If We Are Honest - And Scientists

I Found The Best Ideas Usually Came, Not When One Was Actively Striving For Them, But When One Was In A More Relaxed State… I Used To Take Long Solitary Walks On Sundays, During Which I Tended To Review The Current Situation In A Leisurely Way. Such Occasions Often Proved Fruitful, Even Though (or Perhaps, Because) The Primary Purpose Of The Walk Was Relaxation And Not Research.

The Underlying Physical Laws Necessary For The Mathematical Theory Of A Large Part Of Physics And The Whole Of Chemistry Are Thus Completely Known, And The Difficulty Is Only That The Exact Application Of These Laws Leads To Equations Much Too Complicated To Be Soluble. It Therefore Becomes Desirable That Approximate Practical Methods Of Applying Quantum Mechanics Should Be Developed, Which Can Lead To An Explanation Of The Main Features Of Complex Atomic Systems Without Too Much Computation.

The Shortage Of Buyers, Which The World Is Suffering From, Is Readily Understood, Not As Due To People Not Wishing To Obtain Possession Of Goods, But As People Being Unwilling To Part With Something Which Might Earn A Regular Income In Exchange For Those Goods.

I Learnt To Distrust All Physical Concepts As The Basis For A Theory. Instead One Should Put One's Trust In A Mathematical Scheme, Even If The Scheme Does Not Appear At First Sight To Be Connected With Physics. One Should Concentrate On Getting Interesting Mathematics.

I Think It Is A Peculiarity Of Myself That I Like To Play About With Equations, Just Looking For Beautiful Mathematical Relations Which Maybe Don't Have Any Physical Meaning At All. Sometimes They Do. At Age 60.