Regardless of any deviations, it was clear I was supposed to end up in math and physics.
Interpretation
The quote highlights a strong sense of purpose and destiny in a person's journey toward studying mathematics and physics.
In this quote, Edward Witten expresses a conviction that despite any changes or detours he may have taken in life, his path ultimately led him to the fields of mathematics and physics. It underscores the idea that some individuals have a predestined calling that guides them toward their true passions and talents, suggesting that our life paths may be influenced by an intrinsic purpose.
In practice
A graduation speech to inspire students to pursue their passions.
Quantum mechanics brought an unexpected fuzziness into physics because of quantum uncertainty, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. String theory does so again because a point particle is replaced by a string, which is more spread out.
But the beauty of Einstein's equations, for example, is just as real to anyone who's experienced it as the beauty of music. We've learned in the 20th century that the equations that work have inner harmony.
I wouldn't have thought that a wrong theory should lead us to understand better the ordinary quantum field theories or to have new insights about the quantum states of black holes.
You have that one basic string, but it can vibrate in many ways. But we're trying to get a lot of particles because experimental physicists have discovered a lot of particles.
Even before string theory, especially as physics developed in the 20th century, it turned out that the equations that really work in describing nature with the most generality and the greatest simplicity are very elegant and subtle.
It's an exaggeration to say that I came up with M-theory.
In Einstein's equation, time is a river. It speeds up, meanders, and slows down. The new wrinkle is that it can have whirlpools and fork into two rivers. So, if the river of time can be bent into a pretzel, create whirlpools and fork into two rivers, then time travel cannot be ruled out.
Correlation doesnβt imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing βlook over there.β
Perhaps most ridiculous of all is the suggestion that we 'keep' our radioactive garbage for the use of our descendants. This 'solution', I think, requires an immediate poll of the next 20,000 generations.
A science which hesitates to forget its founders is lost.
As followers of natural science we know nothing of any relation between thoughts and the brain, except as a gross correlation in time and space.
The radical novelty of modern science lies precisely in the rejection of the belief... that the forces which move the stars and atoms are contingent upon the preferences of the human heart.
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