One of the nice things about the Internet is you can do a comic that's just for Ph.D. students, or for truck drivers, and you get to reach all of them without having to satisfy the other 99%.
Randall MunroeRead
I think the really cool and compelling thing about math and physics is that it opens up entry to all these hypotheticals - or at least, it gives you the language to talk about them. But at the same time, if a scenario is completely disconnected from reality, it's not all that interesting.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Math and physics provide a framework to explore hypothetical scenarios, but they should remain connected to reality to be truly interesting.
Randall Munroe emphasizes the importance of mathematics and physics as tools that allow us to explore various hypothetical situations. However, he also cautions that if these hypothetical scenarios are entirely divorced from reality, they lose their significance and intrigue. Thus, the interplay between imagination and realism is crucial in the study and appreciation of science.
Themes
MathPhysicsHypotheticalsRealityImagination
In practice
Example use cases
A speaker at a science conference might use this quote to illustrate the importance of grounding theoretical research in practical applications.
More from Randall Munroe
All quotes →A million people can call the mountains a fiction, yet it need not trouble you as you stand atop them.
Randall MunroeRead
News networks giving a greater voice to viewers because the social web is so popular are like a chef on the Titanic who, seeing the looming iceberg and fleeing customers, figures ice is the future and starts making snow cones.
Randall MunroeRead
Take wrong turns. Talk to strangers. Open unmarked doors. And if you see a group of people in a field, go find out what they are doing. Do things without always knowing how they'll turn out. You're curious and smart and bored, and all you see is the choice between working hard and slacking off. There are so many adventures that you miss because you're waiting to think of a plan. To find them, look for tiny interesting choices. And remember that you are always making up the future as you go.
Randall MunroeRead
Things are rarely just crazy enough to work, but they're frequently just crazy enough to fail hilariously.
Randall MunroeRead
I read comics and I did science, and never really put them together until I accidentally found myself in the middle of one.
Randall MunroeRead
Similar quotes
Submit an agreement providing for the peaceful absorbtion of a celestial races in such a manner that our culture would remain intact with guarantee that their presence not be revealed." "One must consider the fact that mis-identification of these space craft for a intercontinental missile in a re-entry phase of flight could lead to accidental nuclear war with horrible consequences.
J. Robert OppenheimerRead
There's something really beautiful about science, that human beings can ask these questions and can answer them. You can make models of nature and understand how it works.
Margaret GellerRead
Burning carbon-based substances like oil, gas, and especially coal, produces billions of tons of extra carbon dioxide each year. Methane gas from cows and pigs and other animals on our large farms ends up in the atmosphere as well, trapping more of the sun's energy as heat.
Bill NyeRead
If I could explain it to the average person, it wouldn't have been worth the Nobel Prize.
Richard P. FeynmanRead
A science which hesitates to forget its founders is lost.
Alfred North WhiteheadRead
If Watson and I had not discovered the [DNA] structure, instead of being revealed with a flourish it would have trickled out and that its impact would have been far less. For this sort of reason Stent had argued that a scientific discovery is more akin to a work of art than is generally admitted. Style, he argues, is as important as content. I am not completely convinced by this argument, at least in this case.
Francis CrickRead