Freeman Dyson Quotes

• Younger people have so many opportunities. I don’t see any pessimism among them.

  Freeman Dyson

  Topics in Opportunity

  Tags in Pessimism, Younger, Opportunities

• 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

  Topics in Life

  Tags in Kingdom, Moving, Humans

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Adventure, Scientist, Human

• It has become part of the accepted wisdom to say that the twentieth century was the century of physics and the twenty-first century will be the century of biology.

  Freeman Dyson

  Topics in Wisdom

  Tags in Physics, Century, Accepted

• If you start out with a tragic view of life, then anything since is just a bonus.

  Freeman Dyson

  Topics in Life

  Tags in Bonus, Tragic

• 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

  Topics in Future

  Tags in Failed, Bright, Industry

• I like people who are working on practical things and who are working in teams. It’s not so important to get the glory. It’s much more important to get something that works. It’s a better way to live.

  Freeman Dyson

  Topics in Work

  Tags in Practical, Important

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

  Freeman Dyson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Every Day, Freedom

• I don’t believe in technological determinism, especially not in biology and medicine. We have strong laws to keep doctors from monkeying around with humans that will remain in place. It’s simply not true that everything that is technologically possible gets done.

  Freeman Dyson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Biology, Technological, Believe

• I don’t think of myself predicting things. I’m expressing possibilities. Things that could happen. To a large extent it’s a question of how badly people want them to.

  Freeman Dyson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in People, Extent, Possibilities, Myself

• I am saying that all predictions concerning climate are highly uncertain.

  Freeman Dyson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Predictions, Uncertain

• 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 engineering become accessible to these people.

  Freeman Dyson

  Topics in Business, Work

  Tags in Dedicated, Tools, Professionals

• Biology is now bigger than physics, as measured by the size of budgets, by the size of the workforce, or by the output of major discoveries; and biology is likely to remain the biggest part of science through the twenty-first century.

  Freeman Dyson

  Topics in Work

  Tags in Bigger, Science, Discoveries

• 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 the cold periods rather than the warm periods.

  Freeman Dyson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Change, Reason, Better

• Aviation is the branch of engineering that is least forgiving of mistakes.

  Freeman Dyson

  Topics in Mistake

  Tags in Forgiving, Aviation

• Unfortunately the global warming hysteria, as I see it, is driven by politics more than by science.

  Freeman Dyson

  Topics in Politics

  Tags in Hysteria, Science

• The world of science and the world of literature have much in common. Each is an international club, helping to tie mankind together across barriers of nationality, race and language. I have been doubly lucky, being accepted as a member of both.

  Freeman Dyson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Nationality, Doubly, Accepted

• The technologies that raise the fewest ethical problems are those that work on a human scale, brightening the lives of individual people.

  Freeman Dyson

  Topics in Work

  Tags in People, Problems, Scale

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

  Freeman Dyson

  Topics in Future

  Tags in Predict, Hopes, Thinking

• The public knows that human beings are fallible. Only people blinded by ideology fall into the trap of believing in their own infallibility.

  Freeman Dyson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in People, Ideology, Public

Freeman Dyson (44)

Birth:	15th December, 1923
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Mathematician, Physicist, Professor, Writer

About

Freeman John Dyson was born in Crowthorne, Berkshire, England. He is an English-born American theoretical physicist and mathematician, known for his work in quantum electrodynamics, solid-state physics, astronomy and nuclear engineering. He is professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study, a Visitor of Ralston College, and a member of the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. He obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics from Trinity College, Cambridge University in 1945. He has written several books include: Disturbing the universe, Origins of Life, From Eros to Gaia, Imagined Worlds, The Scientist as Rebel, A many-colored glass, Advanced Quantum Mechanics, Dreams of Earth and Sky, and Weapons and hope.

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