Eugene Wigner

The enormous usefulness of mathematics in the natural sciences is something bordering on the mysterious and there is no rational explanation of…

— Eugene Wigner

There are two kinds of people in the world: Johnny Von Neumann and the rest of us.

— Eugene Wigner

It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem. But I would like to understand it too.

— Eugene Wigner

It's nice the know the computer understands the situation, but I would like to understand it too.

— Eugene Wigner

... mathematics is the science of skillful operations with concepts and rules invented just for this purpose.

— Eugene Wigner

The simplicities of natural laws arise through the complexities of the language we use for their expression.

— Eugene Wigner

Solipsism may be logically consistent with present Quantum Mechanics, Monism in the sense of Materialism is not.

— Eugene Wigner

“The present writer had occasion, some time ago, to call attention to the succession of layers of "laws of nature," each layer…

— Eugene Wigner

The optimist regards the future as uncertain.

— Eugene Wigner

The full meaning of life, the collective meaning of all human desires, is fundamentally a mystery beyond our grasp. As a young…

— Eugene Wigner

Physics is becoming so unbelievably complex that it is taking longer and longer to train a physicist. It is taking so long,…

— Eugene Wigner

When the province of physical theory was extended to encompass microscopic phenomena through the creation of quantum mechanics, the concept of consciousness…

— Eugene Wigner

The great mathematician fully, almost ruthlessly, exploits the domain of permissible reasoning and skirts the impermissible. That his recklessness does not lead…

— Eugene Wigner

There is no natural phenomenon that is comparable with the sudden and apparently accidentally timed development of science, except perhaps the condensation…

— Eugene Wigner

“In science, it is not speed that is the most important. It is the dedication, the commitment, the interest and the will…

— Eugene Wigner

The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift…

— Eugene Wigner

[T]he laws of quantum mechanics itself cannot be formulated ... without recourse to the concept of consciousness.

— Eugene Wigner

It was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to the consciousness.

— Eugene Wigner

The world is very complicated and it is clearly impossible for the human mind to understand it completely. Man has therefore devised…

— Eugene Wigner

The unreasonable efficiency of mathematics in science is a gift we neither understand nor deserve.

— Eugene Wigner

It takes so long to train a physicist to the place where he understands the nature of physical problems that he is…

— Eugene Wigner

OK, so the computer has understood, but what about me ?

— Eugene Wigner