Abraham Pais Quotes

One of the absolute rules I learned in the war was, don't know anything you don't need to know, because if you ever get caught they will get it out of you.

To make a discovery is not necessarily the same as to understand a discovery.

A number of current theoretical explorations will turn out to be passing fancies...

Deliberately or not, every author is of course present in every book he or she writes - even in a scientific text.

I knew all the time I was going to get through the war. It was completely irrational, a silly idea, but I was not going to lie down and get myself killed. I was going to get out of it.

The rule of the game was never assume that anybody, however honorable, would be able to stand up under torture. If Mr. X, who knew where I was, was caught for some reason, I should move.

[George] Uhlenbeck was a highly gifted physicist. One of his remarkable traits was he would read every issue of T%he Physical Review from cover to cover.

Of course, relative citation frequencies are no measure of relative importance. Who has not aspired to write a paper so fundamental that very soon it is known to everyone and cited by no one?

[Heisenberg's seminal 1925 paper initiating quantum mechanics marked] one of the great jumps—perhaps the greatest—in the development of twentieth century physics.