Interesting quotes

From QED

Don't count out the old physicists yet:

...Fisher said he learned to think quantum mechanically by thinking mathematically first.

"One's intuition can with time transcend the mathematics. I would say that mathematics is to physics, what grammar and syntax are to poetry. You can't do the latter well unless you have a deep grasp of the former..."

So physics may not just be a game for the 20 and 30 somethings, like so many of the prized behaviors of society, such as athletics and TV script writing?

"Twenty is, I think, too young, for great physics," said Fisher. "At the other end, obviously, one eventually burns out. I do notice that the leaders in string theory are not only 30-year-olds, but also 40- and 50-year-olds. With the 50- and 60-year olds who were great successes earlier on, their success tends to generate distractions in the form of new duties. And physics, above all else, takes incredible focus."

The above is an excerpt from an article interviewing Prof. Matthew Fisher, a permanent member of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at UC Santa Barbara, on the difficulty of intuition when thinking about quantum mechanics. On p. 5 of http://www.kitp.ucsb.edu/newsletter/KITPnews_aug06.pdf

I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the highest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.

--Leo Tolstoy