Mathematics Is The Tool Specially Suited For

A Good Deal Of My Research In Physics Has Consisted In Not Setting Out To Solve Some Particular Problem, But Simply Examining Mathematical Equations Of A Kind That Physicists Use And Trying To Fit Them Together In An Interesting Way, Regardless Of Any Application That The Work May Have. It Is Simply A Search For Pretty Mathematics. It May Turn Out Later To Have An Application. Then One Has Good Luck. At Age 78.

It Seems That If One Is Working From The Point Of View Of Getting Beauty In One's Equations, And If One Has Really A Sound Insight, One Is On A Sure Line Of Progress.

It Is More Important To Have Beauty In One's Equations Than To Have Them Fit Experiment.

Scientific Progress Is Measured In Units Of Courage, Not Intelligence.

The Underlying Physical Laws Necessary For The Mathematical Theory Of A Large Part Of Physics And The Whole Of Chemistry Are Thus Completely Known, And The Difficulty Is Only That The Exact Application Of These Laws Leads To Equations Much Too Complicated To Be Soluble. It Therefore Becomes Desirable That Approximate Practical Methods Of Applying Quantum Mechanics Should Be Developed, Which Can Lead To An Explanation Of The Main Features Of Complex Atomic Systems Without Too Much Computation.