The ancients considered mechanics in a twofold respect: as rational, which proceeds accurately by demonstration, and practical. To practical mechanics all the manual arts belong, from which mechanics took its name.
My inners are not organs. They’re actually mechanics, so I have a hole in my back, wind me up like the movie ‘Hugo,’ and then just say, ‘Act,’ you know?
In 1924, I became a Dozent in Gottingen and worked out the quantum mechanics during a holiday stay on Heligoland.
What I’m trying to do is teach people how to actually get individuals in organizations to do the kinds of things to make a difference. It starts with not just studying the mechanics but really understanding how people operate.
I read Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Reader’s Digest… I read some responsible journalism, and from that, I form my own opinions. I also happen to be intelligent, and I question everything.
People say writing is really hard. That’s very unfair to those who are doing real jobs. People who work in the fields or fix roofs, engineers, or car mechanics. I think lying on your back working under an oily car, that’s a job.
I like mechanical things; my first book was a mechanics guide – that was what my parents couldn’t pry away from me; that was the blanket.
Though I have no real understanding of the mechanics of football, and can only nod along helplessly at complex post-match analyses, I do enjoy watching people who are enormously good at something doing that thing very well.
Since the founding of quantum mechanics in the 1920s, theoretical physics had nurtured an extremely radical tradition.
Feynman once said, ‘Science is imagination in a straitjacket.’ It is ironic that in the case of quantum mechanics, the people without the straitjackets are generally the nuts.
I’m one of a few guys on the PGA Tour who doesn’t work with an instructor. I’m not saying mechanics don’t matter. But I play my best when I focus on staying in a good place mentally and keep the technique simple.
I thought I had to work at someplace everybody’s heard of. It was never, ‘I’m interested in such and such. I want to work in such and such magazine.’ It was like, ‘Oh, my G-d, I really need to work for somebody so people will think I’m OK.’ So I got a job at ‘Popular Mechanics’.
It wasn’t about mechanics; it was about a feeling, wanting to give someone something, which in turn was really gratifying. That really resonated for me.
To improve my free throws I went back to the mechanics and really learning how to have form and shoot the ball, so I have to get comfortable with that.
While classical mechanics correctly predicts the behavior of large objects such as tennis balls, to predict the behavior of small objects such as electrons, we must use quantum mechanics.
Jesus walking on water is an allegory, not fluid mechanics. God destroying the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah is a warning, not a historical battle. Doubting Thomas is an example, not a person. The story of Noah, with all of its scientific and historical impossibilities, can be read the same way.
