The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.
Richard Feynman (1918-1988) American physicist
“Cargo Cult Science,” commencement address, California Institute of Technology (1974)
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Quotations by:
Feynman, Richard
But there is one feature I notice that is generally missing in Cargo Cult Science. That is the idea that we all hope you have learned in studying science in school — we never explicitly say what this is, but just hope that you catch on by all the examples of scientific investigation. It is interesting, therefore, to bring it out now and speak of it explicitly. It’s a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty — a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid — not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you’ve eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked — to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.
Richard Feynman (1918-1988) American physicist
“Cargo Cult Science,” commencement address, California Institute of Technology (1974)
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Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can — if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong — to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem. When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition. In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.
Richard Feynman (1918-1988) American physicist
“Cargo Cult Science,” commencement address, California Institute of Technology (1974)
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Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.
Richard Feynman (1918-1988) American physicist
“What Is and What Should Be the Role of Scientific Culture in Modern Society,” lecture at the Galileo Symposium, Italy (1964)
Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts.
Richard Feynman (1918-1988) American physicist
“What Is Science?” address, National Science Teachers Association, New York (1966)
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So all fathers took all sons out for walks in the woods one Sunday afternoon. The next day, Monday, we were playing in the fields and this boy said to me, “See that bird standing on the stump there? What’s the name of it?”
I said, “I haven’t got the slightest idea.” He said, ‘It’s a brown-throated thrush. Your father doesn’t teach you much about science.”
I smiled to myself, because my father had already taught me that [the name] doesn’t tell me anything about the bird. He taught me “See that bird? It’s a brown-throated thrush, but in Germany it’s called a halsenflugel, and in Chinese they call it a chung ling and even if you know all those names for it, you still know nothing about the bird — you only know something about people; what they call that bird. Now that thrush sings, and teaches its young to fly, and flies so many miles away during the summer across the country, and nobody knows how it finds its way,” and so forth. There is a difference between the name of the thing and what goes on.
Richard Feynman (1918-1988) American physicist
“What is Science?” speech, National Science Teachers Association, New York City (1966)
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Reprinted in The Physics Teacher, Vol. 7, issue 6 (Sep 1969)
Feynman spoke often about his father, Melvin, and the early science education he got from him. The final phrase above shows up frequently in Feynman's writings and lectures. Variations of the overall story show up in biographies and references, including this version from his autobiographical What Do You Care What Other People Think?, ch. 1 (1988) [with Ralph Leighton]:So it ended up that the other fathers had to take their children for walks the next weekend. The next Monday, when the fathers were all back at work, we kids were playing in a field. One kids says to me, "See that bird? What kind of bird is that?"
I said, "I haven't the slightest idea of what kind of bird it is." He says, "It's a brown-throated thrush. Your father doesn't teach you anything."
But it was the opposite. He had already taught me: "See that bird?" he said. "It's a Spencer's warbler." (I knew he didn't know the real name.) "Well, in Italian, it's a Chutto Lapittida. In Portuguese, it's a Bom da Peida. In Chinese, it's a Chung-long-tah, and in Japanese it's a Katano Tekeda. You can know the name of that bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. You'll only know about humans in different places, and what they call the bird. So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing -- that's what counts." (I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.)
Science is like sex: sometimes something useful comes out, but that is not the reason we are doing it.
Richard Feynman (1918-1988) American physicist
(Attributed)
Many variations can be found for this quotation (none of them with citation); the word "Science" and "Physics" are often interchanged:As noted here, Frank Oppenheimer (a colleague of Feynman's) was quoted saying, "There's a lot of practical fruits to understanding, but it's like sex. There are practical fruits to sex, but nobody would say that's why you do it, normally." Feynman and Oppenheimer may well have collaborated on the general phrasing, or taken it from one another.
- "Science is like sex, it has its practical purposes, but that's not why we do it."
- "Science is like sex. Sometimes something useful comes out, but that is not why we are doing it."
- Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it."
For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
Richard Feynman (1918-1988) American physicist
Rogers Commission Report into the Challenger Crash, Appendix F “Personal Observations on Reliability of Shuttle” (Jun 1986)
Full report
When playing Russian roulette the fact that the first shot got off safely is little comfort for the next.
Richard Feynman (1918-1988) American physicist
Rogers Commission Report into the Challenger Crash, Appendix F “Personal Observations on Reliability of Shuttle” (Jun 1986)
Full report
The inexperienced, and crackpots, and people like that, make guesses that are simple, but you can immediately see that they are wrong, so that does not count. Others, the inexperienced students, make guesses that are very complicated, and it sort of looks as if it is all right, but I know it is not true because the truth always turns out to be simpler than you thought.
Richard Feynman (1918-1988) American physicist
The Character of Physical Law, ch 7 “Seeking New Laws” (1965)
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So we have to make guesses in order to give any utility at all to science. In order to avoid simply describing experiments that have been done, we have to propose laws beyond their observed range. There is nothing wrong with that, despite the fact that it makes science uncertain. If you thought before that science was certain — well, that is just an error on your part.
Richard Feynman (1918-1988) American physicist
The Character of Physical Law, ch. 3 “The Great Conservation Principles” (1965)
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For those who want some proof that physicists are human, the proof is in the idiocy of all the different units which they use for measuring energy.
Richard Feynman (1918-1988) American physicist
The Character of Physical Laws ch. 3 “The Great Conservation Principles” (1965)
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And so our kind of imagination is quite a difficult game. One has to have the imagination to think of something that has never been seen before, never been heard of before. At the same time the thoughts are restricted in a strait jacket, so to speak, limited by the conditions that come from our knowledge of the way nature really is. The problem of creating something which is new, but which is consistent with everything which has been seen before, is one of extreme difficulty.
Richard Feynman (1918-1988) American physicist
The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol. 2, ch. 20 “Solutions of Maxwell’s Equations in Free Space,” sec. 20–3 “Scientific Imagination” (1964)
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The whole question of imagination in science is often misunderstood by people in other disciplines. They try to test our imagination in the following way. They say, “Here is a picture of some people in a situation. What do you imagine will happen next?” When we say, “I can’t imagine,” they may think we have a weak imagination. They overlook the fact that whatever we are allowed to imagine in science must be consistent with everything else we know: that the electric fields and the waves we talk about are not just some happy thoughts which we are free to make as we wish, but ideas which must be consistent with all the laws of physics we know. We can’t allow ourselves to seriously imagine things which are obviously in contradiction to the known laws of nature.
Richard Feynman (1918-1988) American physicist
The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol. 2, ch. 20 “Solutions of Maxwell’s Equations in Free Space,” sec. 20–3 “Scientific Imagination” (1964)
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On the other hand, even if we cannot see beauty in particular measured results, we can already claim to see a certain beauty in the equations which describe general physical laws. For example, in the wave equation (20.9), there’s something nice about the regularity of the appearance of the x, the y, the z, and the t. And this nice symmetry in appearance of the x, y, z, and t suggests to the mind still a greater beauty which has to do with the four dimensions, the possibility that space has four-dimensional symmetry, the possibility of analyzing that and the developments of the special theory of relativity. So there is plenty of intellectual beauty associated with the equations.
Richard Feynman (1918-1988) American physicist
The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol. 2, ch. 20 “Solutions of Maxwell’s Equations in Free Space,” sec. 20–3 “Scientific Imagination” (1964)
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We cannot define anything precisely! If we attempt to, we get into that paralysis of thought that comes to philosophers who sit opposite each other, one saying to the other, “You don’t know what you are talking about!”. The second one says, “What do you mean by know? What do you mean by talking? What do you mean by you?” and so on.
Richard Feynman (1918-1988) American physicist
The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Volume I, 8-2 “Motion” (20 Oct 1961)
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I have argued flying saucers with lots of people. … I was interested in this: they keep arguing that it is possible. And that’s true. It is possible. They do not appreciate that the problem is not to demonstrate whether it’s possible or not, but whether it’s going on or not. Whether it’s probably occurring or not, not whether it could occur.
No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles, nor to prescribe in any way the character of the questions investigated. Neither may a government determine the aesthetic value of artistic creations, nor limit the forms of literacy or artistic expression. Nor should it pronounce on the validity of economic, historic, religious, or philosophical doctrines. Instead it has a duty to its citizens to maintain the freedom, to let those citizens contribute to the further adventure and the development of the human race.
Richard Feynman (1918-1988) American physicist
The Meaning of It All, “The Uncertainty of Values” (1999)
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It doesn’t seem to me that this fantastically marvelous universe, this tremendous range of time and space and different kinds of animals, and all the different planets, and all these atoms with all their motions, and so on, all this complicated thing can merely be a stage so that God can watch human beings struggle for good and evil — which is the view that religion has. The stage is too big for the drama.
Richard Feynman (1918-1988) American physicist
Viewpoint interview by Bill Stout, KNXT (1 May 1959)
Reprinted in Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track, ed. by Michelle Feynman, Appendix I (2006).
Scientists take it for granted that it is perfectly consistent to be unsure — that it is possible to live and not know. But I don’t know whether everyone realizes that this is true.
Richard Feynman (1918-1988) American physicist
What Do You Care What Other People Think? (1988)
Although my mother didn’t know anything about science, she had a great influence on me as well. In particular, she had a wonderful sense of humor, and I learned from her that the highest forms of understanding we can achieve are laughter and human compassion.
Richard Feynman (1918-1988) American physicist
What Do You Care What Other People Think?, “The Making of a Scientist” (1988)
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It doesn’t seem to me that this fantastically marvelous universe, this tremendous range of time and space and different kinds of animals, and all the different planets, and all these atoms with all their motions, and so on, all this complicated thing can merely be a stage so that God can watch human beings struggle for good and evil — which is the view that religion has. The stage is too big for the drama.
Richard Feynman (1918-1988) American physicist
Comment (1959)Quoted in J. Gleick, Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman (1992)