(source)
|
Fritz Zwicky
(14 Feb 1898 - 8 Feb 1974)
Swiss-American astronomer and physicist.
|
Science Quotes by Fritz Zwicky (3 quotes)
I have a good idea every two years. Give me a topic, I will give you the idea!
[Reputed to have been a remark made to the head of his department at Caltech.]
[Reputed to have been a remark made to the head of his department at Caltech.]
— Fritz Zwicky
As quoted in Norman K. Glendenning, Our Place in the Universe (2007), 48.
To eliminate the discrepancy between men's plans and the results achieved, a new approach is necessary. Morphological thinking suggests that this new approach cannot be realized through increased teaching of specialized knowledge. This morphological analysis suggests that the essential fact has been overlooked that every human is potentially a genius. Education and dissemination of knowledge must assume a form which allows each student to absorb whatever develops his own genius, lest he become frustrated. The same outlook applies to the genius of the peoples as a whole.
— Fritz Zwicky
Halley Lecture for 1948, delivered at Oxford (12 May 1948). In "Morphological Astronomy", The Observatory (1948), 68, 143.
With all reserve we advance the view that a supernova represents the transition of an ordinary star into a neutron star consisting mainly of neutrons. Such a star may possess a very small radius and an extremely high density. As neutrons can be packed much more closely than ordinary nuclei and electrons, the gravitational packing energy in a cold neutron star may become very large, and under certain conditions may far exceed the ordinary nuclear packing fractions...
[Co-author with Walter Baade]
[Co-author with Walter Baade]
— Fritz Zwicky
Paper presented to American Physical Society meeting at Stanford (15-16 Dec 1933). Published in Physical Review (15 Jan 1934). Cited in P. Haensel, Paweł Haensel and A. Y. Potekhin, D. G. Yakovlev, Neutron Stars: Equation of State and Structure (2007), 2-3. Longer version of quote from Freeman Dyson, From Eros to Gaia (1992), 34. The theoretical prediction of neutron stars was made after analyzing observations of supernovae and proposed as an explanation of the enormous energy released in such explosions. It was written just two years after Chadwick discovered the neutron.
See also:
- 14 Feb - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Zwicky's birth.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
