Frasi di Freeman Dyson

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“Per appartenere ad una religione non c'è bisogno di credere. È sufficiente desiderare di credere, o magari anche solo fingere di credere. Se credere è difficile, credere nella credenza risulta però facile.”

“Tanti mi dicono che sul riscaldamento globale mi sbaglio. La vita è sempre in cambiamento e l'uomo ha il compito di intervenire sulla natura per garantirsi la sopravvivenza.”

“Se Dio esiste ed è accessibile a noi, la sua mente e le nostre possono a loro volta differire l'una dalle altre in complessità e non in qualità.”

“La scienza è la somma totale di una grande moltitudine di misteri. È un argomento senza fine tra una grande moltitudine di voci. Assomiglia a Wikipedia molto più di quanto non assomigli all'Enciclopedia Britannica.”

“Il riscaldamento non è globale ma locale. I ricercatori che lavorano con i modelli climatici tendono a sovrastimarli, credono che rappresentino la realtà. Così il riscaldamento climatico è diventato un'ideologia.”

“Io non affermo che sto leggendo il libro della Natura quando mi dedico a un calcolo scientifico. Non affermo di essere uno scrupoloso ricercatore scientifico quando parlo di Gesù e di Bacco. La scienza e la religione sono due finestre attraverso le quali possiamo guardare il mondo che ci circonda. Siamo liberi di scegliere. Come dice un proverbio svizzero: «C'è gente a cui piace andare in chiesa e c'è gente a cui piacciono le ciliegie». Si può avere un benevolo rispetto per la religione pur non essendo pii. La via della verità non è necessariamente lastricata di buone azioni.”

“La scienza non è un corpo dottrinale monolitico ma una cultura che cresce ed evolve costantemente. La scienza attuale è derivata dalla matrice di quella classica del secolo XIX, proprio come la pittura di Pablo Picasso e di Jackson Pollock è derivata dalle matrici dell'arte del secolo XIX. La scienza ha tendenze in competizione proprio come la pittura e la poesia.”

“Il progresso etico è l'unica terapia per il danno prodotto dal progresso scientifico.”

“I semi del vangelo della non-violenza di Tolstoj, quando furono portati in tutto il mondo, caddero per lo più su un suolo sassoso e arido, ma in nessun paese il suolo fu più sassoso che nella sua natia Russia.”

“Prendere coscienza della nostra piccolezza può aiutarci a riscattarci dall'arroganza, che è il peccato in cui cade più spesso lo scienziato.”

“Noi uomini siamo forse i meno specializzati e i più adattabili di tutte le specie esistenti. Siamo passati attraverso le ere glaciali e le catastrofi ambientali. Le piogge di comete possono essere state una delle principali forze che hanno guidato la nostra evoluzione e che ci hanno fatto diventare quelli che siamo ora.”

“Ci sono ancora grandi verità da dire, se avessimo sia il coraggio di enunciarle sia la buona disposizione ad accettarle.”

“Più lontano andremo nel futuro, più differenziazione delle strutture naturali scopriremo, e più diversificazioni tecnologiche potremo creare.”

“Penso che finalmente arriverà il momento in cui la fisica vorrà apprendere dalla biologia come la biologia vorrà apprendere dalla fisica, in cui la fisica accetterà le infinite diversità della natura come uno dei suoi temi centrali, proprio come la biologia ha accettato l'unità dell'apparato della codificazione genetica come uno dei suoi dogmi centrali.”

“Sto dicendo che la tecnologia verde potrebbe fare tutte queste cose buone, portando ricchezza ai tropici, offrendo opportunità economiche ai villaggi, riducendo il divario tra ricchi e poveri. Non sto dicendo che la tecnologia verde farà tutte queste cose buone. Potrebbe non è lo stesso di porterà. Per far sì che queste cose positive accadano, abbiamo bisogno non solo della nuova tecnologia, ma anche delle condizioni politiche ed economiche che offriranno alle persone di tutto il mondo la possibilità di usarle. Per far sì che queste cose accadano, abbiamo bisogno di una forte spinta dall'etica.”

“Starting from Einstein's theory of general relativity, Oppenheimer and Snyder found solutions… that described what happens to a massive star when it has exhausted its supplies of nuclear energy. The star collapses gravitationally and disappears from the visible universe, leaving behind only an intense gravitational field to mark its presence. The star remains in a state of permanent free fall, collapsing endlessly inward into the gravitational pit without ever reaching the bottom. … In my opinion, the black hole is incomparably the most exciting and the most important consequence of general relativity. But Einstein … was actively hostile to the idea of black holes. … Oddly enough, Oppenheimer too in later life was uninterested in black holes, although… they were his most important contribution to science. … Oppenheimer in his later years believed that the only problem worthy of attention of a serious theoretical physicist was the discovery of fundamental equations of physics. Einstein certainly felt the same way.”

“The gospel of St. Matthew told of the angry Jesus driving the merchants and money-changers out of the temple, knocking over the tables of the money-changers and spilling their coins on the floor. Jesus was not opposed to capitalism and the profit motive, so long as economic activities were carried on outside the temple. In the parable of the talents, he praises the servant who used his master's money to make a profitable investment, and condemns the servant who was too timid to invest. But he draws a clear line at the temple door. Inside the temple, the ground belongs to God and profit-making must stop.”

“The two great conceptual revolutions of twentieth-century science, the overturning of classical physics by Werner Heisenberg and the overturning of the foundations of mathematics by Kurt Gödel, occurred within six years of each other within the narrow boundaries of German-speaking Europe. … A study of the historical background of German intellectual life in the 1920s reveals strong links between them. Physicists and mathematicians were exposed simultaneously to external influences that pushed them along parallel paths. … Two people who came early and strongly under the influence of Spengler's philosophy were the mathematician Hermann Weyl and the physicist Erwin Schrödinger. … Weyl and Schrödinger agreed with Spengler that the coming revolution would sweep away the principle of physical causality. The erstwhile revolutionaries David Hilbert and Albert Einstein found themselves in the unaccustomed role of defenders of the status quo, Hilbert defending the primacy of formal logic in the foundations of mathematics, Einstein defending the primacy of causality in physics. In the short run, Hilbert and Einstein were defeated and the Spenglerian ideology of revolution triumphed, both in physics and in mathematics. Heisenberg discovered the true limits of causality in atomic processes, and Gödel discovered the limits of formal deduction and proof in mathematics. And, as often happens in the history of intellectual revolutions, the achievement of revolutionary goals destroyed the revolutionary ideology that gave them birth. The visions of Spengler, having served their purpose, rapidly became irrelevant.”

“After sketching his program for the scientific revolution that he foresaw, Bacon ends his account with a prayer: "Humbly we pray that this mind may be steadfast in us, and that through these our hands, and the hands of others to whom thou shalt give the same spirit, thou wilt vouchsafe to endow the human family with new mercies". That is still a good prayer for all of us as we begin the twenty-first century.”

“Science as subversion has a long history. … Davis and Sakharov belong to an old tradition in science that goes all the way back to the rebels Benjamin Franklin and Joseph Priestley in the eighteenth century, to Galileo and Giordano Bruno in the seventeenth and sixteenth. If science ceases to be a rebellion against authority, then it does not deserve the talents of our brightest children. … We should try to introduce our children to science today as a rebellion against poverty and ugliness and militarism and economic injustice.”

“It is probably not an accident that modern science grew explosively in Christian Europe and left the rest of the world behind. A thousand years of theological disputes nurtured the habit of analytical thinking that could also be applied to the analysis of natural phenomena. On the other hand, the close historical relations between theology and science have caused conflicts between science and Christianity that does not exist between science and other religions.”

“All the books that I have seen about the science and the economics of global warming, including the two books under review, miss the main point. The main point is religious rather than scientific. There is a worldwide secular religion which we may call environmentalism, holding that we are stewards of the earth, that despoiling the planet with waste products of our luxurious living is a sin, and that the path of righteousness is to live as frugally as possible. … Environmentalism has replaced socialism as the leading secular religion.”

“I do not claim any ability to read God's mind. I am sure of only one thing. When we look at the glory of stars and galaxies in the sky and the glory of forests and flowers in the living world around us, it is evident that God loves diversity. Perhaps the universe is constructed according to a principle of maximum diversity.”

“Scientists and business leaders who care about social justice should join forces with environmental and religious organizations to give political clout to ethics. Science and religion should work together to abolish the gross inequalities that prevail in the modern world. That is my vision, and it is the same vision that inspired Francis Bacon four hundred years ago, when he prayed that through science God would "endow the human family with new mercies."”

“Astronomers have so far escaped the extreme specialization that has overtaken physicists. Telescopes are big, but they are not as complicated as accelerators. Observations with a big telescope can be carried out in hours rather than years.”

“The bottom line for mathematicians is that the architecture has to be right. In all the mathematics that I did, the essential point was to find the right architecture. It's like building a bridge. Once the main lines of the structure are right, then the details miraculously fit. The problem is the overall design.”

“The laws of nature are constructed in such a way as to make the universe as interesting as possible.”

“It is a curious paradox that several of the greatest and most creative spirits in science, after achieving important discoveries by following their unfettered imaginations, were in their later years obsessed with reductionist philosophy and as a result became sterile. Hilbert was a prime example of this paradox. Einstein was another.”

“Nobody knows what dark matter is. It is another deep mystery waiting to be explored. We know only that it is there, and that it weighs more than the stuff that we can see.”

“Gödel's theorem shows conclusively that in pure mathematics reductionism does not work. To decide whether a mathematical statement is true, it is not sufficient to reduce the statement to marks on paper and to study the behavior of the marks. Except in trivial cases, you can decide the truth of a statement only by studying its meaning and its context in the larger world of mathematical ideas.”

“I had the good luck a few years ago to visit the archeological site of Zippori in Israel … I could see here displayed the Greek culture that Jesus decisively rejected, the same Greek culture that infiltrated the Christian religion soon after his death and has dominated Christianity ever since.”

“Anyone who compares the bibliography with the reprinted papers will notice that mathematics and physics have not been given equal treatment. There is a strong bias in favor of mathematics. The bias arises from the fact that mathematical papers, provided that are correct and not trivial, have permanent value, whereas most papers in physics journals are ephemeral. For this reason, it is customary to publish complete collected works of mathematicians but only selected works of physicists.”

“Sharing the food is to me more important than arguing about beliefs. Jesus, according to the gospels, thought so too.”

“As we look out into the Universe and identify the many accidents of physics and astronomy that have worked together to our benefit, it almost seems as if the Universe must in some sense have known that we were coming.”

“Unfortunately a large number of people in many countries are strongly opposed to green technology, for reasons having little to do with the real dangers. It is important to treat the opponents with respect, to pay attention to their fears, to go gently into the new world of green technology so that neither human dignity nor religious conviction is violated. If we can go gently, we have a good chance of achieving within a hundred years the goals of ecological sustainability and social justice that green technology brings within our reach.”

“The great question for our time is, how to make sure that the continuing scientific revolution brings benefits to everybody rather than widening the gap between rich and poor. To lift up poor countries, and poor people in rich countries, from poverty, to give them a chance of a decent life, technology is not enough. Technology must be guided and driven by ethics if it is to do more than provide new toys for the rich.”

“An awareness of our smallness may help to redeem us from the arrogance which is the besetting sin of the scientists.”

“It has been generally believed that only the complex numbers could legitimately be used as the ground field in discussing quantum-mechanical operators. Over the complex field, Frobenius' theorem is of course not valid; the only division algebra over the complex field is formed by the complex numbers themselves. However, Frobenius' theorem is relevant precisely because the appropriate ground field for much of quantum mechanics is real rather than complex.”

“It is more difficult for a modern scientist to be a serious Christian, like Polkinghorne, than to be a serious Muslim, like the Nobel Prize-winning physicisit Abdus Salam. Salam happily proclaimed his Muslim faith but did not feel any need to write books about it. For Salam, the idea of a conflict between his faith and his science was ludicrous. Muslim faith has nothing to do with science. But Polkinghorne writes books to prove to himself and to us that his theology and his science can live together harmoniously..”

“The common root of modern science and Christian theology was Greek philosophy. The historical accident that caused the Christian religion to become heavily theological was the fact that Jesus was born in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire at the time when the prevailing culture was profoundly Greek.”

“In the little town of Princeton where I live, we have more than twenty churches and at least one synagogue, providing different forms of worship and belief for different kinds of people. They do more than any other organizations in the town to hold the community together. Within this community of people, held together by religious traditions of human brotherhood and sharing of burdens, a smaller community of professional scientists also flourishes.”

“I am neither a saint nor a theologian. To me, good works are more important than theology. We all know that religion has been historically, and still is today, a cause of great evil as well as great good in human affairs. We have seen terrible wars and terrible persecutions conducted in the name of religion. We have also seen large numbers of people inspired by religion to lives of heroic virtue, bringing education and medical care to the poor, helping to abolish slavery and spread peace among nations. Religion amplifies the good and evil tendencies of individual souls. Religion will always remain a powerful force in the history of our species. To me, the meaning of progress in religion is simply this, that as we move from the past to the future the good works inspired by religion should more and more prevail over the evil.”

“... the most important questions and insights and goals are unpredictable.”

“God is what mind becomes when it has passed beyond the scale of our comprehension.”