Zitat des Tages von David Gross:
Theorists have wonderful ideas which take years and years to be verified.
Reading history, one rarely gets the feeling of the true nature of scientific development, in which the element of farce is as great as the element of triumph.
From the age of 13, I was attracted to physics and mathematics. My interest in these subjects derived mostly from popular science books that I read avidly.
Theorists can be wrong; only nature is always right.
The progress of science is much more muddled than is depicted in most history books. This is especially true of theoretical physics, partly because history is written by the victorious.
The main reason why people should care about research in fundamental physics is the same reason they care about astronomy and cosmology. People, children, want to know what we're made out of, how it works, and why the universe is the way it is.
Fortunately, nature is as generous with its problems as Nobel with his fortune. The more we know, the more aware we are of what we know not.