Murray Gell-Mann

enthusiasm disappointment depression

"Enthusiasm is followed by disappointment and even depression, and then by renewed enthusiasm."

— Murray Gell-Mann (1929-2019)

education restaurant menu

"Modern education is like being taken to the world's greatest restaurant & being forced to eat the menu."

— Murray Gell-Mann (1929-2019)

biology cultural diversity preservation

"Both biological and cultural diversity are now severely threatened and working for their preservation is a critical task."

— Murray Gell-Mann (1929-2019)

sustainability nature income capital

"Sustainability is living on nature's income rather than living on its capital."

— Murray Gell-Mann (1929-2019)

quantum physics dizzy understand

"If someone says that he can think or talk about quantum physics without becoming dizzy, that shows only that he has not understood anything whatever about it."

— Murray Gell-Mann (1929-2019)

principles conformability simplicity mathematics nature physics

"Three principles - the conformability of nature to herself, the applicability of the criterion of simplicity, and the utility of certain parts of mathematics in describing physical reality - are thus consequences of the underlying law of the elementary particles and their interactions. Those three principles need not be assumed as separate metaphysical postulates. Instead, they are emergent properties of the fundamental laws of physics."

— Murray Gell-Mann (1929-2019)

quark jaguar

"The world of the quark has everything to do with a jaguar circling in the night."

— Murray Gell-Mann (1929-2019)

physics elegant theory

"What is especially striking and remarkable is that in fundamental physics a beautiful or elegant theory is more likely to be right than a theory that is inelegant."

— Murray Gell-Mann (1929-2019)

modern language cave painting

"Modern language must be older than the cave paintings and cave engravings and cave sculptures and dance steps in the soft clay in the caves in Western Europe, in the Aurignacian Period some 35,000 years ago, or earlier. I can't believe they did all those things and didn't also have a modern language."

— Murray Gell-Mann (1929-2019)

modern physics quantum mechanics understand

"All of modern physics is governed by that magnificent and thoroughly confusing discipline called quantum mechanics ... It has survived all tests and there is no reason to believe that there is any flaw in it. We all know how to use it and how to apply it to problems; and so we have learned to live with the fact that nobody can understand it."

— Murray Gell-Mann (1929-2019)

wavefunctions universe rich

"If you know the wavefunction of the universe, why aren't you rich?"

— Murray Gell-Mann (1929-2019)

probability certainty

"Sometimes the probabilities are very close to certainties, but they're never really certainties"

— Murray Gell-Mann (1929-2019)

planet special

"Our planet doesn't seem to be the result of anything very special"

— Murray Gell-Mann (1929-2019)