A Quote by Edward Teller

The main purpose of science is simplicity and as we understand more things, everything is becoming simpler.

Edward Teller

Quote Topics

Science Becoming Everything Main More Purpose Simpler Simplicity Things Understand

Quote Author

Edward Teller
American - Physicist
January 15, 1908 - September 9, 2003

It is often claimed that knowledge multiplies so rapidly that nobody can follow it. I believe this is incorrect. At least in science it is not true. The main purpose of science is simplicity and as we understand more things, everything is becoming simpler. This, of course, goes contrary to what everyone accepts.

Edward Teller

Everything is complex and everything is simple. The rose has no why attached to it, it blooms because it blooms, how no thought of itself, or desire to be seen. What could be more complicated than a rose for someone who wants to understand it? What could be simpler for someone who wants nothing? The complexity of thinking, the simplicity of beholding.

Andre Comte-Sponville

Besides it is an error to believe that rigour is the enemy of simplicity. On the contrary we find it confirmed by numerous examples that the rigorous method is at the same time the simpler and the more easily comprehended. The very effort for rigor forces us to find out simpler methods of proof.

David Hilbert

After all, that was a main purpose of science: to make things of all kinds happen sooner than they otherwise would.

Robert Aickman

The whole point of science is that most of it is uncertain. That's why science is exciting--because we don't know. Science is all about things we don't understand. The public, of course, imagines science is just a set of facts. But it's not. Science is a process of exploring, which is always partial. We explore, and we find out things that we understand. We find out things we thought we understood were wrong. That's how it makes progress.

Freeman Dyson

The paradox of simplicity is that making things simpler is hard work.

Bill Jensen

As poet-philosopher Rabindranath Tagore reminds us, "We cannot cross the sea merely by staring at the water." Simplicity has power. And living on purpose comes to this: Just do it. How much simpler can we get?

Dan Millman

There is so much more to the things that we think we know from afar. The close you get the more complex it is, not the simpler it is to understand.

Susan Meiselas

The things you need in life are those that will help you to fulfill your dominant purpose. Things you may want but not need may lead you aside from that purpose. It is only by making everything serve your main objective that success is attained.

Paramahansa Yogananda

It's not a matter of becoming a superstar. Fame and money aren't the purpose of all this. No actor's going to say, 'I don't want to be famous.' But the main purpose for doing what I'm doing is the passion in the work.

Christopher Lambert

Science, with its experiments and logic, tries to understand the order or structure of the universe. Religion, with its theological inspiration and reflection, tries to understand the purpose or meaning of the universe. These two are cross-related. Purpose implies structure, and structure ought somehow to be interpretable in terms of purpose.

Charles Hard Townes

Elegance is achieved when all that is superfluous has been discarded and the human being discovers simplicity and concentration: the simpler and more sober the posture, the more beautiful it will be.

Paulo Coelho

We all pine for a time in life when things were simpler. Even when they weren't necessarily simpler, hindsight makes them look a lot simpler. The reality of it was that it wasn't.

Ben Gibbard

The best painters, as they progress in reputation and towards perfection, are found to dispense more and more with the technique of the art, for simpler methods. Simplicity never fails to charm.

Honore de Balzac

I don't think that science is complete at all. We don't understand everything, and one can see, within science itself, there are many inconsistencies. We just have to accept that we don't understand.