15 Famous Physicists Who Believed In God

This is the third post from a series of three articles in which religious views of well-known scientists are listed. If you are interested, the other two posts celebrate atheists and agnostics in the field of physics. In this post, 15 believers who excelled at physics.

First, a brief note on history: the word theism was first used in the 1600s by English theologian Ralph Cudworth who said, "we are strictly and properly called theists, who affirm, that a perfectly conscious understanding being, or mind, existing of itself from eternity, was the cause of all other things."

Robert Millikan

He was an American experimental physicist who was honored with the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1923 for his measurement of the elementary electric charge. He wrote about the reunion of science and religion in books like Evolution in Science and Religion.

He was the son of Reverend Silas Franklin Millikan. As an active Christian, Millikan found religious significance in his studies of the cosmic rays, as he did in his other research, concluding that the “creator is still on the job." He remained theist all his adult life.

Johannes Kepler

He was a German astronomer and mathematician who laid out the three laws of planetary motion with the help of his and Tycho Brahe's observations of the night sky. Kepler's belief that God created the cosmos in orderly fashion caused him to attempt to determine and comprehend the laws that govern the natural world.

He said, "Those laws of nature are within the grasp of the human mind; God wanted us to recognize them by creating us after his own image so that we could share in his own thoughts." Kepler was an outstanding mathematician especially in the studies of geometry, he once claimed, "geometry is one and eternal shining in the mind of God."

Isaac Newton

He was the most prominent scientist during the scientific revolution. By the age of 26 he had discovered the universal law of gravitation, laws of motion and invented a new branch of mathematics, calculus. Newton was a practicing Christian.

He said, "We account the scriptures of God to be the most sublime philosophy. I find more sure remarks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history whatever." Then when asked why he studied sciences, Newton replied, "He is the God of order and not of confusion."

Abdus Salam

He was a Pakistani theoretical physicist who shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in physics for his contribution to the electroweak unification theory. Abdus Salam was an Ahmadi Muslim who saw his religion as a fundamental part of his scientific work.

He once wrote that "the Holy Quran enjoins us to reflect on the verities of Allah's created laws of nature; however, that our generation has been privileged to glimpse a part of His design is a bounty and a grace for which I render thanks with a humble heart."

Philip Lenard

Lenard was a Hungarian-German experimental physicist and the winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1905. His pioneering research on cathode rays and their properties led to the development of the early television.

Lenard was born and raised with Christian practices and values because his parents Phillip and Antonie were deeply religious. But he was swept along in a wave of Nazism that accompanied the World War I, became anti-semetic and hostile towards what he claimed was "Jewish Physics."

Max Born

He was a German physicist and mathematician who was influential in the development of quantum mechanics. He also made contributions to solid-state physics and optics, winner of the 1954 Nobel Prize in physics. In 1933, the Nazis came to power in Germany, and Born, who was Jewish, was suspended from his professorship.

Max was born to a family of Jewish descent. He had famously said, "The dance of atoms, electrons and nuclei, which in all its fury is subject to God's eternal laws." Born was baptised as a Lutheran in 1914 by the same pastor who had performed his wedding ceremony. His decision to be baptised was made due to his desire to assimilate into German society.

Galileo Galilei

He was an Italian physicist who is most noted for his many astronomical findings such as the rings on Saturn, sunspots and Jupiter's four moons with the help of a telescope he had invented. Galileo was a deeply religious man who was ordered life imprisonment for his groundbreaking discoveries.

Galileo was an outspoken supporter of the Copernican sun-centered model of the universe. He said, "The intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how heaven goes, and I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."

He added, "Copernicus did not ignore the Bible, but he knew very well that if his doctrine were proved, then it could not contradict the Scriptures when they were rightly understood." Apart from his astronomical observations, Galileo also discovered the law of inertia with experiment, which is why he is often called the "father of the scientific method."

Michael Faraday

He was an English physicist who contributed to the study of electricity and magnetism and ultimately their unification. Faraday discovered the laws of electromagnetic induction and electrolysis and is often called the father of electricity.

When asked about his speculations on life after death, Faraday replied, "Speculations? I have none. I am resting on certainties. I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day." He remained a devout Christian until his death.

Georges Lemaitre

He was a Jesuit trained Belgian Catholic priest and professor of physics at the Catholic University of Louvain. Lemaitre was the first to identify that the recession of nearby galaxies can be explained by a theory of an expanding universe. Then he proposed the Big Bang Theory.

In a 1933 interview for the New York Times, he said, "There is no conflict between science and religion. I was interested in truth from the point of view of salvation just as much as in truth from the point of view of scientific certainty. It appeared to me that there were two paths to truth, and I decided to follow both of them."

Werner Heisenberg

He was a German theoretical physicist and one of the key pioneers of quantum mechanics. Heisenberg was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1932 for the creation of matrix mechanics. He was raised and lived as a Lutheran Christian.

Most of his quotations about god and religion are misattributed such as this one, "the first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you," these repeated time after time do not really represent his original views and are completely biased.

However Heisenberg did say, "of course.. we all know that our own reality depends on the structure of our consciousness; we can objectify no more than a small part of our world. But even when we try to probe into the subjective realm, we cannot ignore the central order. In the final analysis, the central order with which we commune in the language of religion, must win out." This was his own unique and intellectual way of putting out his beliefs.

Arthur Compton

He was an American physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his 1923 discovery of the Compton effect, an increase in wavelength of X-rays or gamma rays that occurs when they are scattered, which demonstrated the particle nature of electromagnetic radiation.

For some time, Compton was a deacon at a Baptist church, a member who was generally associated with service of some kind. "Science can have no quarrel", he said, "..with a religion which postulates a God to whom men are as His children." Compton remained religious all his life.

Hideki Yukawa

He was a Japanese theoretical physicist who was the first Japanese citizen to win Nobel Prize in physics for his accurate prediction of the pi meson. As a child Yukawa used to read the Confucian Doctrine of the Mean, and later Lao-Tzu and Chuang-Tzu.

Yukawa Hideki was a devout Buddhist and believed that a Buddhist philosophical outlook influenced his research in physics. In his view, natural forces could reasonably be viewed as a somewhat random product of chance or pure contingency in mathematical terms, similar to Hindu and Buddhist notions of karma.


Victor Francis Hess

He was an Austrian-American theoretical physicist who won the 1936 Nobel Prize in physics for his discovery of the cosmic rays, highly energetic atomic nuclei which travel through space at a speed approaching that of light.

Hess was a practicing Roman Catholic and in 1946 wrote on the relationship between science and religion in his famous article "My Faith", in which he explained why he believed in God.

Arthur Eddington

He was a prominent English astronomer and physicist who is known for his groundbreaking research in astrophysics. Eddington was the first person to investigate the internal structure and evolution of stars. He correctly speculated that the source of starlight was fusion of hydrogen into helium.

He was born to Quaker parents and the members of the various Quaker movements are all generally united by their belief in the ability of each human being to experientially access the light within, or that of God in every one. In 1930, Arthur wrote a 64 page book titled, "Why I Believe in God: Science and Religion, as a Scientist Sees It."


James Clerk Maxwell

To him we owe the most significant discovery of our age, the theory of electromagnetism. Maxwell was a Scottish theoretical physicist who built upon Faraday's results to unify the once separate fields of electricity, magnetism and optics.

Maxwell said, "I have committed myself to God as the instrument of His will, not doubtfully, but in the certain hope that that Will will be plain enough at the proper time." Maxwell's intellectual understanding of his Christian faith and of science grew rapidly during his Cambridge years. His knowledge of the Bible was remarkable as his Cambridge colleagues remember.


Summing up

Agnostics	Atheists	Theists
John Bardeen	Richard Feynman	Robert Millikan
Jagadish Chandra Bose	Niels Bohr	Johannes Kepler
Marie Curie	S. Chandrasekhar	Isaac Newton
Edwin Hubble	Louis de Broglie	Abdus Salam
Freeman Dyson	Pierre Simon Laplace	Philip Lenard
Albert Einstein	Stephen Hawking	Max Born
C.V. Raman	Francis Crick	Galileo Galilei
Rosalind Franklin	Erwin Schrodinger	Michael Faraday
Enrico Fermi	Meghnad Saha	Georges Lemaitre
Eugene Wigner	Steven Weinberg	Werner Heisenberg
Carl Sagan	Hans Bethe	Arthur Compton
Lisa Randall	Kip Thorne	Hideki Yukawa
Paul Dirac	James Franck	Victor Francis Hess
Murray Gell Mann	John Bell	Arthur Eddington
Henri Poincare	Herbert Kroemer	James Clerk Maxwell

 

15 Famous Physicists Who Were Atheists

This is the second post from a series of three articles in which religious views of well-known scientists will be listed. The other two pages will outline important believers and agnostics in the field of physics.

Before moving on, a brief note on history: The ideas that are recognized today as atheistic were first documented in ancient India during the Vedic period. The practices of life without religion were codified by various Hindu and Buddhist philosophers.

Richard Feynman

He was a Nobel Prize winning American physicist who's known for his contributions to quantum electrodynamics, as well as computing and nanotechnology. By his early youth, Feynman described himself as an "avowed atheist".

He was once asked in an interview whether he was agnostic or atheist. "I call myself an atheist," Feynman replied, "agnostic for me would be trying to weasel out and sound a little nicer than I am about this."

Feynman went on to say, "It doesn't seem to me that this fantastically marvelous universe, this tremendous range of time and space and different kinds of animals, and all the different planets, and all these atoms with all their motions, and so on, all this complicated thing can merely be a stage so that God can watch human beings struggle for good and evil, which is the view that religion has. The stage is too big for the drama."

Niels Bohr

Prominent Danish physicist best known for his explanation of the emission spectrum of Hydrogen atom. He's also remembered for his contributions to the development of quantum mechanics for which he was awarded Nobel Prize in physics.

Born in Copenhagen in 1885 to well-educated parents, Bohr became interested in physics at a young age. The Bohr family was not at all devout, and he became an atheist who regarded religious thought as harmful and misguided.

Bohr's atheism was more related to traditional eastern philosophy, "I go into the Upanishads to ask questions," he had once said. Bohr ended with a dislike of all religions that claimed to base their teachings on revelations, "..the idea of a personal God is foreign to me."

S. Chandrasekhar

At the age of 19 in India, he proved mathematically that a white dwarf more massive than 1.4 solar masses would collapse under its own gravity. This is called the Chandrasekhar Limit for which he was recognized with Nobel Prize in 1983.

In 1991, Chandrasekhar was interviewed by his biographer about his religious beliefs, "I am not religious in any sense; in fact, I consider myself an atheist," he very candidly replied. Despite being brought up in orthodox Hindu Brahmin family he openly admitted to being an atheist.

Louis de Broglie

Nobel Prize winning French physicist best known for his research on quantum theory and for predicting the wave nature of electrons. When Louis was asked to join Catholic Academy of France, he humbly declined because, he said, he had ceased the religious practices of his youth.

He said in 1953, "The history of science shows that the progress of science has constantly been hampered by the tyrannical influence of certain conceptions that finally came to be considered as dogma." Louis de Broglie remained an outspoken atheist until his death in 1987.

Stephen Hawking

He was an English astrophysicist, probably the most renowned genius of the modern age, who contributed to the understanding of the Big Bang and Black Holes. Hawking also provided a theoretical argument for Hawking Radiation in 1974.

He said in 2011, "We are each free to believe what we want and it is my view that the simplest explanation is there is no God. No one created the universe and no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound realization. There is probably no heaven, and no afterlife either. We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe, and for that, I am extremely grateful."

Francis Crick

He was an English biophysicist who is most notable for being one of the discoverers of the structure of DNA in 1953. He was awarded Nobel Prize in 1962. Crick once joked, "Christianity may be OK between consenting adults in private but should not be taught to young children."

When asked if our genes reveal the hand of God, he replied, "The god hypothesis is rather discredited." He was the first to predict the existence of substances such as dopamine that are released by the brain under certain conditions, for example when one prays, he said, and produce rewarding sensations.

Crick said, "Once the detailed workings of the brain are eventually revealed, erroneous Christian concepts about the nature of humans and the world would no longer be required."

Pierre Simon Laplace

French physicist and mathematician whose work was pivotal to the development of modern physics and astronomy. Laplace is referred to as the Newton of France and has been described as possessing a phenomenal natural mathematical faculty superior to that of any of his contemporaries.

Napoleon said to Laplace, "You have written this huge book on the system of the world without once mentioning the author of the universe [God]." Laplace replied: "Sire, I had no need of that hypothesis."

Laplace was the first astronomer to theorize that the solar system could have originated from a cloud of gas. To the end of his life, he remained a skeptic and his last words were, "Man follows only phantoms."

Erwin Schrödinger

Austrian theoretical physicist, pioneer of wave quantum mechanics and winner of the 1933 Nobel Prize in physics. Erwin lost a marriage proposal to his love (Felicie Krauss) because of his atheistic worldview.

He rejected traditional religious beliefs (Jewish, Christian, and Islamic) not on the basis of any reasoned argument, nor even with an expression of hostility (for he loved to use religious expressions and metaphors), but simply by saying that they are "naive".

"I am born into an environment, I know not whence I came nor whither I go nor who I am. This is my situation as yours, every single one of you. The fact that everyone always was in this same situation, and always will be, tells me nothing," Erwin said in 1951, "our burning question as to the whence and whither, all we can ourselves observe about it is the present environment. That is why we are eager to find out about it as much as we can. That is science, learning, knowledge; it is the true source of every spiritual endeavor of man.


Meghnad Saha

Bengali Indian astrophysicist, who was the first to relate the temperature of stars to their spectrum. He was repeatedly and unsuccessfully nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physics because work done in astronomy was not eligible for Nobel Prize at the time.

Saha was well-versed in all the religious texts, Hindu or Islamic, though his interest in them was purely academic and he declared himself an atheist very early on (Meghnad Saha, scientist with a vision, National Book Trust, India).

Steven Weinberg

He was an American theoretical physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1979 for the unification of electromagnetism and the weak force into the electroweak force. In the 2006 book "The God Delusion", Richard Dawkins identified Steven Weinberg as an atheist.

Then in 2008, Weinberg was asked whether he really was atheistic. "Yes, I don't believe in God," he replied, "..but I don't make a religion out of not believing in God. I don't organize my life around that." He had also earlier said, "With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil, that, takes religion."


Hans Bethe

German theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate in physics for his work on the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis, which is the creation of chemical elements by nuclear fusion reactions within stars, hence the phrase, "we are made of star stuff."

Despite having a religious background (Protestantism), he was not religious even in his early life. For the 2001 book, "The Voice Of Genius: Conversations With Nobel Scientists And Other Luminaries", Denis Brian asked Bethe, about his religious views. Bethe immediately replied, "I am an atheist."

Kip Thorne

American theoretical physicist and winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in physics, known for his contributions in gravitational physics, astrophysics and for his role in the making of the international blockbuster, "Interstellar."

Thorne's academic parents were members of The Mormon Church and he was raised in the Latter-Day Saints faith. He lost his beliefs as he grew older and has described himself atheist since in a 2014 interview. Thorne also said, "Even though I do not believe in God, there are large numbers of my finest colleagues who are quite devout."


James Franck

He was a Nobel Prize winning German physicist who helped the dismissed Jewish scientists find work overseas when the Nazis came to power in 1933. Franck also resigned his post in protest. His work included the famous Franck–Hertz experiment, which was an important confirmation of the Bohr model of the atom.

His father was a devout and religious man, while his mother came from a family of rabbis. Franck, although proud of his Jewish heritage, commented that "science was his God", and "nature his religion". He did not require his daughters to attend religious instruction classes at school, and even let them have a decorated tree at Christmas.


John Bell

It was John Bell who investigated quantum theory in the greatest depth and established what the theory can tell us about the fundamental nature of the physical world. His work led to the possibility of exploring philosophical questions, such as the nature of reality, directly through physical experiments.

Bell's parents were protestants but he was not forced to accept religion on faith. In fact, he had declared he'd become a scientist when he was only 11 years old. And as he grew older, John certainly became less interested in Protestantism and his wife, Mary (who was a physicist like Bell), later reported that her husband was an atheist all his adult life.


Herbert Kroemer

He is a German American theoretical physicist who has contributed to the development of semiconductor devices, especially semiconductor heterostructures, which are used in high-speed electronics. He was awarded Nobel Prize in physics (2000).

In a video interview, Kroemer is asked, "So you have no belief in afterlife?", because of his atheistic worldview. He replied, "That is correct." Interviewer: "Don't you see the evidence of a designer?" Kroemer responded again with a brief, "No I do not.."remark. Interviewer, now a little frustrated, said, "Could you please say more about it?" Kroemer: "I think life after death is just wishful thinking."

15 Famous Physicists Who Were Agnostic

The word agnosticism was first publicly coined in 1869 by Thomas Huxley, a British biologist and champion of the Darwinian theory of evolution. He coined it as a suitable label for his own position. Following is a list of 15 physicists who were agnostics.

John Bardeen

Two time Nobel Prize winner in physics, first for his pioneering invention of the transistor, and second for the theory of superconductivity, American physicist John Bardeen, was an agnostic by choice.

He was once taken by surprise when an interviewer asked him a question about religion. "I am not a religious person," he said, "..and so do not think about it very much." But then he went on in a rare elaboration of his personal beliefs.

John added, "Science is a field which grows continuously with ever expanding frontiers but I feel that unlike religion it's never been done to give you the ultimate purpose in life. With religion, however, one can get some answers on faith. Most scientists, I think, leave these questions of life open and perhaps unanswerable, but they do abide by a code of moral values."

John was resolutely agnostic throughout his life.

J.C. Bose

Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose was an Indian biophysicist who invented the crescograph, a device that could detect very small motions within plant tissues. With this instrument, he showed for the first time, that plants also felt joy and pain.

Bose believed agnosticism to be the real essence of science and scientific method. A man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has "no scientific grounds" for professing to know or believe. He laid the foundations of "Basu Bigyan Mandir" (Bose's temple of scientific knowledge) in Kolkata, West Bengal.

Bose had famously said, "Not mere imagination and belief, but observation and experiment are the ultimate way of gaining knowledge or reaching the goal of acquiring truth."

Marie Curie

Two time Nobel Prize winner, one in physics and the other in Chemistry, first and only woman to achieve so, Madame Curie was an agnostic, from an early age. Her father Władysław Skłodowski was an atheist while her mother Bronisława Skłodowska a devout Catholic.

Her husband (also Nobel Prize winning physicist) Pierre Curie was an atheist. Neither wanted a religious service for their marriage ceremony. She wore a dark blue outfit, instead of a bridal gown, which would be worn by her in the laboratory for years to come.

In her final years, Marie advocated actively to encourage scientific temper in the general public, "Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more so that we may fear less," she would say.

Edwin Hubble

American astrophysicist who played a pivotal role in establishing the fields of extragalactic astronomy and observational cosmology. Hubble's most brilliant observation was that the red shift of galaxies was directly proportional to the distance of the galaxy from earth.

He said, "We do not know why we are born into the world, but we can try to find out what sort of a world it is, at least in its physical aspects." His life was dedicated to science and the objective world of phenomena.

When a friend asked Hubble about his beliefs, he replied, "The whole thing is so much bigger than I am, and I cannot understand it, so I just trust myself to it; and forget about it." Hubble remained an agnostic until his death.

Freeman Dyson

British-American theoretical physicist, who is famous for his work in quantum electrodynamics, solid-state physics and astronomy. Dyson was raised in what he has described as a “watered-down Church of England Christianity.” But he identifies himself as an agnostic.

He once said in a speech, "Science and religion are two windows that people look through, trying to understand the big universe outside, trying to understand why we are here. The two windows give different views, but they look out at the same universe."

"Both views are one-sided, neither is complete. Both leave out essential features of the real world. And both are worthy of respect. But trouble arises when either science or religion claims universal jurisdiction, when either religious or scientific dogma claims to be infallible," he added.

Albert Einstein

Many believers refer to some of his quotes and thus try to claim the greatest scientist of the 20th century as one of their own. However, Einstein also had famously said, "I feel that the idea of a personal God is a childlike one."

He added in 1941, "I was barked at by numerous dogs who are earning their food guarding ignorance and superstition for the benefit of those who profit from it. Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is of the same kind as the intolerance of the religious fanatics and comes from the same source."

In 1949, Einstein was prompted once again to describe his religious beliefs, "I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being," he said, "you may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist."

C.V. Raman

Sir Chandrashekhara Venkat Raman was influential in the growth of science in India. He was the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the "Raman Effect" which has its use in chemistry to provide a structural fingerprint by which molecules can be identified.

Raman was born into an orthodox South Indian Brahmin family but his interests in physics kept him away from religious or spiritual activities. He avidly read Charles Bradlaugh, the English founder of the National Secular Society and Herbert Spencer, the English polymath who contributed to agnosticism.

Rosalind Franklin

She was a British biophysicist and x-ray crystallographer who made important contributions to the understanding of the fine molecular structures of DNA, RNA and Graphite. When asked about her beliefs, she replied, "Science is my religion."

Her lack of religious faith did not stem from anyone's influence, rather from her own line of thinking. She developed her skepticism as a young child. Her mother recalled that she refused to believe in the existence of God, and remarked, "Well, anyhow, how do you know He isn't She?"

She added, "I see no reason to believe that a creator of protoplasm or primeval matter, if such there be, has any reason to be interested in our insignificant race in a tiny corner of the universe." However, Rosalind did not completely abandon Jewish traditions.

Enrico Fermi

Italian physicist who is known for the development of the first nuclear reactor and for his contributions to the development of quantum theory and nuclear physics. Fermi was awarded the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work.

Although Enrico was baptised a Roman Catholic in accordance with his grandparents' wishes, his parents were not particularly religious. His attitude to the church eventually became one of indifference, and he remained an agnostic all his adult life.

Eugene Wigner

The Hungarian physicist was the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963 for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles.

Wigner's family was Jewish but not religiously observant and his Bar Mitzvah was a secular one. He told his Biographer about his religious views, "I liked a good sermon. But then religion tells people how to behave and that I could never do."

He added, "Clergymen also had to assume and advocate the presence of God, and proofs of God's existence seemed to me quite unsatisfactory. People claimed that God had made our earth. Well, how had He made it? With an earth-making machine?"

Carl Sagan

Famed American astrophysicist Carl Sagan was a renowned skeptic and agnostic who during his life refused to believe in anything unless there was physical evidence to support it.

His most well-known scientific contribution is research on extraterrestrial life, including experimental demonstration of the production of amino acids from basic chemicals by radiation. He was also known as "people's astronomer".

In reply to a question in 1996 about his religious beliefs, Sagan answered, "I'm agnostic." Sagan maintained that the idea of a creator God of the Universe was difficult to prove or disprove.

He also wrote, "Some people think God is a light-skinned male with a long beard, sitting on a throne somewhere up there in the sky, busily tallying the fall of every sparrow. Others, for example Einstein, considered God to be essentially the sum total of the physical laws which describe the universe."

Lisa Randall

She is an American theoretical physicist who works on the models of string theory in the quest to explain the structure of the universe. Her best known contribution to the field is the Randall–Sundrum model, first published in 1999. She has described herself agnostic.

In a 2006 interview, Lisa was asked whether or not she believed in God. She said, "Faith just doesn't have anything to do with what I'm doing as a scientist. It is nice if you can believe in God, because then you can see more of a purpose in many things."

"But even if you don't, though," she added, "..it doesn't mean that there's no purpose. It doesn't mean that there's no goodness. I think that there's a virtue in being good in and of itself. I think it's a problem that people are considered immoral if they're not religious. That's just not true."


Paul Dirac

He was rightfully declared the successor of Maxwell and Einstein when he worked on the reconciliation of general relativity with quantum mechanics. Dirac also predicted the existence of anti-matter for which he was given Nobel Prize in 1933.

He said in 1927, "We scientists have to be honest and must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions with no basis in reality. The very idea of God is a product of the human imagination. Nowadays, when we understand stuff with so many natural explanations, we have no need for such solutions."

His wife Manci, (who was the younger sister of physicist Eugene Wigner), claimed, "My husband wasn't an atheist. In Italy, once, he said, "If there is a God, he has to be a great mathematician. He did say if."

Dirac explained why he was agnostic and not an atheist, "If physical laws are such that to start off life involves an excessively small chance, then there must be a god, and such a god would probably be showing his influence in the quantum jumps which are taking place later on."

"On the other hand," Dirac added, "..if life can start naturally on other planets (by chemical or biological means) and does not need any divine influence, then I will say that there is no god." Dirac remained agnostic throughout his life because the question of origin of life was not answered.


Murray Gell-Mann

He was an American physicist who received the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physics for his model of quark (an elementary particle which combines with itself to formulate heavier particles like proton and neutron).

Murray called life a complex adaptive system which produces interesting phenomena, "Life can emerge from physics and chemistry, plus a lot of accidents. The human mind can arise from neurobiology, and a lot of accidents," he said.

"People keep asking me", Murray went on, "...isn't there something more beyond what you have there? Presumably they mean something "supernatural" but anyway, there isn't; you don't need something more to explain something more."


Henri Poincaré

Jules Henri Poincaré was a French physicist and mathematician who's known for his work in various fields of physics such as optics, mechanics, thermodynamics and relativity. He also contributed to the theory of algebra and geometry.

He used to say, "To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient options; but both require sincere introspection." He wrote the book, "The value of science" in 1905, in which he had declared that the hypothesis of God is incomplete and imperfect.

Biography of Madame Curie

A leading figure in the history of sciences, Marie Curie was prohibited from higher education in her native Poland. Many years later, she became the first woman Nobel laureate. She remains the only person to win the most coveted prize in two different sciences. This is her story.

Childhood

Maria was born in 1867 in Warsaw (Poland) which was then part of the Russian Empire. She was the fifth and youngest child of well-known science professor Władysław Skłodowski. Her mother, Marianna Bronisława operated a reputed boarding school for girls in the big bustling city.

When Maria was seven years old, her eldest sibling died of typhoid and then three years later her mother lost the battle to tuberculosis. At the same time, Władysław was fired from his job due to pro-Polish sentiments and the family eventually lost all the savings.

In the middle of crisis, Władysław decided to join a low-paying teaching job. The Russian authorities at the school banned the usage of laboratory equipment so he brought it home and instructed his children in its use. In this way, Maria was taught to experiment at an early age.


Teenage

For some years, Maria was home-schooled. But her father recognized her talent for scientific thinking and learning. Therefore, despite economic troubles, she was admitted to a prestigious learning centre for girls. Maria graduated with a gold medal in 1883 aged sixteen.

She was unable to join any regular institution of higher education because she was a woman. Her father then suggested to join the "secret flying university" a Polish patriotic institution (often in conflict with the governing Russian Empire) which welcomed women students.

During this time, she fell in love with a young man (who'd later go on to become a prominent Polish mathematician), Kazimierz Żorawski, his name. The two discussed marriage, but Żorawski’s parents rejected Marie due to her family's poverty and Kazimierz was unable to oppose them.

Higher education

Maria returned home to her father in Warsaw. The loss of relationship with Żorawski was heartbreaking for her and Władysław was devastated seeing his daughter in pain. Three years later, in 1890, he was able to secure a more lucrative position again and arranged for Maria to reach Paris.

Maria and her father

Maria proceeded her studies of physics and chemistry in the University of Paris where she would be known as Marie. She focused so hard on her studies that she sometimes forgot to eat. In 1893, Marie Skłodowska was awarded a degree in physics at age 26.



In 1894, she began her research career with an investigation of the magnetic properties of various steels. That same year French physicist Pierre Curie entered her life; and it was their mutual interest in natural sciences that drew them together.


Marriage

Eventually they began to develop feelings for one another and Pierre proposed marriage. Marie returned to Warsaw and told her father that in Pierre, she had found a new love, a partner, and a scientific collaborator on whom she could depend. Władysław agreed.

But she was still living under the illusion that she would be able to work in her chosen field in Poland. Pierre declared that he was ready to move with her to Poland, even if it meant being reduced to teaching French.

Things hadn't changed though as she was denied again because of her gender. A letter from Pierre convinced her to return to Paris and work with him in his small laboratory. In 1895, they were married and for their honeymoon, took a bicycle tour around the French countryside.

The Curies also got going with their research work in a converted shed (formerly a medical school dissecting room) which was poorly ventilated and not even waterproof. But they were very dedicated scientists and hardly discouraged by such problems.

Radioactivity

In 1896, Henri Becquerel discovered that uranium salts spontaneously emitted a penetrating radiation that could be registered on a photographic plate. Marie was intrigued by this new phenomenon (she coined the term radioactivity) and decided to look into it.

She hypothesized that the radiation was not the outcome of some interaction of molecules but must come from the atom itself. She began studying two uranium minerals, pitchblende and torbernite, and discovered that both pitchblende and torbenite were far more active than uranium itself.

Marie concluded that the two minerals must contain small quantities of radioactive substances other than uranium. In 1898, the couple announced their discovery of Polonium and Radium, elements previously unknown, which were far more active than uranium.

Four years later in 1902, the husband and wife team was able to separate 0.1 gram of radium chloride from a ton of pitchblende, a remarkable achievement, for which the duo shared the Nobel Prize in physics with Henri Becquerel.

The award money allowed the Curies to hire their first laboratory assistant. However, the Curies still did not have a proper laboratory. Upon Pierre Curie's complaint, the University of Paris relented and agreed to create a new laboratory, but it would not be ready until 1906.



In 1906, walking across a street of Paris in heavy rain, Pierre was struck by a horse-drawn vehicle and fell under its wheels, causing his skull to fracture. Marie, by then a mother to two beautiful daughters, Irène and Ève, was traumatized by her husband's death.

She continued to work in the new laboratory hoping to reach greater heights in physics and chemistry as a tribute to her husband Pierre. In 1910, she isolated the pure radium metal; and also defined a new unit  of radioactivity called "curie" in the memory of her late husband.


Affair & death

In 1911, Marie was on the front pages of local tabloids as a "foreign home-wrecker" after having an affair with French physicist Paul Langevin, a married man who was estranged from his wife. The news was exploited by her academic opponents, one declaring her "a detestable idiot."

There's no denying that the affair was painful for Langevin’s family, particularly for his wife, Jeanne, but at the time when the news broke out, Marie was giving a lecture in Brussels. And when she returned to Paris, she found an angry crowd outside of her house and had to seek refuge, with her little daughters.

The Swedish Academy of Sciences honored her a second time despite the Langevin Scandal. She was awarded the Prize in Chemistry for isolating radium hence becoming the only person to win Nobel Prize in two different sciences.

A month after accepting her 1911 Nobel Prize, she was hospitalized with depression and a kidney ailment. During her time at the hospital, she received a letter from Einstein, essentially saying, "please ignore the haters." Marie returned to her laboratory after a gap of about 14 months.

From then onwards, it became very difficult to focus on the sciences and even more so during the World War I. Also perhaps because Marie could not forgive herself after the incident. The war ended, and she was invited to Warsaw in a ceremony, laying the foundations of the Radium Institute.

Curie visited Poland for the last time in early 1934 (before the second world war) where she died of aplastic anemia, a condition due to long exposure to radiation. Her final resting place was decided Paris Panthéon alongside her husband Pierre. In 1935, a life-size statue of Maria Skłodowska Curie was established in a Warsaw park facing the Radium Institute.



Personality

She used to wear the same dress to laboratory every day, "If you are going to be kind enough to give me one," she instructed regarding a proposed gift for her wedding, "please let it be practical and dark so that I can put it on afterwards to go to the laboratory."

She refrained from patenting the radium-isolation process, so that the scientific community could do their research unhindered. Scientific endeavors were more dear to her than monetary benefits. In fact, she even gave much of her Nobel Prize money to friends, family, students, and research associates.

The curies were not religious and Marie was agnostic by choice. Neither wanted a religious service for their marriage ceremony. She wore a dark blue outfit, instead of a bridal gown, which would be worn by her in the lab for years to come. One of the guests quipped, "Skłodowska is Pierre's biggest discovery."

Today, the radium is used to produce radon, a radioactive gas which is used to treat some types of cancer. At the time of their discovery, a new industry began developing, based on radium (as in self-luminous paints for watches), but the Curies did not patent their discovery and benefited little from this increasingly profitable business.

Marie had the strong conviction that her work would provide important benefits for the rest of humanity, "I am one of those who think that the world will draw more good than evil from new discoveries," her passion for science was aroused in her early years, and remained intact until her last breath.

In her final years, she advocated bravely for invoking a scientific approach in the people, "Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less," she would say.

Ultimate Source of Motivation For Physics Students

Whether you are high school student interested in physics, or college freshman ready to tackle the challenging subject, a word of motivation is always desirable. The following is a list of encouraging quotes from prominent scientists which will make you respect and value physics even more than before.

Lise Meitner

She said, "I love physics with all my heart. It is a kind of personal love, as one has for a person to whom one is grateful for many things. The study of physics makes me try to fight selflessly to reach truth and objectivity. It also teaches to accept reality with awe and admiration, not to mention the amazement and joy that come along with it."

Meitner was Austrian-Swedish physicist who studied nuclear physics and radioactivity. She led a team of researchers that discovered "nuclear fission", a term she coined, but she was ignored in 1945 when her colleague Otto Hahn was awarded the Nobel Prize and she wasn't.

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Albert Einstein

Einstein said, "The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible. And this is the miracle of the human mind, to use its constructions, concepts, and formulas as tools to explain what one sees, feels and touches. So try to comprehend a little more every day and simply do not stop questioning. Worry not about what you cannot answer, because curiosity has its own reason for existence."

Albert Einstein was a German scientist who was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in physics for his explanation of the photoelectric effect. As a theoretical physicist, he had many discoveries, but perhaps best known for his theories of special and general relativity and the energy-mass relation E=mc² which foreshadowed the development of the atomic bomb.

Einstein said further, "Do not accept traditional concepts without reexamining them. Even overthrow my relativity theory, if you find a better one. You must believe that the world is comprehensible to man. Of course, it's going to take an infinite long time to investigate this unified creation but to me that is the highest and most sacred duty-unifying physics."

George Gamow

Excerpt from his book, which hints that physics can be as interesting as any Hollywood movie, "It was a bank holiday, and Mr Tompkins, the little clerk of a big city bank, slept late and had a leisurely breakfast. Trying to plan his day, he first thought about going to some afternoon movie and, opening the morning paper, turned to the entertainment page. But none of the films looked attractive to him. He detested all this Hollywood stuff, with infinite romances between popular stars."

"If only there were at least one film with some real adventure, something unusual and maybe even fantastic about it. But there was none. Unexpectedly, his eye fell on a little notice in the corner of the page. The local university was announcing a series of lectures on the problems of modern physics, and this afternoon's lecture was to be about Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Well, that might be something!

Gamow was Ukrainian-American cosmologist and experimental physicist. He was an early developer and advocate of the Big Bang Theory. Equally famous for his contributions to radioactivity and molecular genetics and most well-known for his popular science books like Mr Tompkins' adventures and One, Two, Three... Infinity.


Galileo Galilei

Galileo said, "It has been observed that missiles and projectiles describe a curved path of some sort; however no one has pointed out the fact that this path is a parabola. This and other facts, I have succeeded in proving; but what I consider even more important," he added, "that there have been opened up to this vast and most excellent science, of which my work is merely the beginning, ways and means by which, other minds more acute than mine will explore its remotest corners."

Italian physicist Galileo Galilei is remembered mainly for his astronomical discoveries such as moons of Jupiter, rings of Saturn, sunspots and so on. But he also was a pioneering experimental scientist who helped debunk the Aristotelian belief systems, with measurements. He questioned authority, which is the most important trait in a scientist.


Paul Dirac

This very skinny mathematician had famously said, "A good deal of my research work in physics has consisted in not setting out to solve some particular problems, but simply examining mathematical quantities of a kind that physicists use, and trying to get them together in an interesting way regardless of any application that the work may have. It is simply, a search for pretty mathematics. It may turn out later that the work does have an application. Then one has had good luck."

Dirac was a British theoretical physicist who made fundamental contributions to the development of quantum electrodynamics. He quantised the gravitational field, formulated the most logically perfect presentation of quantum mechanics and predicted the existence of anti-matter. At the same time, he was also equally famous for his strange, unapologetic behavior.

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Marie Curie

She said, "All my life through, the new sights of nature made me rejoice like a child. We should not allow it to be believed that scientific progress can be reduced merely to mechanisms, machines and gearings, even though, such machinery also has its beauty. But there is, in science, a spirit of adventure and if I see anything vital around me, it is precisely that spirit of adventure, which guides me in my journey."

A leading figure in the history of sciences, Marie Curie was prohibited from higher education in her native Poland. She then moved to Paris in 1891 for studying physics and chemistry. She went on to become the only person in the world to have won the Nobel Prizes in both sciences.

Carl Sagan

Excerpt from the book The Dragons of Eden, "Without these experimental tests, very few physicists would have accepted general relativity. There are many hypotheses in physics of almost comparable brilliance and elegance that have been rejected because they did not survive such a confrontation with experiment. In my view, the human condition would be greatly improved if such confrontations and willingness to reject hypotheses were a regular part of our social, political, economic, religious and cultural lives."

Carl Sagan was an American astrophysicist and author best known for his research on extraterrestrial life, including experimental demonstration of the production of amino acids from basic chemicals by radiation. He also assembled the first messages to space which went along with the Voyager spacecraft.

Michio Kaku

Michio Kaku is a Japanese-American theoretical physicist and futurist best known for his popular science books. Kaku was recognized as one of the pioneers of the string theory when he authored the first papers describing the string theory in a field form. He has said, "It must be a strange world not being a scientist, going through life not knowing, or maybe not caring, about where the air came from, and where the stars at night came from, or how far they are from us. I want to know."

The point made here is not necessarily to persuade the public to join sciences and maths professionally. He has in fact emphasized on the importance of scientific temper, as a way of life, to include observing and questioning in our day-to-day life.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

There are street artists, street musicians and even street actors. But there are no street physicists because in physics, you can't just make stuff up and presume that it is a proper account of nature. At the end of the day, you have to answer to nature.

Since everyone has nature to answer to, your creativity is simply discovering something about the physical world that somebody else would have eventually discovered exactly the same way. They might have come through a different path, but they would have landed in the same place.

Even though we name theorems and equations after the people who discover them, such as, Newton's laws of gravity, Kepler's laws of planetary motion, Einstein's energy-mass equation, and so on, somebody else would have also discovered them afterward, it is that simple."

Neil Tyson is an American astrophysicist who was a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University from 1991 to 1994. Tyson joined the Hayden Planetarium where he founded the Department of Astrophysics in 1997. He's best known for popularizing astronomy through his shows and books.

Richard Feynman

A poet once said, "The whole universe is in a glass of wine." We will probably never know in what sense he meant that, for poets do not write to be understood. But it is true that if we look at a glass of wine closely enough we see the entire universe.

There are the things of physics: the twisting liquid which evaporates depending on the wind and weather, the reflections in the glass, and our imagination adds the atoms. The glass is a distillation of the Earth's rocks, and in its composition we see the secrets of the universe's age, and the evolution of stars.

What strange arrays of chemicals are in the wine? How did they come to be? There are the ferments, the enzymes, the substrates, and the products. There in wine is found the great generalization: all life is fermentation. Nobody can discover the chemistry of wine without discovering, as did Louis Pasteur, the cause of much disease. How vivid is the claret, pressing its existence into the consciousness that watches it!

Richard Feynman was an American scientist, widely considered to be one of the greatest and most influential theoretical physicists in history. He revolutionized the field of quantum mechanics and formulated the theory of quantum electrodynamics for which he received the Nobel Prize in physics in 1965.