Max Born Quotes

#1. And the continuity of our science has not been affected by all these turbulent happenings, as the older theories have always been included as limiting cases in the new ones.

Max Born

#2. But in practical affairs, particularly in politics, men are needed who combine human experience and interest in human relations with a knowledge of science and technology.

Max Born

#3. We need to make a world in which fewer children are born, and in which we take better care of them.

Max Born

#4. The belief that there is only one truth and that oneself is in possession of it seems to me the root of all the evil that is in the world

Max Born

#5. Physics as we know it will be over in six months.

Max Born

#6. No language which lends itself to visualizability can describe quantum jumps.

Max Born

#7. It is true that many scientists are not philosophically minded and have hitherto shown much skill and ingenuity but little wisdom.

Max Born

#8. Those who say that the study of science makes a man an atheist, must be rather silly people.

Max Born

#9. There are two objectionable types of believers: those who believe the incredible, and those who believe that "belief" must be discarded and replaced by "the scientific method.

Max Born

#10. All attempts to adapt our ethical code to our situation in the technological age have failed.

Max Born

#11. I believe there is no philosophical high-road in science, with epistemological signposts. No, we are in a jungle and find our way by trial and error, building our road behind us as we proceed.

Max Born

#12. The belief in a single truth is the root cause for all evil in the world.

Max Born

#13. Einstein would be one of the greatest theoretical physicists of all time even if he had not written a single line on relativity.

Max Born

#14. The problem of physics is how the actual phenomena, as observed with the help of our sense organs aided by instruments, can be reduced to simple notions which are suited for precise measurement and used of the formulation of quantitative laws.
Experiment and Theory in Physics

Max Born

#15. We, the atom and I, have been on friendly terms, until recently. I saw in it the key to the deepest secrets of Nature, and it revealed to me the greatness of creation and the Creator.

Max Born

#16. To present a scientific subject in an attractive and stimulating manner is an artistic task, similar to that of a novelist or even a dramatic writer. The same holds for writing textbooks.

Max Born

#17. Intellect distinguishes between the possible and the impossible; reason distinguishes between the sensible and the senseless. Even the possible can be senseless.

Max Born

#18. If God has made the world a perfect mechanism, He has at least conceded so much to our imperfect intellect that in order to predict little parts of it, we need not solve innumerable differential equations, but can use dice with fair success.

Max Born

#19. For all the communities available to us, there is not one I would want to devote myself to, except for the society of the true searchers, which has very few living members at any time.

Max Born

#20. My advice to those who which to learn the art of scientific prophesy is not to rely on abstract reason, but to decipher the secret language of Nature from Nature's documents: the facts of experience.

Max Born

#21. The human race has today the means for annihilating itself
either in a fit of complete lunacy, i.e., in a big war ... or by the careless handling of atomic technology, through a slow process of poisoning and of deterioration in its genetic structure.

Max Born

#22. I am now convinced that theoretical physics is actual philosophy.

Max Born

#23. We have sought for firm ground and found none.
The deeper we penetrate, the more restless becomes the universe; all is rushing about and vibrating in a wild dance.

Max Born

#24. The difficulty involved in the proper and adequate means of describing changes in continuous deformable bodies is the method of differential equations ... They express mathematically the physical concept of contiguous action.
Einstein's Theory of Relativity

Max Born

#25. Science?is so greatly opposed to history and tradition that it cannot be absorbed by our civilization.

Max Born

#26. Science is not formal logic-it needs the free play of the mind in as great a degree as any other creative art. It is true that this is a gift which can hardly be taught, but its growth can be encouraged in those who already posses it.

Max Born