"[[Physics|[P]hysicists]]... try to find a fundamental law of motion for matter from which all elementary particles and their properties can be derived mathematically. This fundamental equation... may refer either to waves of a known type... or to waves... which have nothing to do with any of the known waves or elementary particles. In the first case it would mean that all other elementary particles can be reduced in some way to a few sorts of "fundamental" elementary particles... In the second case all different elementary particles could be reduced to some universal substance... energy or matter, but none of the... particles could be preferred... as... more fundamental. The latter... corresponds to... Anaximander, and... this view is the correct one."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Philosophers from GreeceNatural philosophersPhysicists from GreeceAstronomers from GreecePresocratic philosophers
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy (1958) p. 61.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Anaximander
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Anaximander
11 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Anaximander →
Related Quotes
"All things must in equity again decline into that whence they have their origin for they must give satisfaction and a…"
"There cannot be a single, simple body which is infinite, either, as some hold, one distinct from the elements, which …"
"The Earth is cylindrical, three times as wide as it is deep, and only the upper part is inhabited. But this Earth is …"
"Anaximander relies on the accuracy of geometry in matters beyond the range of any kind of verification—in its applica…"
"The big bang and the steady state debate in some ways echoed that between the ideas of Anaximander and Anaxagoras fro…"
"Anaximander denied the fundamental substance to be... any of the known substances. He taught that the primary substan…"
"Anaximander displays all the symptoms of the intellectual fever spreading through Greece. His universe is no longer a…"
"Anaximander the Milesian, affirmed the infinite to be the first principle, and that all things are generated out of i…"
"Anaximandros... pupil and companion of Thales, was like him an astronomer, geographer, and physicist, seeking for a f…"
"In Antiquity, Anaximander understood that the sky continues beneath our feet long before ships had circumnavigated th…"