Sheldon L Glashow - Collected Quotes

"Tapestries are made by many artisans working together. The contributions of separate workers cannot be discerned in the completed work, and the loose and false threads have been covered over. So it is in our picture of particle physics." (Sheldon L Glashow, "Towards a Unified Theory - Threads in a Tapestry", [Nobel lecture] 1979)

"The confusion of the past [in particle physics] is now replaced by a simple and elegant synthesis. [This] standard theory may survive as a part of the ultimate theory, or it may turn out to be fundamentally wrong. In either case, it will have been an important way-station, and the next theory will have to be better." (Sheldon L Glashow, "Towards a Unified Theory - Threads in a Tapestry", [Nobel lecture] 1979)

"Contemplation of superstrings may evolve into an activity as remote from conventional particle physics as particle physics is from chemistry, to be conducted at schools of divinity by future equivalents of medieval theologians. For the first time since the Dark Ages, we can see how our noble search may end, with faith replacing science once again." (Sheldon L Glashow, "Desperately Seeking Superstrings?", Physics Today, 1986)

"In lieu of the traditional confrontation between theory and experiment, superstring theorists pursue an inner harmony where elegance, uniqueness and beauty define truth. The theory depends for its existence upon magical coincidences, miraculous cancellations and relations among seemingly unrelated (and possibly undiscovered) fields of mathematics." (Sheldon L Glashow, "Desperately Seeking Superstrings?", Physics Today, 1986)

"The theory of everything may come in its time, but not until we are certain that Nature has exhausted her bag of performable tricks." (Sheldon L Glashow, "Desperately Seeking Superstrings?", Physics Today, 1986)

"No matter how compelling or elegant it is, a theory of physics must be subjected to experimental verification or it differs little from medieval theology." (Sheldon L Glashow, "Interactions: A Journey Through the Mind of a Particle Physicist and, the Matter of This World", 1988)

"I don't have the hubris to imagine a theory of everything. I think that we scientists are seeking an understanding of the natural world. We come in various types - chemists and physicists and biologists and such - and we all have the same goal. We are making progress. The theories we have today of life and chemistry and physics are much better than they were ten years ago. And ten years from now they will be better still." (Sheldon Lee Glashow, [interview] 2003)

"String theory has had a long and wonderful history. It originated as a technique to try to understand the strong force. It was a calculational mechanism, a way of approaching a mathematical problem that was too difficult, and it was a promising way, but it was only a technique. It was a mathematical technique rather than a theory in itself." (Sheldon Lee Glashow, [interview] 2003)

"What the string theorists do is arguably physics. It deals with the physical world. They're attempting to make a consistent theory that explains the interactions we see among particles and gravity as well. That's certainly physics, but it's a kind of physics that is not yet testable. It does not make predictions that have anything to do with experiments that can be done in the laboratory or with observations that could be made in space or from telescopes." (Sheldon Lee Glashow, [interview] 2003)