Quotes by Freeman Dyson

About Freeman Dyson:

Freeman John Dyson is an English-born American theoretical physicist and mathematician, known for his work in quantum electrodynamics, solid-state physics, astronomy and nuclear engineering. Dyson is a member of the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

The essential fact which emerges ... is that the three smallest and most active reservoirs ( of carbon in the global carbon cycle), the atmosphere, the plants and the soil, are all of roughly the same size. This means that large human disturbance of ...

Freeman Dyson

We must be careful not to discourage our twelve-year-olds by making them waste the best years of their lives preparing for examinations.

Freeman Dyson

Science is my territory, but science fiction is the landscape of my dreams.

Freeman Dyson

The progress of science requires the growth of understanding in both directions, downward from the whole to the parts and upward from the parts to the whole. A reductionist philosophy, arbitrarily proclaiming that the growth of understanding must go ...

Freeman Dyson

I have the freedom to do what I want... bright people to talk to every day.

Freeman Dyson

Every orchid or rose or lizard or snake is the work of a dedicated and skilled breeder. There are thousands of people, amateurs and professionals, who devote their lives to this business. Now imagine what will happen when the tools of genetic enginee...

Freeman Dyson

Successful technologies often begin as hobbies. Jacques Cousteau invented scuba diving because he enjoyed exploring caves. The Wright brothers invented flying as a relief from the monotony of their normal business of selling and repairing bicycles.

Freeman Dyson

We have no reason to think that climate change is harmful if you look at the world as a whole. Most places, in fact, are better off being warmer than being colder. And historically, the really bad times for the environment and for people have been th...

Freeman Dyson

It is characteristic of all deep human problems that they are not to be approached without some humor and some bewilderment.

Freeman Dyson

A good scientist is a person with original ideas. A good engineer is a person who makes a design that works with as few original ideas as possible. There are no prima donnas in engineering.

Freeman Dyson

It's as great a part of the human adventure to invent things as to understand them. John Randall wasn't a great scientist, but he was a great inventor. There's been lots more like him, and it's a shame they don't get Nobel Prizes.

Freeman Dyson

There is a great satisfaction in building good tools for other people to use.

Freeman Dyson

Scepticism is as important for a good journalist as it is for a good scientist.

Freeman Dyson

It's better to get mugged than to live a life of fear.

Freeman Dyson

The purpose of thinking about the future is not to predict it but to raise people's hopes.

Freeman Dyson

I see a bright future for the biotechnology industry when it follows the path of the computer industry, the path that von Neumann failed to foresee, becoming small and domesticated rather than big and centralized.

Freeman Dyson

Technology is a gift of God. After the gift of life it is perhaps the greatest of God's gifts. It is the mother of civilizations, of arts and of sciences.

Freeman Dyson

You ask: what is the meaning or purpose of life? I can only answer with another question: do you think we are wise enough to read God's mind?

Freeman Dyson

The question that will decide our destiny is not whether we shall expand into space. It is: shall we be one species or a million? A million species will not exhaust the ecological niches that are awaiting the arrival of intelligence.

Freeman Dyson

It's not going to be just humans colonizing space, it's going to be life moving out from the Earth, moving it into its kingdom. And the kingdom of life, of course, is going to be the universe.

Freeman Dyson

Author Bio

  • NameFreeman Dyson
  • Descriptiontheoretical physicist and mathematician
  • BornDecember 15, 1923
  • CountryUnited Kingdom; United States Of America
  • ProfessionMathematician; Theoretical Physicist
  • AwardsFellow Of The Royal Society; Templeton Prize