Basic Concepts Quotes

A theory is the more impressive the greater the simplicity of its premises is, the more different kinds of things it relates, and the more extended is its area of applicability. Therefore the deep impression which classical thermodynamics made upon me. It is the only physical theory of universal content concerning which I am convinced that within the framework of the applicability of its basic concepts, it will never be overthrown.

Law is vulnerable to the winds of intellectual or moral fashion, which it then validates as the commands of our most basic concept.

The ability of nonintelligent people to understand the most complicated mechanisms and to use them has always been to me a cause of astonishment: their inability to understand simple questions is even more astonishing. The general acceptance of simple ideas is difficult and rare, and yet it is only when simple, fundamental, ideas have been accepted that further progress becomes possible on a higher level.

Finally there are simple ideas of which no definition can be given; there are also axioms or postulates, or in a word primary principles, which cannot be proved and have no need of proof.

If our titles recall the known myths of antiquity, we have used them again because they are the eternal symbols upon which we must fall back to express basic psychological ideas.

Logical investigations can obviously be a useful tool for philosophy. They must, however, be informed by a sensitivity to the philosophical significance of the formalism and by a generous admixture of common sense, as well as a thorough understanding both of the basic concepts and of the technical details of the formal material used. It should not be supposed that the formalism can grind out philosophical results in a manner beyond the capacity of ordinary philosophical reasoning. There is no mathematical substitute for philosophy.

The foundations of any subject may be taught to anybody at any age in some form.

Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone.

Certainly to me it has been valuable to have to think through the basics of physics in order to present them in a halfway coherent form for a course. That has led me to ideas in research. Even freshman physics leads to thoughts that lead to other thoughts that are stimulating.

[The crowd] will finally succeed in remembering only the simplest concepts repeated a thousand times.

The way to do good basic design isn't actually to be really smart about it, but to try to have a few basic concepts.

'Think simple' as my old master used to say - meaning reduce the whole of its parts into the simplest terms, getting back to first principles.

Once we know the number one, we believe that we know the number two, because one plus one equals two. We forget that first we must know the meaning of plus.

The greatest ideas are the simplest.

It must be conceded that a theory has an important advantage if its basic concepts and fundamental hypotheses are 'close to experience,' and greater confidence in such a theory is certainly justified. There is less danger of going completely astray, particularly since it takes so much less time and effort to disprove such theories by experience. Yet more and more, as the depth of our knowledge increases, we must give up this advantage in our quest for logical simplicity in the foundations of physical theory.

It is the things we think we know - because they are so elementary or because they surround us - that often present the greatest difficulties when we are actually challenged to explain them.

Don't explain computers to laymen. Simpler to explain sex to a virgin.