Niels Bohr — "The word 'reality' is also a word, a word which we must learn to use correctly."
The word 'reality' is also a word, a word which we must learn to use correctly.
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More from Niels Bohr
"The atom is a tiny planetary system. The electrons revolve around the nucleus just as the planets revolve around the sun."
"If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't understood it yet."
"Science is not about certainty; it is about uncertainty."
"It is not possible to describe the world without describing ourselves."
"We are not to think of atoms as things, but as connections."
Details
Attributed to him in discussions, emphasizing the role of language in defining reality.
Date: Approx. 1930s-1950s
EducationalVerification
Unverifiable
Found in 1 providers: grok
1 source checked
Understanding this quote
What it means
Even the concept of 'reality' is just a word we invented, and like any tool, it can be misused or misunderstood. We often assume reality is a fixed, self-evident thing, but our ability to talk about it depends entirely on using language carefully. Before arguing about what is real, we need to agree on what we mean by the word itself, because sloppy usage leads to confused thinking.
Relevance to Niels Bohr
Bohr pioneered quantum mechanics and the Copenhagen interpretation, where particles lack definite properties until measured. This forced him to question whether 'reality' even applied at the atomic scale in the classical sense. He famously debated Einstein over whether quantum mechanics described reality or merely our knowledge of it. For Bohr, physics was as much about the language we use to describe nature as about nature itself, since measurement and description are inseparable.
The era
Bohr worked during the early-to-mid 20th century, when quantum mechanics shattered classical assumptions about a deterministic, observer-independent universe. Philosophers like Wittgenstein were simultaneously arguing that linguistic confusion caused most philosophical problems. Einstein's relativity had already redefined space and time, and logical positivism questioned which statements were meaningful. Amid this upheaval, physicists confronted experiments suggesting that observation shaped outcomes, making the precise use of everyday words like 'reality' genuinely urgent.
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