United Kingdom
Max Born
said
The belief that there is only one truth and that oneself is in possession of it, seems to me the deepest root of all that is evil in the world.
— p. 230, also in My Life and Views (1968), p. 183
Max Born
German-Jewish physicist and mathematician (1882–1970)
- Fame74.8
- Momentum9.3
- Scientists rank#33
Source-basedFalling
- Fame74.8
- Momentum9.3
- Scientists rank#33
- Wikipedia31.1K
Lived 1882–1970, aged 88United Kingdom
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Summary
Updated 2026-06-21
He gave quantum mechanics its statistical backbone: the interpretation that a particle's wavefunction describes probabilities, not certainties — a reading so foundational it took nearly three decades to win him the Nobel Prize.
Biography
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Born entered the University of Göttingen in 1904 and fell in with mathematicians Felix Klein, David Hilbert, and Hermann Minkowski, earning his doctorate on elastic stability and later researching special relativity alongside Minkowski. After a wartime stint in sound ranging and a 1918 encounter with Fritz Haber that yielded the Born–Haber cycle, he returned to Göttingen in 1921 and turned it into a physics powerhouse: in 1925 he and Werner Heisenberg formulated matrix mechanics, then the following year Born supplied the now-standard probability density reading of Schrödinger's wavefunction. H…
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Sourced, dated quotes from Max Born
Max Born
said
I am now convinced that theoretical physics is actually philosophy.
— Statement of 1963, as quoted in Schrodinger : Life and Thought (1992) by Walter J. Moore, p. 1
Max Born
said
Intellect distinguishes between the possible and the impossible; reason distinguishes between the sensible and the senseless. Even the possible can be senseless.
— The Voyage into the Dark (1961); also in My Life and Views (1968), p. 154
Max Born
said
Can we call something with which the concepts of position and motion cannot be associated in the usual way, a thing, or a particle?
— The close of his Nobel lecture: "The Statistical Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics" (11 December 1954)
Max Born
said
It is true that many scientists are not philosophically minded and have hitherto shown much skill and ingenuity but little wisdom.
— p. 2
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Momentum9.3
Historical25.1
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Completeness70.0
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