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 not a purely physical beauty, but a metaphysical beauty as well.
The world is not a purely temporal beauty, but an eternal beauty as well.
The world is not a purely finite beauty, but an infinite beauty as well.
The world is not a purely relative beauty, but an absolute beauty as well.
Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else.
If a man never contradicts himself, the reason must be that he virtually never says anything at all.
The world is given to me only once, not one existing and one perceived. Subject and object are only one.
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 scientist only imposes two things, namely truth and sincerity, imposes them upon himself and upon other scientists.
The multiplicity of consciousnesses is only apparent, in truth there is only one mind.
Vedanta teaches that consciousness is singular, all happenings are played out in one universal consciousness and there is no multiplicity of selves.
The object of science is not to open a door to infinite wisdom, but to set a limit to infinite error.
The cat is both alive and dead, contrary to any realistic philosophy.
The unity and continuity of Vedanta are reflected in the unity and continuity of wave mechanics.
The reason why our sentient, percipient and thinking ego is met nowhere within our scientific world picture can easily be indicated in seven words: because it is itself that world picture.
The world is a construct of our sensations, perceptions, memories. It is convenient to regard it as existing objectively on its own. But it certainly does not become manifest by its mere existence.
Life seems to be orderly and lawful behavior of matter, not based exclusively on its tendency to go over from order to disorder, but based partly on existing order that is kept up.
The physical world lacks all the sensual qualities that go to make up the Subject of Cognizance. It cannot have them, for otherwise it would not be physical.
The paradox is only a sharp contradiction between observed results and the results we would expect from our intuitive picture.
The world extended in space and time is but our representation.
Contemporaries of Erwin Schrödinger
Other Physicss born within 50 years of Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961).