Erwin Schrödinger
Developed wave equation for quantum mechanics
Most quoted
"One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. Imagine an experiment that will not be carried out until the year 2000, in which a cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): at the heart of a Geiger counter, there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small that perhaps in the course of the hour one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges and through a relay releases a hammer which shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts."
— from Die gegenwärtige Situation in der Quantenmechanik, 1935
"The scientific picture of the real world around me is very deficient. It gives a lot of factual information, puts all our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really close to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight; it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good and bad, God and eternity. Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains, but the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously."
— from Mind and Matter
"This life of yours which you are living is not merely a piece of the entire existence, but is in a certain sense the whole; only this whole is not so constituted that it can be surveyed in a single glance. This, as we know, is what the Brahmins express in that sacred, mystic formula. Tat tvam asi—this is you. Or, again, in such words as ‘I am in the east and in the west, above and below, I am this entire world.’"
— from My View of the World
All quotes by Erwin Schrödinger (550)
The world is a society, and we are trying to improve it.
The world is a universe, and we are trying to explore it.
The world is a cosmos, and we are trying to understand its order.
The world is a whole, and we are trying to find our place in it.
The world is a unity, and we are trying to realize it.
The world is a mystery, and we are trying to embrace it.
The world is a wonder, and we are trying to marvel at it.
The world is a miracle, and we are trying to celebrate it.
The world is a gift, and we are trying to cherish it.
The world is a blessing, and we are trying to be grateful for it.
The world is a dream, and we are trying to make it a reality.
The world is a canvas, and we are trying to paint our masterpiece.
The world is a song, and we are trying to compose our own melody.
I am quite convinced that there is no such thing as a 'quantum jump' in the sense of a sudden, discontinuous change.
The world is given to me only once, not one existing and one perceived. Subject and object are only one. The barrier between them cannot be said to have broken down as a result of recent experience in the physical sciences, for this barrier does not exist.
The task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen, but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody sees.
The total number of degrees of freedom of a system is always an integer.
I don't like it, and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it.
The world is a construct of our sensations, perceptions, memories. It is convenient to regard it as existing objectively. But it is not a necessity.
If we are to be honest, we must admit that the quantum theory is still in a very unsatisfactory state.
Contemporaries of Erwin Schrödinger
Other Physicss born within 50 years of Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961).