Latest Freeman Dyson Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• It's us that's really amazing. As far as I can see, our concentration of different abilities in one species - there's nothing I can see that in this Darwinian evolution that could've done that. So it seems to be a miracle of some sort.

  Freeman Dyson

  Miracle, Done, Different

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

• Almost everything about the universe is astounding. I think the most amazing thing is how gifted we are - we are only monkeys who came down from the trees just recently. We have these amazing gifts of music and mathematics and painting and Olympic running.

  Freeman Dyson

  Running, Thinking, Tree

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

• The world is just - it's wonderful when you look at all the detail. It's just amazing. Nothing is boring if you look at it carefully.

  Freeman Dyson

  World, Wonderful, Boring

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

• I'm prejudiced about education altogether. I think it's terribly overrated. It wastes a tremendous amount of time - especially for women, it's particularly badly timed. If they're doing a Ph.D., they have a conflict between raising a family or finishing the degree, which is just at the worst time - between the ages of 25 to 30 or whatever it is. It ruins the five years of their lives.

  Freeman Dyson

  Thinking, Age, Conflict

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

• I think that the artificial-intelligence people are making a lot of noise recently, claiming that artificial intelligence is making huge progress and we're going to be outstripped by the machines. But, in my view, this whole field is based on a misconception. I think the brain is analog, whereas the machines are digital. They really are different. So I think that what the machines can do, of course, is wonderful, but it's not the same as what the brain can do.

  Freeman Dyson

  Thinking, People, Brain

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

• I think the biggest misconception about mathematics is that everybody has to learn it. That seems to be a complete mistake. All the time worrying about pushing the children and getting them to be mathematically literate and all that stuff. It's terribly hard on the kids. It's also hard on the teachers. And I think it's totally useless. To me, mathematics is like playing the violin. Some people can do it - others can't. If you don't have it, then there's no point in pretending.

  Freeman Dyson

  Teacher, Children, Mistake

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

• For me, science is just a bunch of tools - it's like playing the violin. I just enjoy calculating, and it's an instrument I know how to play. It's almost an athletic performance, in a way. I was just watching the Olympics, and that's how I feel when proving a theorem.

  Freeman Dyson

  Athletic, Enjoy, Prove

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

• There are two different ways of looking at the universe; and it's the same universe with two different windows. The science window gives you a view of the world, and the religion window gives you a totally different view. You can't look at both of them at the same time, but they're both true.

  Freeman Dyson

  Giving, World, Different

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

• The thing that makes me most optimistic is China and India - both of them doing well. It's amazing how much progress there's been in China, and also India. Those are the places that really matter - they're half of the world's population. They're the places where things are enormously better now than they were 50 years ago. And I don't see anything that's going to stop that.

  Freeman Dyson

  Optimistic, Progress

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

• It's clear the media, of course, always gives you the bad news. And people who rely on the media, like Mr. Trump, think that everything is a disaster. The media always tries to make everything into a disaster, but it's mostly rubbish. It's a point of fact that we're doing extremely well.

  Freeman Dyson

  Thinking, People, Giving

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

• Everything in my life was luck. The key to having an interesting life is to always say "yes" to anything crazy.

  Freeman Dyson

  Crazy, Interesting, Luck

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

• That's what I learned from World War II. Things are always more complicated than most people believe.

  Freeman Dyson

  War, Believe, People

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

• You have this world of mathematics, which is very real and which contains all kinds of wonderful stuff. And then we also have the world of nature, which is real, too. And that, by some miracle, the language that nature speaks is the same language that we invented for mathematics. That's just an amazing piece of luck, which we don't understand.

  Freeman Dyson

  Real, Miracle, Luck

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

• That's the beautiful thing about science - that it's all about things we don't understand, not just the things we do understand.

  Freeman Dyson

  Beautiful, Beautiful Things

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

• Mathematics is really an art, not a science. You could say science also is an art. So I would say the difference is something you can't really describe - you can only recognize. You hear somebody playing the violin, and it was Fritz Kreisler or it was somebody else, and you can tell the difference. It is so in almost every art. We just don't understand why it is that there are just a few people who are just completely off the scale and the rest of them are just mediocre. And we don't know why. But I say it's certainly true of mathematics.

  Freeman Dyson

  Art, People, Mathematics

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

• It's us that's really amazing.

  Freeman Dyson

  Really Amazing

  "Legendary physicist Freeman Dyson talks about math, nuclear rockets, and astounding things about the universe". Interview with Elena Holodny, www.businessinsider.com. September 9, 2016.

• As far as I can see, our concentration of different abilities in one species - there's nothing I can see that in this Darwinian evolution that could've done that. So it seems to be a miracle of some sort.

  Freeman Dyson

  Miracle, Done, Different

  "Legendary physicist Freeman Dyson talks about math, nuclear rockets, and astounding things about the universe". Interview with Elena Holodny, uk.businessinsider.com. September 9, 2016.

• The world is just - it's wonderful when you look at all the detail. It's just amazing.

  Freeman Dyson

  Details, Looks, World

  "Legendary physicist Freeman Dyson talks about math, nuclear rockets, and astounding things about the universe". Interview with Elena Holodny, www.businessinsider.com. September 9, 2016.

• Nothing is boring if you look at carefully.

  Freeman Dyson

  Looks, Boring, Ifs

  "Why We Run: A Natural History". Book by Bernd Heinrich, May 7, 2002.

• Of course, long-distance running has to do with the fact that we're hunters.

  Freeman Dyson

  Running, Distance, Long

  "Legendary physicist Freeman Dyson talks about math, nuclear rockets, and astounding things about the universe". Interview with Elena Holodny, www.businessinsider.com. September 9, 2016.

• We have these amazing gifts of music and mathematics and painting and Olympic running. I mean, we're the animal that is best of all the animals at long-distance running. Why? It is quite amazing. Superfluous gifts you don't really need to survive.

  Freeman Dyson

  Running, Distance, Mean

  "Legendary physicist Freeman Dyson talks about math, nuclear rockets, and astounding things about the universe". Interview with Elena Holodny, uk.businessinsider.com. September 9, 2016.

• I think it's a big mistake to decide too soon what you're going to do with your life.

  Freeman Dyson

  Mistake, Thinking, Bigs

  "Legendary physicist Freeman Dyson talks about math, nuclear rockets, and astounding things about the universe". Interview with Elena Holodny, uk.businessinsider.com. September 9, 2016.

• Almost everything about the universe is astounding.

  Freeman Dyson

  Universe

  "Legendary physicist Freeman Dyson talks about math, nuclear rockets, and astounding things about the universe". Interview with Elena Holodny, www.businessinsider.com. September 9, 2016.

• I'm happy that I've raised six kids, and not one of them is a Ph.D.

  Freeman Dyson

  Kids, Six, Raised

  "Legendary physicist Freeman Dyson talks about math, nuclear rockets, and astounding things about the universe". Interview with Elena Holodny, www.businessinsider.com. September 9, 2016.

• If you're in the business world, that's what's expected: You should go bust and then start again on something else. So it's a much more relaxed kind of a culture. It's also competitive, but not in such a vicious way. I think the academic world is actually much more destructive of young people.

  Freeman Dyson

  Thinking, People, Culture

  "Legendary physicist Freeman Dyson talks about math, nuclear rockets, and astounding things about the universe". Interview with Elena Holodny, uk.businessinsider.com. September 9, 2016.