"If nature leads us to mathematical forms of great simplicity and beauty—by forms I am referring to coherent systems of hypothesis, axioms, etc.—to forms that no one has previously encountered, we cannot help thinking that they are "true," that they reveal a genuine feature of nature. It may be that these forms also cover our subjective relationship to nature, that they reflect elements of our own thought economy. But the mere fact that we could never have arrived at these forms by ourselves, that they were revealed to us by nature, suggests strongly that they must be part of reality itself, not just of our thoughts about reality. ... You must have felt this too: The almost frightening simplicity and wholeness of relationships which nature suddenly spreads out before us and for which none of us was in the least prepared."
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Academics from GermanyNobel laureates in PhysicsPhysicists from GermanyLutheransPhilosophers from Germany
Original Language: English
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Conversation with Einstein, recalled English translation of his book Physics and Beyond (1971), pp. 68-69.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Werner_Heisenberg
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