Freeman Dyson Quotes

Freeman Dyson (41)

Birth:	15th December, 1923
Nationality:	British
Profession:	Mathematician, Physicist

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• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Scientist, Person, Original

• 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

  Topics in Technology

  Tags in Greatest, Civilization

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

  Freeman Dyson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Human, Problems

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

  Freeman Dyson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Better, Live

• 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

  Topics in Intelligence

  Tags in Question, Decide

• The technologies which have had the most profound effects on human life are usually simple.

  Freeman Dyson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Effects, Human, Simple

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

  Freeman Dyson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in People, Great, Satisfaction

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Question, Purpose, Enough

• Just because you see pictures of glaciers falling into the ocean doesn’t mean anything bad is happening. This is something that happens all the time. It’s part of the natural cycle of things. We know from measurements that glaciers have been melting for 200 years at least.

  Freeman Dyson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Happening, Natural, Picture

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

  Freeman Dyson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Important, Journalist, Good

• Many of the technologies that are now racing ahead most rapidly, replacing human workers in factories and offices with machines, making stockholders richer and workers poorer, are indeed tending to accentuate the existing inequalities in the distribution of wealth.

  Freeman Dyson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Human, Offices, Machines, Replacing

• The biologists have essentially been pushed aside. Al Gore’s just an opportunist. The person who is really responsible for this overestimate of global warming is Jim Hansen. He consistently exaggerates all the dangers.

  Freeman Dyson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Responsible, Person, Dangers

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Successful, Enjoyed, Hobbies

• The climate-studies people who work with models always tend to overestimate their models. They come to believe models are real and forget they are only models.

  Freeman Dyson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in People, Models, Believe

• The fact that the climate is getting warmer doesn’t scare me at all. There’s no reason why one should be scared.

  Freeman Dyson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Reason, Scared, Fact

• The idea that global warming is the most important problem facing the world is total nonsense and is doing a lot of harm.

  Freeman Dyson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Problem, Important, Idea

• What the world needs is a small, compact, flexible fusion technology that could make electricity where and when it is needed. The existing fusion program is leading to a huge source of centralized power, at a price that nobody except a government can afford.

  Freeman Dyson

  Topics in Power

  Tags in Fusion, Program, Government

• 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