Niels Bohr was born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1885. He was a renowned scientist, who won a Noble Peace Prize in 1922 for his work in understanding atomic structure and quantum theory .
He was also a keen philosopher and pioneer of scientific research, especially in the field of physics.
Below are a collection of his best quotes about science, life and much more.
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It is very difficult to make an accurate prediction, especially about the future.
Niels Bohr
Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.
Niels Bohr
It is a great pity that human beings cannot find all of their satisfaction in scientific contemplativeness.
Niels Bohr
There are trivial truths and the great truths. The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true.
Niels Bohr
It is, indeed, perhaps the greatest prospect of humanistic studies to contribute through an increasing knowledge of the history of cultural development to that gradual removal of prejudices which is the common aim of all science.
Niels Bohr
The opposite of every great idea is another great idea.
Niels Bohr
When we measure something we are forcing an undetermined, undefined world to assume an experimental value. We are not measuring the world, we are creating it.
Niels Bohr
It is not enough to be wrong, one must also be polite.
Niels Bohr
If you think you understand it, that only shows that you don't know the first thing about it.
Niels Bohr
If anybody says he can think about quantum physics without getting giddy, that only shows he has not understood the first thing about them.
Niels Bohr
Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think.
Niels Bohr
You must come to Copenhagen to work with us. We like people who can actually perform thought experiments!
Niels Bohr
Technology has advanced more in the last thirty years than in the previous two thousand. The exponential increase in advancement will only continue. Anthropological Commentary The opposite of a trivial truth is false; the opposite of a great truth is also true.
Niels Bohr
There is no hope for any speculation that does not look absurd at first glance.
Niels Bohr
If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't understood it yet.
Niels Bohr
Every great and deep difficulty bears in itself its own solution. It forces us to change our thinking in order to find it.
Niels Bohr
An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field.
Niels Bohr
A physicist is just an atom's way of looking at itself.
Niels Bohr
The measurement we get when we measure something is not a property of the thing measured.
Niels Bohr
In the great drama of existence we are audience and actors at the same time.
Niels Bohr
Nothing exists until it is measured.
Niels Bohr
Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future.
Niels Bohr
Opposites are not contradictory but complementary.
Niels Bohr
A deep truth is a truth so deep that not only is it true but it's exact opposite is also true.
Niels Bohr
Physics is the belief that a simple and consistent description of nature is possible.
Niels Bohr
The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.
Niels Bohr
Every sentence I utter must be understood not as an affirmation, but as a question.
Niels Bohr
No paradox, no progress.
Niels Bohr
A physicist visits a colleague and notices a horseshoe hanging on the wall above the entrance. 'Do you really believe that a horseshoe brings luck?' he asks. 'No,' replies the colleague, 'but I've been told that it works even if you don't believe in it.
Niels Bohr
Every valuable human being must be a radical and a rebel, for what he must aim at is to make things better than they are.
Niels Bohr
We are trapped by language to such a degree that every attempt to formulate insight is a play on words.
Niels Bohr
There are some things so serious you have to laugh at them.
Niels Bohr
It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we say about nature.
Niels Bohr
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical.
Niels Bohr
Anyone not shocked by quantum mechanics has not yet understood it.
Niels Bohr
How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress.
Niels Bohr
In our description of nature the purpose is not to disclose the real essence of the phenomena but only to track down, so far as it is possible, relations between the manifold aspects of our experience.
Niels Bohr
If we couldn't laugh at ourselves, that would be the end of everything.
Niels Bohr
The meaning of life consists in the fact that it makes no sense to say that life has no meaning.
Niels Bohr
Einstein, stop telling God what to do!
Niels Bohr
If an idea does not appear bizarre, there is no hope for it.
Niels Bohr
Your theory is crazy, but it's not crazy enough to be true.
Niels Bohr
Sometimes the child in one behaves a certain way and the rest of oneself follows behind, slowly shaking its head.
Niels Bohr
When it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry.
Niels Bohr
One must always do what one really cannot.
Niels Bohr
When searching for harmony in life one must never forget that in the drama of existence we are ourselves both actors and spectators.
Niels Bohr
Accuracy and clarity of statement are mutually exclusive.
Niels Bohr
Some subjects are so serious that one can only joke about them.
Niels Bohr
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