What Is Meant by the Term â€哴he Lost Generation?㢢‚¬❠How Did This Term Come Into Fashion?

The great extension of our feel in recent years has brought light to the insufficiency of our simple mechanical conceptions and, as a consequence, has shaken the foundation on which the customary interpretation of ascertainment was based.

Niels Henrik David Bohr (7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962) was a Danish physicist. He received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1922 for his contributions which were essential to modern understandings of atomic structure and breakthrough mechanics.

Quotes [edit]

The word "reality" is besides a word, a give-and-take which we must learn to apply correctly.

Nosotros are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides the states is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct.

Physics is to exist regarded not so much every bit the study of something a priori given, only rather as the evolution of methods of ordering and surveying human being experience.

Information technology is wrong to think that the task of physics is to notice out how nature is. Physics concerns what nosotros tin can say almost nature...

Information technology is a great pity that human beings cannot discover all of their satisfaction in scientific contemplativeness.

Some subjects are so serious that i can only joke about them.

Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot peradventure accept understood information technology.
- In a 1952 conversation with Heisenberg and Pauli in Copenhagen; quoted in Heisenberg, Werner, Physics and Beyond. (New York: Harper & Row, 1971) p. 206.

We must be clear that when it comes to atoms, language tin be used just as in poetry. The poet, besides, is not nearly then concerned with describing facts equally with creating images and establishing mental connections.
- In his beginning coming together with Werner Heisenberg in early summer 1920, in response to questions on the nature of language, every bit reported in Discussions about Linguistic communication (1933); quoted in Defense Implications of International Indeterminacy (1972) by Robert J. Pranger, p. 11, and Theorizing Modernism : Essays in Critical Theory (1993) by Steve Giles, p. 28

The grand discoveries which scientific experiment yielded at and about the turn of the century, in which investigators in many countries took an eminent part and which were destined all unexpectedly to give us a fresh insight into the structure of atoms, were due in the first instance, every bit all are aware, to the work of the great investigators of the English school, Sir Joseph Thomson and Sir Ernest Rutherford, who have inscribed their names on the tablets of the history of scientific inquiry as distinguished witnesses to the truth that imagination and acumen are capable of penetrating the crowded mass of registered experience and of revealing Nature'due south simplicity to our gaze.
- Niels Bohr's spoken communication at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm (December ten, 1922)

The great extension of our experience in recent years has brought calorie-free to the insufficiency of our simple mechanical conceptions and, as a consequence, has shaken the foundation on which the customary estimation of observation was based.
- Niels Bohr, "Atomic Physics and the Clarification of Nature" (1934)

Isolated material particles are abstractions, their properties beingness definable and observable just through their interaction with other systems.
- "Diminutive Physics and the Description of Nature" (1934)

What is it that we humans depend on? We depend on our words... Our task is to communicate feel and ideas to others. Nosotros must strive continually to extend the scope of our description, but in such a style that our letters do non thereby lose their objective or unambiguous character ... We are suspended in linguistic communication in such a fashion that nosotros cannot say what is upwardly and what is down. The word "reality" is too a give-and-take, a word which nosotros must learn to use correctly.
- Quoted in Philosophy of Science Vol. 37 (1934), p. 157, and in The Truth of Science : Physical Theories and Reality (1997) by Roger Gerhard Newton, p. 176

For a parallel to the lesson of atomic theory regarding the limited applicability of such customary idealizations, we must in fact plow to quite other branches of scientific discipline, such every bit psychology, or fifty-fifty to that kind of epistemological bug with which already thinkers similar Buddha and Lao Tzu accept been confronted, when trying to harmonize our position as spectators and actors in the keen drama of existence.
- Speech on quantum theory at Celebrazione del Secondo Centenario della Nascita di Luigi Galvani, Bologna, Italian republic (October 1937)

Contraria Sunt Complementa
- Opposites are complementary.
  - Motto he chose for his coat of arms, when granted the Danish Order of the Elephant in 1947.

However far the phenomena transcend the scope of classical physical explanation, the account of all evidence must be expressed in classical terms. The argument is that only by the discussion "experiment" we refer to a state of affairs where nosotros tin tell others what nosotros have done and what we have learned and that, therefore, the account of the experimental organization and of the results of the observations must be expressed in unambiguous language with suitable application of the terminology of classical physics.
- Niels Bohr, "Discussions with Einstein on Epistemological Issues in Atomic Physics," in Paul Arthur Schilpp, Albert Einstein: Philosopher Scientist (1949) pp. 199-241.

An skillful is a person who has found out by his own painful experience all the mistakes that 1 can make in a very narrow field.
- As quoted by Edward Teller, in Dr. Edward Teller'southward Magnificent Obsession by Robert Coughlan, in LIFE mag (6 September 1954), p. 62
- Variant: An expert is a human who has fabricated all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field.
  - Equally quoted by Edward Teller (10 October 1972), and A Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (1991) past Alan L. Mackay, p. 35

Nosotros are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides us is whether information technology is crazy enough to take a take chances of existence correct.
- Said to Wolfgang Pauli after his presentation of Heisenberg's and Pauli'southward nonlinear field theory of unproblematic particles, at Columbia University (1958), as reported past F. J. Dyson in his paper "Innovation in Physics" (Scientific American, 199, No. 3, September 1958, pp. 74-82; reprinted in "JingShin Theoretical Physics Symposium in Honor of Professor Ta-You Wu," edited by Jong-Ping Hsu & Leonardo Hsu, Singapore; River Edge, NJ: Earth Scientific, 1998, pp. 73-90, here: p. 84).
- Your theory is crazy, but it's not crazy enough to be true.
  - As quoted in Starting time Philosophy: The Theory of Everything (2007) by Spencer Scoular, p. 89
- At that place are many slight variants on this remark:
  - We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough.
  - We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question is whether it is crazy enough to be have a chance of existence correct.
  - Nosotros in the back are convinced your theory is crazy. But what divides us is whether it is crazy plenty.
  - Your theory is crazy, the question is whether it'south crazy plenty to be truthful.
  - Yes, I think that your theory is crazy. Sadly, it's not crazy enough to be believed.

Physics is to be regarded not so much as the study of something a priori given, merely rather equally the development of methods of ordering and surveying human being experience. In this respect our task must be to account for such experience in a manner independent of private subjective sentence and therefore objective in the sense that information technology tin exist unambiguously communicated in ordinary human language.
- "The Unity of Homo Cognition" (October 1960)

Every valuable human being must be a radical and a rebel, for what he must aim at is to brand things better than they are.
- Equally quoted in The Globe of the Atom (1966) past Henry Abraham Boorse and Lloyd Motz, p. 741

How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress.
- As quoted in Niels Bohr : The Man, His Science, & the World They Changed (1966) by Ruth Moore, p. 196

Two sorts of truth: profound truths recognized by the fact that the opposite is also a profound truth, in dissimilarity to trivialities where opposites are evidently absurd.
- As quoted by his son Hans Bohr in "My Father", published in Niels Bohr: His Life and Work (1967), p. 328
- Unsourced variant: The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well exist another profound truth.
- As quoted in Max Delbrück, Mind from Matter: An Essay on Evolutionary Epistemology, (1986) p. 167. It is the hallmark of any deep truth that its negation is as well a deep truth

Every sentence I utter must exist understood not as an affirmation, but as a question.
- As quoted in A Lexicon of Scientific Quotations (1991) past Alan L. Mackay, p. 35

It is a great compassion that human beings cannot notice all of their satisfaction in scientific contemplativeness.
- Equally quoted in Chandra: A Biography of Due south. Chandrasekhar‎ (1991) by Kameshwar C. Wali, p. 147

Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.
- Every bit quoted in Coming together the Universe Halfway (2007) past Karen Michelle Barad, p. 254, with a footnote citing The Philosophical Writings of Niels Bohr (1998).
- Variants: Those who are not shocked when they first see quantum mechanics cannot possibly accept understood information technology.
  Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot perchance have understood information technology.
  Anyone who is not shocked past quantum theory has not understood a single give-and-take.
  If you think you can talk about quantum theory without feeling dizzy, you haven't understood the start thing virtually it.

Some subjects are so serious that one can but joke about them.
- As quoted in The Genius of Science: A Portrait Gallery (2000) by Abraham Pais, p. 24
- Some things are and then serious that i can but joke about them.
  - Variant without any citation as to author in Deprival is not a river in Egypt (1998) by Sandi Bachom, p. 85.

Truth and clarity are complementary.
- As quoted in Quantum Theory and the Flying from Realism : Philosophical Responses to Breakthrough Mechanics (2000) by Christopher Norris, p. 234

Information technology is not enough to be incorrect, one must besides be polite.
- As quoted in The Genius of Science: A Portrait Gallery (2000) by Abraham Pais, p. 24

Never limited yourself more clearly than you are able to recollect.
- As quoted in Values of the Wise : Humanity's Highest Aspirations (2004) past Jason Merchey, p. 63

Oh, what idiots nosotros all have been. This is but as information technology must be.
- In response to Frisch & Meitner's explanation of nuclear fission, as quoted in The Physicists - A generation that changed the world (1981) by C.P.Snow, p. 96

I go into the Upanishads to enquire questions.
- As quoted in God Is Not One : The 8 Rival Religions That Run the World and Why Their Differences Affair (2010), by Stephen Prothero, Ch, iv : Hinduism : The Mode of Devotion, p. 144

No, no, y'all are not thinking, you are just being logical.
- In response to those who made purely formal or mathematical arguments, every bit quoted in What Piddling I Think (1979) by Otto Robert Frisch, p. 95

I am absolutely prepared to talk about the spiritual life of an electronic computer: to state that it is reflecting or is in a bad mood... The question whether the automobile really feels or ponders, or whether information technology just looks as though it did, is of form absolutely meaningingless.
- Equally quoted in a letter written from J. Kalckar to John A. Wheeler dated June 10, 1977, which appears in Wheeler's "Law Without Law," pg 207.

[edit]

The fact that religions through the ages have spoken in images, parables, and paradoxes means but that there are no other ways of grasping the reality to which they refer. But that does not mean that information technology is not a genuine reality.

Nowadays, the individual seems to be able to choose the spiritual framework of his thoughts and actions quite freely, and this liberty reflects the fact that the boundaries betwixt the various cultures and societies are beginning to go more fluid. But even when an individual tries to attain the greatest possible degree of independence, he will still be swayed by the existing spiritual structures — consciously or unconsciously.

Statements of Bohr afterward the Solvay Conference of 1927, as quoted in Physics and Beyond (1971) by Werner Heisenberg

I feel very much like Dirac: the idea of a personal God is foreign to me. Just we ought to recall that religion uses linguistic communication in quite a unlike way from science. The linguistic communication of religion is more closely related to the linguistic communication of verse than to the language of science. True, we are inclined to call back that science deals with data nigh objective facts, and poetry with subjective feelings. Hence we conclude that if faith does indeed deal with objective truths, it ought to prefer the aforementioned criteria of truth every bit science. But I myself find the sectionalization of the world into an objective and a subjective side much besides arbitrary. The fact that religions through the ages have spoken in images, parables, and paradoxes means simply that in that location are no other means of grasping the reality to which they refer. But that does not mean that it is not a genuine reality. And splitting this reality into an objective and a subjective side won't become us very far.

I consider those developments in physics during the final decades which take shown how problematical such concepts every bit "objective" and "subjective" are, a swell liberation of thought. The whole thing started with the theory of relativity. In the past, the statement that 2 events are simultaneous was considered an objective assertion, ane that could exist communicated quite simply and that was open up to verification by any observer. Today we know that 'simultaneity' contains a subjective chemical element, inasmuch as ii events that announced simultaneous to an observer at residual are non necessarily simultaneous to an observer in motion. Even so, the relativistic clarification is too objective inasmuch as every observer can deduce by calculation what the other observer volition perceive or has perceived. For all that, nosotros have come a long way from the classical ideal of objective descriptions.
In quantum mechanics the departure from this platonic has been even more than radical. We can withal utilise the objectifying language of classical physics to make statements about observable facts. For instance, we tin say that a photographic plate has been blackened, or that deject droplets have formed. Merely we tin say null most the atoms themselves. And what predictions we base on such findings depend on the way we pose our experimental question, and hither the observer has freedom of choice. Naturally, it even so makes no difference whether the observer is a human, an fauna, or a piece of apparatus, just information technology is no longer possible to make predictions without reference to the observer or the ways of ascertainment. To that extent, every concrete process may be said to take objective and subjective features. The objective globe of nineteenth-century science was, as we know today, an ideal, limiting case, but not the whole reality. Admittedly, even in our time to come encounters with reality nosotros shall have to distinguish between the objective and the subjective side, to make a sectionalisation between the two. But the location of the separation may depend on the way things are looked at; to a certain extent it can exist chosen at will. Hence I can quite understand why we cannot speak about the content of religion in an objectifying language. The fact that unlike religions effort to express this content in quite singled-out spiritual forms is no existent objection. Perhaps we ought to expect upon these different forms as complementary descriptions which, though they exclude one some other, are needed to convey the rich possibilities flowing from homo'south relationship with the primal lodge.

In mathematics nosotros can take our inner distance from the content of our statements. In the last assay mathematics is a mental game that we tin can play or non play as we choose. Religion, on the other mitt, deals with ourselves, with our life and death; its promises are meant to govern our actions and thus, at least indirectly, our very being. Nosotros cannot merely await at them impassively from the outside. Moreover, our attitude to religious questions cannot be separated from our mental attitude to society. Fifty-fifty if religion arose as the spiritual structure of a particular human society, it is arguable whether it has remained the strongest social molding force through history, or whether society, once formed, develops new spiritual structures and adapts them to its particular level of knowledge. Nowadays, the individual seems to exist able to choose the spiritual framework of his thoughts and actions quite freely, and this freedom reflects the fact that the boundaries between the various cultures and societies are start to get more fluid. Simply fifty-fifty when an individual tries to attain the greatest possible degree of independence, he will nevertheless be swayed by the existing spiritual structures — consciously or unconsciously. For he, too, must be able to speak of life and decease and the human status to other members of the guild in which he's chosen to alive; he must educate his children according to the norms of that order, fit into its life. Epistemological sophistries cannot peradventure assist him achieve these ends. Here, as well, the human relationship between disquisitional thought about the spiritual content of a given religion and activeness based on the deliberate acceptance of that content is complementary. And such acceptance, if consciously arrived at, fills the individual with strength of purpose, helps him to overcome doubts and, if he has to suffer, provides him with the kind of solace that merely a sense of being sheltered under an all-embracing roof can grant. In that sense, religion helps to make social life more harmonious; its almost of import task is to remind us, in the linguistic communication of pictures and parables, of the wider framework within which our life is gear up.

Disputed [edit]

Stop telling God what to do with his dice.

Anyone who is not shocked past quantum theory has not understood it.
- Heisenberg recounts a personal chat he had with Pauli and Bohr in 1952 in which Bohr says, "Those who are not shocked when they first come up across quantum theory cannot possibly accept understood it." Heisenberg, Werner, Physics and Beyond. (New York: Harper & Row, 1971) p. 206.
- Bohr said this sentence in a chat with Werner Heisenberg, as quoted in: "Der Teil und das Ganze. Gespräche im Umkreis der Atomphysik" . R. Piper & Co., München, 1969, S. 280. Die ZEIT 22. Aug. 1969 [1].
- As quoted in Meeting the Universe Halfway (2007) by Karen Michelle Barad, p. 254, with the quote attributed to The Philosophical Writings of Niels Bohr, but with no page number or book number given.
- David Mermin, on pages 186–187 of his volume Boojums All the Fashion Through: Communicating Scientific discipline in a Prosaic Age (1990) noted that he specifically looked for pithy quotes about breakthrough mechanics forth these lines when reviewing the 3 volumes of The Philosophical Writings of Niels Bohr, but couldn't find any:
  
  Once I tried to teach some breakthrough mechanics to a course of law students, philosophers, and fine art historians. As an advertisement for the class I put together the most sensational quotations I could collect from the most administrative practitioners of the field of study. Heisenberg was a goldmine: "The concept of the objective reality of the simple particles has thus evaporated..."; "the idea of an objective real world whose smallest parts exist objectively in the same sense every bit stones or trees exist, independently of whether or not nosotros notice them ... is impossible ..." Feynman did his part too: "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics." But I failed to turn up anything comparable in the writings of Bohr. Others attributed spectacular remarks to him, only he seemed to take pains to avert any hint of the dramatic in his own writings. Y'all don't pack them into your classroom with "The indivisibility of quantum phenomena finds its consequent expression in the circumstance that every definable subdivision would require a change of the experimental arrangement with the appearance of new private phenomena," or "the wider frame of complementarity direct expresses our position as regards the business relationship of fundamental properties of matter presupposed in classical concrete description but outside its scope."
  
  I was therefore on the lookout man for nuggets when I sabbatum downwards to review these iii volumes – a reissue of Bohr's nerveless essays on the revolutionary epistemological character of the breakthrough theory and on the implications of that revolution for other scientific and not-scientific areas of try (the originals kickoff appeared in 1934, 1958, and 1963.) But the most radical statement I could find in all 3 books was this: "...physics is to exist regarded non so much as the study of something a priori given, but rather as the development of methods for ordering and surveying human experience." No nuggets for the nonscientist.
- Variants: Those who are non shocked when they first come across breakthrough mechanics cannot peradventure have understood it.
  Those who are not shocked when they first come across breakthrough theory cannot peradventure take understood it.
  Anyone who is non shocked by quantum theory has not understood a single give-and-take.
  If y'all call up you can talk most quantum theory without feeling dizzy, you lot oasis't understood the first thing almost it.

Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.
- Equally quoted in Teaching and Learning Elementary Social Studies (1970) by Arthur K. Ellis, p. 431
- The in a higher place quote is also attributed to various humourists and the Danish poet Piet Hein: "det er svært at spå – især om fremtiden"
- Information technology is also attributed to Danish cartoonist Storm P (Robert Storm Petersen).
- Variant: It'due south hard to make predictions, especially about the future.

Stop telling God what to do with his dice.
- A response to Einstein's exclamation that "God doesn't play dice"; a similar statement is attributed to Enrico Fermi
- Variant: Einstein, don't tell God what to practice.
- Variant: Don't tell God what to practise with his dice.
- Variant: Yous ought not to speak for what Providence tin can or tin can not do. – As described in The Physicists: A generation that changed the world (1981) past C. P. Snow, p. 84

Of course not ... simply I am told it works even if y'all don't believe in it.
- Answer to a visitor to his home in Tisvilde who asked him if he really believed a horseshoe in a higher place his door brought him luck, as quoted in Inward Bound : Of Matter and Forces in the Physical World (1986) by Abraham Pais, p. 210
- In most published accounts of this chestnut such was Bohr'south reply to his friend, but in one early business relationship, in The Interaction Between Science and Philosophy (1974) by Samuel Sambursky, p. 357, Bohr was at a friend's business firm and asked "Do you really believe in this?" to which his friend replied "Oh, I don't believe in it. Only I am told information technology works even if you don't believe in it."
- Variant: No, but I'1000 told it works fifty-fifty if you don't believe in it.

Quotes nearly Bohr [edit]

Alphabetized by author

Bohr seemed to think that he had solved this question. I could not find his solution in his writings. But there was no doubt that he was convinced that he had solved the problem and, in so doing, had not just contributed to atomic physics, but to epistemology, to philosophy, to humanity in general. And at that place are astonishing passages in his writings in which he is sort of patronizing to the ancient Far Eastern philosophers, almost saying that he had solved the problems that had defeated them. It's an extraordinary matter for me—the character of Bohr—absolutely puzzling. I like to speak of two Bohrs: one is a very pragmatic fellow who insists that the apparatus is classical, and the other is a very arrogant, pontificating man who makes enormous claims for what he has washed.
- John S. Bell, quoted in Jeremy Bernstein, Breakthrough Profiles (1991), John Stewart Bong: Breakthrough Engineer

One of the favorite maxims of my father was the distinction between the two sorts of truths, profound truths recognized past the fact that the opposite is besides a profound truth, in contrast to trivialities where opposites are patently absurd.
- Hans Henrik Bohr, writing about his father in "My father" in Niels Bohr - His Life and Work As Seen By His Friends and Colleagues (1967), S. Rozental, ed.

If breakthrough theory has any philosophical importance at all, it lies in the fact that it demonstrates for a unmarried, sharply defined science the necessity of dual aspects and complementary considerations. Niels Bohr has discussed this question with respect to many applications in physiology, psychology, and philosophy in full general.
- Max Built-in in Natural Philosophy of Cause and Hazard (1949) ch. x, p. 127

Not frequently in life has a homo existence caused me such joy by his mere presence every bit you did.
- Albert Einstein in a letter to Bohr (1920)

It is practically impossible to draw Niels Bohr to a person who has never worked with him. Probably his most characteristic property was the slowness of his thinking and comprehension. When, in the late twenties and early on thirties, the author of this book was one of the "Bohr boys" working in his Institute in Copenhagen on a Carlsberg (the best beer in the world!) fellowship, he had many a chance to observe information technology. In the evening, when a handful of Bohr'due south students were "working" in the Paa Blegdamsvejen Institute, discussing the latest problems of the quantum theory, or playing Ping-pong on the library table with coffee cups placed on information technology to brand the game more than difficult, Bohr would appear, lament that he was very tired, and would like to "do something." To "do something" inevitably meant to get to the movies, and the simply movies Bohr liked were those called The Gun Fight at the Lazy Gee Ranch or The Lonely Ranger and a Sioux Girl. But it was hard to become with Bohr to the movies. He could non follow the plot, and was constantly asking u.s., to the great annoyance of the residual of the audience, questions similar this: "Is that the sister of that cowboy who shot the Indian who tried to steal a herd of cattle belonging to her brother-in-law?" The same slowness of reaction was apparent at scientific meetings. Many a time, a visiting young physicist (nigh physicists visiting Copenhagen were immature) would deliver a vivid talk about his recent calculations on some intricate problem of the quantum theory. Everybody in the audience would understand the argument quite clearly, but Bohr wouldn't. And so everybody would offset to explicate to Bohr the simple point he had missed, and in the resulting turmoil everybody would stop understanding anything. Finally, after a considerable period of fourth dimension, Bohr would begin to understand, and information technology would turn out that what he understood well-nigh the trouble presented by the visitor was quite unlike from what the visitor meant, and was right, while the visitor'due south interpretation was wrong.
- George Gamow on Niels Bohr in "The Swell Physicists from Galileo to Einstein" (1961) pg. 237

I remember discussions with Bohr which went through many hours till very late at dark and ended almost in despair; and when at the end of the discussion I went solitary for a walk in the neighbouring park I repeated to myself over again and again the question: Tin can nature possibly be so absurd as it seemed to united states of america in these atomic experiments?
- Werner Heisenberg in Physics and Philosophy (1958)

The get-go thing Bohr said to me was that it would but and so be assisting to work with him if I understood that he was a dilettante. The only manner I knew to react to this unexpected statement was with a polite smile of disbelief. Only evidently Bohr was serious. He explained how he had to approach every new question from a starting point of total ignorance. Information technology is maybe better to say that Bohr's strength lay in his formidable intuition and insight rather than erudition.
- Abraham Pais, in testimony in Niels Bohr : His Life and Work as Seen past His Friends and Colleagues (1967) edited past Stefan Rozental, p. 218; after in his ain piece of work, Niels Bohr'south Times : In Physics, Philosophy, and Polity (1991)

When asked whether the algorism of quantum mechanics could be considered as somehow mirroring an underlying breakthrough world, Bohr would answer, "There is no quantum world. There is simply an abstract breakthrough physical description. It is wrong to think that the chore of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature." Bohr felt that every pace in the evolution of physics has strengthened the view that the trouble of establishing an unambiguous description of nature has simply one solution. He regarded all attempts to replace our elementary concepts or to innovate a new logic to business relationship for the peculiarities of quantum phenomena as not only unnecessary but also incompatible with our nigh fundamental conditions, since we are suspended in a unique language.
- Aage Petersen, "The philosophy of Niels Bohr" past in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Vol. 19, No. 7 (September 1963); The Genius of Science: A Portrait Gallery (2000) by Abraham Pais, p. 24, and Niels Bohr: Reflections on Subject and Object (2001) by Paul. McEvoy, p. 291
- Quotes near quote:
  - To my corking pleasure, Victor Weisskopf was sitting in his usual place in the front row, smile approvingly up at me. (It'south surprising how much such encouragement from such a source tin improve the quality of a talk.) His smiles continued right up to the moment when I read the Petersen quotation. No sooner had I finished reading it than Viki was on his feet. "That's outrageous," he proclaimed. "Bohr couldn't mayhap have said anything like that!" Somewhat taken aback by this sudden flip from approbation to condemnation, I feebly protested that I wasn't attributing it to Bohr, only to Aage Petersen'southward memory of Bohr. That did not extinguish the flames. "Shame on Aage Petersen," declared Viki, "for putting those ridiculous words into Bohr's mouth!"
    - N. David Mermin, "What's Wrong With This Quantum Earth?" Physics Today Vol. 52, No. 2 (Feb 2004), p. 10.

[Bohr was] a marvelous physicist, one of the greatest of all fourth dimension, but he was a miserable philosopher, and one couldn't talk to him. He was talking all the time, allowing practically merely one or two words to you and then at one time cutting in.
- Karl Popper, quoted in John Horgan, The Cease of Science (1996), Ch. 2 : The Finish of Philosophy

"You tin talk about people like Buddha, Jesus, Moses, Confucius, but the thing that convinced me that such people existed were the conversations with Bohr," Dr. Wheeler said.
- John A. Wheeler as quoted by Dennis Overbye in "John A. Wheeler, Physicist Who Coined the Term 'Blackness Pigsty,' Is Dead at 96". NY Times. (14 April 2008)

Niels Bohr distinguished 2 kinds of truths. An ordinary truth is a statement whose opposite is a falsehood. A profound truth is a argument whose opposite is also a profound truth.
- Frank Wilczek, The Lightness of Beingness (2008)