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In the 1920s physicist Niels Bohr found that Newton’s Laws break down at the atomic level. The replacement Quantum Theory ... showed that the electron orbiting the atomic nucleus doesn’t look like this at all. It’s more smudged out, more like a ripple or a wave. Horizon: The Anthropic Principle, BBC 1987
We have to record some kind of measurement to know where an electron is. In fact, until we decide to find out where the electron is by doing an experiment to observe it the electron as a material entity cannot be really said to exist. ibid.
That by our acts of observation we bring things into existence, at least in the realm of the very small, is supported by scientific experiment. ibid.
If we bring the tiny world of the Quantum to existence by our observations, do we need any other mechanism to account for the whole of reality? ibid.
Single photons ... What you get is something completely different: even though only single photons of light are being fired through the slits they don’t create two lines, they mysteriously create three. Horizon: What is Reality? BBC 2011
If you put detectors by the slits, the mysterious behaviour stops. The photons behave just like bullets. Take the detectors away – the multiple stripes mysteriously re-appear. So what is going on? Rather astonishingly it seems we can change the way reality behaves just by looking at it. But this means reality has a secret life of its own. ibid.
According to this theory the photon of light faces two slits; it doesn’t split in two – it splits the world in two. Every photon in the double slit experiment creates a new parallel world. ibid.
It’s called the Observable Universe. We can only map what’s inside ... The light hasn’t had time to reach us yet. Horizon: How Big is the Universe? BBC 2012
The Doppler Shift also applies to light: by measuring changes in the wavelength of light emitted from galaxies Hubble was able to figure out that galaxies were flying away from each other. And receding galaxies could mean only one thing – the universe was expanding. Professor Jim Al-Khalili, Lost Horizons: Big Bang, BBC 2008
The measurement problem ... An atom only appears in a particular place if you measure it. In other words an atom is spread out all over the place until a conscious observer decides to look at it. So the act of measurement or observation creates the entire universe. Professor Jim Al-Khalili, Atom: The Illusion of Reality, BBC 2008
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. George Bernard Shaw
For the truth of the conclusions of physical science, observation is the supreme Court of Appeal. Arthur Eddington, The Philosophy of Physical Science, 1938
This is the key of modern science and is the beginning of the true understanding of nature. This idea. That to look at the things, to record the details, and to hope that in the information thus obtained, may lie a clue to one or another of a possible theoretical interpretation. Richard Feynman, The Character of Physical Law, 1955
To command the professors of astronomy to confute their own observations is ... to command them not to see what they do see, and not to understand what they do understand. Galileo Galilei
If the expansion of the space of the universe is uniform in all directions, an observer located in any one of the galaxies will see all other galaxies running away from him at velocities proportional to their distances from the observer. George Gamow
The errors can’t be taken out of the observations. Jacob Bronowski, The Ascent of Man 11/13: Knowledge or Certainty ***** BBC 1973
The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence. Jiddu Krishnamurti
There are three kinds of men. The ones that learn by readin’. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves. Will Rogers
Nothing exists until or unless it is observed. An artist is making something exist by observing it. And his hope for other people is that they will also make it exist by observing it. I call it ‘creative observation’. William S Burroughs, Ports of Entry
He [Da Vinci] privileged observation over perceived wisdom. Professor Rona Goffen, Rutgers University
It’s on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way. So we must dig and delve unceasingly. Claude Monet
To observations which ourselves we make,
We grow more partial for th’ observer’s sake. Alexander Pope, Epistles to Several Persons, 1735
Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life. Marcus Aurelius
This inescapable duty to observe oneself: if someone else is observing me, naturally I have to observe myself too; if none observe me, I have to observe myself all the closer. Franz Kafka
The philosopher forms his principles from an infinity of particular observations. Most people adopt principles without thinking of the observations that have produced them, they believe the maxims exist, so to speak, by themselves. But the philosopher takes maxims from their source; he examines their origin; he knows their proper value, and he makes use of them only in so far as they suit him. Denis Diderot, L’Encyclopédie
In the field of observation chance favours only the preferred mind. Louis Pasteur
We ought, in every instance, to submit our reasoning to the test of experiment, and never to search for truth but by the natural road of experiment and observation. Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier
Experiment is fundamentally only induced observation. Claude Bernard
How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service! Charles Darwin, letter to Henry Fawcett 18th September 1861
I am a firm believer, that without speculation there is no good and original observation. Charles Darwin, letter to A R Wallace 22nd December 1857
You see, but you do not observe. Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 1892
When the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay,
And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings,
Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the neighbours say,
‘He was a man who used to notice such things’? Thomas Hardy, Afterwards