the Physicist's Picture of Nature" by Paul Dirac, blogs.scientificamerican.com. May 1963.

• It seems that if one is working from the point of view of getting beauty in one's equations, and if one has really a sound insight, one is on a sure line of progress.

  Paul Dirac

  Views, Mathematical Equations, Progress

  "The Evolution of the Physicist's Picture of Nature" by Paul Dirac, blogs.scientificamerican.com. June 25, 2010.

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