Subject: Interesting quotations

Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2001 11:12:33 -0600

Here are some interesting quotations:

Dyatlov, V. L., "Problems of the Inhomogeneous Physical Vacuum," available on website http://www.sinor.ru/~che/VDyatlov_book1a.zip.   Quoting from author's foreword: "In the department, where the theory of polarization media was known and understood in depth, many of the professors and instructors understood the physical vacuum in just this way: as a polarization medium.  However, they talked about this matter only within their own narrow circle.  The ether and everything associated with it fell under an extremely strict official ban at that time."  Doctor of Technical Sciences Vyacheslav Lukich Dyatlov is Chief Scientific Fellow with the S. L. Sobolev Institute of Mathematics of the Russian Academy of Sciences Siberian Division. 

Dyson, Freeman J.  "When the great innovation appears, it will almost certainly be in a muddled, incomplete, and confusing form.  To the discoverer himself, it will be only half-understood; to everybody else, it will be a mystery.  For any speculation which does not at first glance look crazy, there is no hope."  Freeman J. Dyson, Scientific American, Sept. 1958. 

Dyson, Freeman J.  "It may well be that the approach to a new theory cannot begin until the mathematical nature of the old ones is clearly understood." Freeman J. Dyson, Scientific American, Sept. 1958.

Cheers, Tom