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Talk:Last words

Dee Deemensional
DeeDee: Oh Dexter! Dexter! Dexter! Come quick! You have to help! It's terrible! You sent me and you're all gross and you're all gross and-

Dexter: [Annoyed] This better be important, woman.

George Bernard Shaw
The last words recorded here ("Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.") are usually attributed to actor Edmund Gwenn. In fact, I've never seen this quote linked to Shaw before. CyranoR 14:22, 18 Feb 2007 (UTC)

Sara Teasdale
The Sara Teasdale poem previously listed was published in 1915, and Sara died in 1933. So, ok. So?

Leon Trotsky
Trotsky's last words are incorrect. While they may have been the last thing he said before being mortally wounded, they were certainly not his last words. As he lay dying he wrote quite a bit and was able to talk before finally dying when his blood pressure got too low. What he did write was pretty profound so you might want to put that in. Other sources claim his last words were actually "I've been shot". Although it is probably not true, as he was killed with an ice axe, it may still be worth a mention.

John Sedgwick
Removed the following:
 * "They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist..."
 * Who: General John Sedgwick, Union Commander in the US Civil War

While General John Sedgwick is indeed known to have said this at his last battle, he was not shot while saying it, as the article implies. Rather, he didn't die until several minutes later, and was deep in conversation at the time. It would make for a good ironic entry, but accuracy should not be sacrificed in favor of humor. (My source). --Etaoin 22:38, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

None of these should be listed without a proper source. Attributing "famous last words" to people has always been a popular pastime, and 70-90% of these are likely to be complete inventions. If Wikiquote does not want to be just another quote website but an accurate directory, there should be clear criteria for inclusion of quotes.--Eloquence 23:28 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Goethe
The "Mehr Licht!" (More Light) quote from Goethe is disputed. It's also claimed to be "Mehr nicht!" (No more). // Liftarn

Order
Do we want these sorted in any particular order -- alphabetically by quote or by speaker? Chronologically? Scarequotes 23:35, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)

 * So far we having been sorting alphabetically by quote. I don't know that any particular order is better than any other, as long as we have some order (to help prevent duplicates). Nanobug 16:28, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Ernesto "Che Guevara"
"I know you've come to kill me. Shoot, coward, you're only going to kill a man." Cool last words! --Cassperrr

Oscar Wilde
Amazingly, the man seems to have left two subtly different sets of last words...

"My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go." "These curtains are killing me, one of us has got to go."

von Goethe
Anyone else notice we have two for Johann Wolfgang von Goethe? "Mehr Licht" wins in Google hits. - Calmypal 04:08, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

where to ooo or ooo
There is no consistency on where the person's name should link to, ex:  Alexander the Great VS Alexander the Great  I think we should have the names link to wikiquote, it's simpler for the user to read more quotes from that person, and once they are directed to the proper quotes page, they can find a link to wikipedia for further information. We should expand from within...I'll volunteer in going through the list an correct the wikipedia's to be wikiquote's...

Mussolini
"Shoot me in the chest!"--Benito Mussolini, should we add it? http://www.celebritymorgue.com/benito-mussolini/

to Wikiquote

 * RoboAction 23:28, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC) -- B/C it won't confuse the user to find out where they're at...w or q?...(too much back and forth)
 * Alight (thanks for the discussion) I will be bold and link to wikiquote ~ RoboAction 04:07, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Inconsistency with Franz Ferdinand
This page claims Archduke Franz Ferdinand's last words were "Es ist gar nichts!(It is nothing)" while the article Franz Ferdinand (and Google) has "Sophie dear, Sophie dear, don't die! Stay alive for our children." Which version is correct? Or are these quotes from two different people, somehow mixed up? jni 07:07, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

 * Both lines were reported by Count Franz Harrach, who reached the couple after they were shot. Apparently, Princess Sophie saw the Archduke's blood, cried "My God! What has happened to you?" (presumably in German), then collapsed herself. The Archduke then said "Sopherl! Sopherl! Sterbe nicht! Bleib am Leben für unsere Kinder!" ("Sophie! Sophie! Don't die! Stay alive for our children!"). Harrach asked the Archduke if he was in pain, and he replied "Es ist gar nichts... es ist gar nichts..." repeatedly ("six or seven times") until he fell unconscious, dying later without ever regaining consciousness. I've revised both lines in the Franz Ferdinand article and listed my sources for this information there. — Jeff Q (talk) 21:49, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

He died shortly without ever regaining consciousness

Format
I'd like to suggest we reformat this article. It is currently sorted by person quoted, but the main bulleted items are the famous last words themselves. This makes some sense, but it also causes some problems. First, there is the awkwardness of sorting by something that isn't the primary listed item. More recently, however, is the problem of controversial last word citations. Specifically, there appears to be no definitive quotation of last words for Che Guevara. The one thing that seems to be certain is that some of the published quotes serve the interests of the publishers (or their sponsors) more than they do the goal of accuracy. Therefore, it is difficult to present one quotation as the most likely last words of Guevara. (The current version, which I added based on the only printed work I had available, seems wholly inadequate and very likely wrong.)

I recommend that we restructure this to list the person, then the last words. It's not an unreasonable structure, it makes sorting more obvious, and it allows for unpreferential treatment of various purported last words for figures like Guevara. Any thoughts? — Jeff Q (talk) 17:33, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

 * my god what has happened to you in german is=MEIN GOTT, WAS IHNEN FRANZ GESCHAH*

John Lennon
"Yeah" was apparently the last word uttered by John Lennon, according to an interview with one of the two policemen rushing him to Roosevelt Hospital.

"I'm Shot!" he exclaimed just after the bullets hit him in the side and back. Lennon was then able to walk the five or six steps into what is known as the "security office" just inside the archway of the building. One has to open a door and go up a few steps to enter this room, which John managed to do. Upon stepping into the room, he collapsed.

John was attended to by doorman Jay Hastings as the police were called. Hastings removed the man's glasses, which were pushing into his face (he'd fallen face-first, scattering the tapes he had been holding). Lennon then vomited up what seemed to be a "bloody, fleshy mass" according to the doorman. No words were reported to have been exchanged with John during this time. The doorman removed his coat to cover Lennon then removed his tie, looking for a place to tie off the bleeding, but he could not locate the source or location of the wound.

Hearing the sirens, Hastings rushed out to summon the police inside. The officers first began to restrain the doorman - who had become covered in Lennon's blood. "Not him - he works here! THAT guy!" screamed Hastings' co-employee. The first cops then rushed to restrain the shooter, Mark David Chapman, who had been standing by calmly. Hastings hurried two other policemen inside to the victim, who he identified to them as being John Lennon. Inspecting John, the officers determined that there was no time to wait for an ambulance and gingerly lifted the singer in order to carry him to their car. They reportedly heard bones breaking as they carried him back outside, sliding him into the backseat of a patrol car, front-side down.

Quickly taking off, the driving officer radioed ahead to Roosevelt to indicate that they were bringing in a critical gunshot victim. The other officer had turned to keep an eye on their charge and to try and keep him as alert as possible. John nodded yes to many of the questions he was asked, including "are you in pain?" When the officer asked "are you John Lennon?" John reportedly offered a weak "yeah" in response. John apparently died in the moments after this exchange, as he had arrived to Roosevelt with no pulse and was declared DOA upon arriving at the Emergency Room. --TobiasGarey

"Yes I am" weren't Lennon's last reported words. After the police reached the Dakota building, one of them asked "What is your name?" which drew the reply "Lennon". En route to the hospital, he asked "Are you sure you're John Lennon?" to which Lennon replied "Yes I am" - the policeman then asked "How do you feel?" and was told "I'm in pain". As far as I can ascertain, these were the last words of John Lennon.--Paolo Meccano 16:49, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

No. His last words were "I'm Shot" which he said to the receptionist of the building he was entering. He got shot several times in the back so he was out of concious within seconds.

I believe his last words were possibly "yeah," or "yes" and they were said in the back of the police car when they asked him if he was John Lennon. I don't think he was able to say a full sentence. It also could have been "I'm shot." Hard to say.

Lennon wasn't shot in the neck, he was shot in the back and the shoulder. There are conflicting accounts of his last words, although "I'm shot" would seem to be a good candidate according to most reports.. --SleepyHead 20:29, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

HAL

 * Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I'm half crazy all for the love of you. It won't be a stylish marriage, I can't afford a carriage. But you'll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two.
 * Who: HAL 9000, in 2001: A Space Odyssey

These are not the last words of HAL, in the second, third or etc. part of the film Dr. Chandra switches HAL back and HAL and Dawid Bowman see the Jupiter becoming a star. Gubbubu 09:37, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Caesar

 * Et tu, Brute?
 * Translation: And you, Brutus?
 * Who: Julius Caesar
 * Attributed to him by Shakespeare's famous play; his real last words are unknown. Brutus, one of Caesar's assassins, was his adopted son. According to Suetonius, Caesar's last words were Ista quidem vis est! ("This is violence!").
 * This translation is incorrect, as "et" can also be a short form of "etiam" ("also", "as well", "too").. And I'm pretty sure that it should thus be translated as "You, too, Brutus?"...

The idea expressed in the article, that "Then fall, Caesar" means that Caesar saw he was outnumbered and could not count on Brutus' support is an interpretation and an unsophisticated one at that. Many would argue that Caesar says this because he realizes in his last moments, that if his beloved Brutus is against him, then he must be a tyrant, and his opposition to the senators is wrong.

What Plutarch tells us, writing specifically that Caesar was speaking in Greek, whch for educated uppwer class Romans at that time was a normal form of communication, was 'Kai su, teknon', which can be interpreted in more than one way. It could mean, 'this willm happen to you too, my son,' (Caesar and Brutus had had a close relationship), or more probably, 'Even you, my son', implyimg that although Caesr knew that he had many enemies, the last thing that he would have expected was for Brutus to join them. The Et tu, Brute words were not invented until more than a thousand years later.

Richard Loeb
From this article:

* I think I'm going to make it! o Who: Richard Loeb, half of the famous murderers Leopold and Loeb; said after being slashed ninety times with a razor by a fellow inmate

The Wikipedia Article on famous last words says he was slashed 56 times, and the article doesn't mention anything. Which of these (if either) is true?

Move Fictional Last Words
I think the Fictional last words should be moved to it's own article. It's getting rather long and hard to navigate. We should also arrange it alphabetically like the current article. Any objections? Donnie 14:16, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Seems like a good idea to me (on both counts - new page and alpha sorted). ~ UDScott 15:12, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Is there still any interest in moving and categorizing fictional last words? And if so, should it be done by character name, or by source title? ~ JT706 19:29, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

In keeping with discussion here, I've created a new page for fictional last words (it seemed a good a time as any to do it, since someone deleted them all - along with the info at the bottom of the page, which I've restored :-). --Joseph Q Publique 09:47, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler: "When the music's over, turn off the lights." What's the source? Those words are from a Doors lyric.
 * These are of course spurious, and I believe they may have been removed before, either from here or the Adolf Hitler page. ~ Kalki 23:59, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Spoiler warning
I have edited the article in order to advise people about spoilers, in the "Last Words in Fiction" Section.

I'm spanish, and because of the article, "you" have just ruined my lecture of the last Harry-Potter series book. I feel the argue to kill someone, but I think this would be more productive.

I'm very upset!!!

 * I've changed the insertion of the aforementioned spoiler warning, inappropriately added to the section heading, to a standard spoiler message. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 12:49, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Orwell?
I take it we don't know George Orwell's last words.--acebrock(wikipedia)

Chaplin
The sentence recorded as Chaplin's last words is actually one of the last phrases spoken by Hneri Verdoux in Monsieur Verdoux, not something said by Chaplin in real life. Chaplin's actual last words are unrecorded: he died in his sleep. --62.255.232.28 22:57, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Brandon Vedas
I've heard "Ripper"'s quote "I told u I was hardcore" (one of the last few intelligible messages that he left on an IRC channel before dying of a drugs overdose. Wikipedia) a few times on the internet. While not technically his last words, would these be eligible for inclusion? --81.111.221.130 22:53, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Julius Streicher
The note says 'Of all the condemned Nazis, he was the only one to salute Hitler before his own execution'. However, most biographies of Amon Goeth have him doing so as well. Change the note? 80.177.175.128 14:57, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Kennedys
Many of these quotes have been taken from sites that obviously feature "humourous " retellings rather than quotes. I just saw a documentary on Robert F, and wondered if that quote was here. On the way I happened by a few references to John F's last words. Haven't found a suitable web source but both seem a lot more believable to me. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Andreuu (talk • contribs) 08:57, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

 * This is why quotes should always be sourced. Articles like this one are of virtually no use to Wikiquote because they fail to source their claims. What seems "believable" to an editor is completely irrelevant, except in how it encourages that editor to find and cite a specific source. Unsourced quotes are subject to removal by any editor at any time, so I urge editors of this article to try to find reliable sources for any "last words" they wish to keep. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 08:07, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay, John F. Kennedy's last word on the limousine was, "No, you certainly can't." Replying to Nellie Connally's question, "Mr. President, you can't say Dallas doesn't love you." -Casper

Saddam Hussein
I plan to remove attempts to add Saddam Hussein's last words to this article unless and until someone can provide citations from reliable sources for these. As with so many hot topics in the world, I expect there will be far more people willing to put words into his mouth than dig up reliable information. At the moment, I have the following information from a reliable source:
 * Then Saddam began reciting the "Shahada", a Muslim prayer that says there is no god but God and Muhammad is his messenger, according to an unabridged copy of the same tape, apparently shot with a camera phone and posted on a website. Saddam made it to midway through his second recitation of the verse. His last word was Muhammad.

This would seem to indicate that it will be hard to get his exact "last words", but that they will be part of the Shahada. Of course, this report is third-hand, via an unidentified person and unidentified website, and light on details, so it's not particularly satisfying. I imagine this will be the state of the question until we achieve some distance from the event itself, allowing more reasoned analysis of the available information to provide us with more solid information.

By the way, this is an excellent example of why we need sources for the quotes in this article. As it stands, it's not much better than a rumor collection page. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 02:23, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Art Buchwald
Can his New York Times video obit (from summer 2006) be used? Not technically last words, but it was only shown after his death. Anyway, his line is "Hi. I'm Art Buchwald and I just died."

http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_chl=6efd2cf88059d849bf303c6e8a1cd09c635bfb08&rf=bm —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.210.168.38 (talk • contribs) 23:36, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

 * I can't speak to the specific source, as I can't seem to get it to play at the moment. But if Buchwald created this specifically to be his last words, it makes some sense. Somehow it seems fitting for such a popular humorist to make a final wry comment in such an unusual manner. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 23:48, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Johannes Brahms
His last words were, "Ah, that tastes nice. Thank you." Does anyone have any information on what Brahms was eating right before he died?

He was given a taste of red wine.

Anonymous quotes
This site doesn't say who: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5049082.stm -- is it still possible to add it in the list?

Eva Peron
Eva Peron's last words were definitely not "Don't cry for me Argentina," however appropriate that would be! -Paul W

Maximilian I of Mexico
He has a page, I'm too much of a novice at this to correct why it remains red tagged.

Split out suicide notes?
This is an awfully long page, and it's only going to grow - I think it would be appropriate to split out the suicide notes into a separate entry. Thoughts? BD2412 T 01:34, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

 * Before we do that, I think we should try to get sources for these quotes. Frankly, in order to push the need for sourcing quotes, I'm in favor of going through each section, finding what sources we can, then deleting any unsourced quotes. Theme articles are notorious for their failure to source anything, and sooner or later we'll have to get more serious about this anyway. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 03:20, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Even so, I see no harm in creating a separate entry for the notes. They are not exactly "last words" in the more common meaning of those thoughts that people gasp out with their dying breath. Cheers! BD2412 T 05:11, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

 * I see your point. It's a little morbid, but arguably useful. It might also focus some attention on what kind of inclusion guidelines we'd want for suicide notes. We certainly wouldn't want to include entire notes, as Wikiquote is focused on pithy statements and is not designed to collect documents for their own sake. But there would also be the question of whether some of these quotes are worth citing at all on Wikiquote because they aren't especially original or memorable on their own, only as sad footnotes to the peoples' lives. In any case, I doubt I'll get involved in that intriguing debate for now, so I'll shut up and let others chime in. ☺ ~ Jeff Q (talk) 06:34, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Suicide notes is done (or at least begun) - there are a few that I've found that are clearly not the "last words" of the person. BD2412 T 16:47, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Important Missing Lines
"Take your time old man" - serial killer H. H. Holmes to executioner He died after hanging for 15 minutes.

Rudyard Kipling- "I've just read that I am dead. Don't forget to delete me from your list of subscribers."

Humphrey Bogart
I couldn't help noticing that there are two "last words" from him...I'm sure there's a mistake here, I'm not editing though, I apoligize if this is correct somehow.

Christopher Grace
The last words of Christopher Grace? The only actor listed in Wikipedia by that name is Christopher John Grace, better known as Topher Grace - and he's still alive, according to Wikipedia and Imdb.com! Esaons 20:51, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Ataturk
I removed the Ataturk quote as I couldn't verify it was said, and the words as quoted are mangled ("Alaykum As-Salām" instead of "As-Salām Alaykum"). Could someone perhaps verify the quote and re-add the correct form it to the index? --健次 (derumi)talk 20:40, 28 July 2008 (UTC) This was a bit delayed response to his doctor when he said "let me see your tongue sir".
 * Ataturk' last words were "Aleykum Selam".

Typically the person who starts the greeting says "As Selam Aleykum" to everyone there. Response to this would be "Aleykum Selam". This was interpreted as death angel said to him "As Selam Aleykum" and he responded as "Aleykum Selam".

AJ Kenson
This does not make any sense.

Anonymous
Wait!

I have looked for more information on this quote and story. Does anyone have anymore info?

Jose Rizal
"Consummatum Est" were the last words of Dr. Jose Rizal... Philippine's nat'l hero.. which means "It is done". Said after he was shot by a firing squad in Bagumbayan, now called Luneta Park, Manila.

John Jacob Astor
Not sure if anyone actually cares, but the link is not pointing to the "right" John Jacob Astor. It should be pointing to John Jacob Astor IV... On a side note, is this even verified? The account on this page conflicts with the account on.
 * Yep, we sure do care! I'll research the question. BD2412 T 18:04, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

U. S. Executions Since 1976
With this hyperlink you can find the last words or final statement of most of these victims:.

Kaczynski
Transcripts of conversations in the cockpit of the Tupolev Tu-154 that crashed near Smolensk in April killing Polish President Lech Kaczynski and many other Polish government officials

Kurwa!

How "Last" are these words to be?
Just perusing this page, and I see several entries that were clearly not the speaker's last words. In most cases, e.g. last radio transmissions, this seems ok. Then there are ones like Michael Jackson, which lists what he said as he exited his limo the previous day, or Alexander Litvinenko, which listed one sentence from an interview he gave prior to his death. Do these really apply for this page? They may be significant, of course, but the whole "last words" notion implies something more than these examples provide. Just a thought. Prompt Critical 01:03, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Frederick II
There's only the translation of the last words of Frederick II, the original quote is missing. The quote now found was "Throw a quilt over him." At half past two he was dead.

Archimedes
The wikiquote article mentions that the soldier that killed Archimedes was executed, but the main wikipedia article has no mention of the soldier's fate. I can find no source to back up the claim. This article: http://www.math.nyu.edu/~crorres/Archimedes/Death/Histories.html, linked to from the wikipedia article, lists the known accounts, and mentions that "Marcellus ever after regarded him that killed him as a murderer", but does not imply that the soldier was executed.

Augustus
I noticed that there is a quote listed for Emperor Augustus under 'A', and one for Augustus Caesar under 'C'. I understand that Augustus was a title given to Roman Emperors beginning with Augustus Caesar, but these quotes seem to be referring to the same man. Is this a mistake, or can someone clear this up for me? Shardwing (talk) 00:23, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Roald Dahl
The quote given is unsourced. Other sources suggest a different story:. The story as it stands does sound unlikely.

Proposal to split the page.
This page is rather long (170kb right now), and is susceptible to growth, both through the as-yet unspoken last words of those still living, and through the addition of many more last words from the already dead. I propose splitting by the century in which the subject's death occurred, at least for the past few centuries. For the smaller number of recorded last words before, say, 1500, we can have a single page. Cheers! BD2412 T 16:18, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Alternatively, if one were to simply remove all of the unsourced attributions the page would be very much smaller. ~ Ningauble (talk)
 * Ideally, the unsourced attributions would eventually be sourced, leading to the same problem. BD2412 T 17:07, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree that the unsourced quotes should be all moved to the Talk page. ~ DanielTom (talk) 13:05, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Agreed! So we don't have to scroll, all the way down, while reading so many sections saying "Anonymous" or "I don't know", etc. -ArithmeticallyAWeirdo

Mark Sandman
I added the last words of Mark Sandman, famous for being the singer of the jazz band Morphine. Here's the source. http://www.rollogrady.com/mark-sandman-morphine-treat-her-right/ AvalancheMaster (talk) 20:33, 5 February 2013 (GMT)

Greedwell
As this is a videogame character, and not a real person, I request that it be moved to the "fictional last words" section.

Agreed. --Cassperrr

James Allen Red Dog
I didn't find sources for "the rest of you can kiss my ass" except for a book that said someone else said that and that Red Dog said "pretty much" the same thing. The only last words I found are at James Allen Red Dog; I'm not sure what exactly would be best here. Ekips39 (talk) 05:38, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

William Wallace
His last words before being executed "I could not be a traitor to Edward, for I was never his subject". 201.255.190.160 10:30, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

'Josep Bernades'?
Passi-ho bé, senyor Bernades (Catalan) Translation: Goodbye, Mr. Bernades Who: Josep Bernades

This quote has been in the article since July 2005, yet when you google that name, there are literally no results. Even if you google that pair of 'last words', the only result you get are for other lists of last words, that have obviously just copy/pasted from Wikiquote.

Is this really a fake quote that's just been unnoticed for over 10 years? Or is this just a really obscure person?

64.5.147.200 16:18, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Alexander III...
...can't have said Για το ισχυρότερο! That's modern Greek. Alexander spoke Ancient Greek or Ancient Macedonian. Steinbach (talk) 18:35, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Kirk Douglas
The form currently claims that Kirk Douglas' last words were "Mike Bloomberg can get it done", which seems quite far-fetched to me. I would go through the version history myself if I had a bit more time; since I don't, can someone please check and fix that if necessary? Thanks. —TheHardestAspectOfCreatingAnAccountIsAlwaysTheUsername: posted at 09:00, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

title: Talk:Last words


text: User:Eloquence

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: User:Eloquence


text:
User:Dhum Dhum

I've been a contributor to Wikipedia and Wiktionary for some time now. I've started adding Dutch proverbs here.

title: User:Dhum Dhum


text:
Hannes Alfvén

Hannes Olof Gösta Alfvén (30 May 1908, Norrköping, Sweden – 2 April 1995, Djursholm, Sweden) was a Swedish electrical engineer, plasma physicist and winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). He described the class of MHD waves now known as Alfvén waves. He was originally trained as an electrical power engineer and later moved to research and teaching in the fields of plasma physics and electrical engineering. Alfvén made many contributions to plasma physics, including theories describing the behavior of aurorae, the Van Allen radiation belts, the effect of magnetic storms on the Earth's magnetic field, the terrestrial magnetosphere, and the dynamics of plasmas in the Milky Way galaxy.

Dean of the Plasma Dissidents (1988)

 * Hannes Alfvén as quoted by, Dean of the Plasma Dissidents in "The World and I" (supplement to the Washington Times, May 1988)

 * We should remember that there was once a discipline called natural philosophy. Unfortunately, this discipline seems not to exist today. It has been renamed science, but science of today is in danger of losing much of the natural philosophy aspect.
 * p. 192.

 * Scientists tend to resist interdisciplinary inquiries into their own territory. In many instances, such parochialism is founded on the fear that intrusion from other disciplines would compete unfairly for limited financial resources and thus diminish their own opportunity for research.
 * p. 192.

 * I have never thought that you could obtain the extremely clumpy, heterogeneous universe we have today, strongly affected by plasma processes, from the smooth, homogeneous one of the Big Bang, dominated by gravitation.
 * p. 196.

 * There is no rational reason to doubt that the universe has existed indefinitely, for an infinite time. It is only myth that attempts to say how the universe came to be, either four thousand or twenty billion years ago.
 * p. 196.

 * Since religion intrinsically rejects empirical methods, there should never be any attempt to reconcile scientific theories with religion. An infinitely old universe, always evolving, may not be compatible with the Book of Genesis. However, religions such as Buddhism get along without having any explicit creation mythology and are in no way contradicted by a universe without a beginning or end. Creatio ex nihilo, even as religious doctrine, only dates to around AD 200. The key is not to confuse myth and empirical results, or religion and science.
 * p. 196.

 * Most people today still believe, perhaps unconsciously, in the heliocentric universe ... every newspaper in the land has a section on astrology, yet few have anything at all on astronomy.
 * p. 196.

 * I have no trouble publishing in Soviet astrophysical journals, but my work is unacceptable to the American astrophysical journals.
 * p. 197.

 * The peer review system is satisfactory during quiescent times, but not during a revolution in a discipline such as astrophysics, when the establishment seeks to preserve the status quo.
 * p. 197.

 * Students using astrophysical textbooks remain essentially ignorant of even the existence of plasma concepts, despite the fact that some of them have been known for half a century. The conclusion is that astrophysics is too important to be left in the hands of astrophysicists who have gotten their main knowledge from these textbooks. Earthbound and space telescope data must be treated by scientists who are familiar with laboratory and magnetospheric physics and circuit theory, and of course with modern plasma theory.
 * p. 197.

Quotes about Alfvén

 * During Alfvén's visit he gave a lecture at the University of Chicago, which was attended by Enrico Fermi. As Alfvén described his work, Fermi nodded his head and said, 'Of course.' The next day the entire world of physics said. 'Oh. of course.'
 * Alex Dessler, editor, in: The World & I Vol. 3, Nr 5-6 (1988), p. 195

 * When I entered the field of space physics in 1956, I recall that I fell in with the crowd believing, for example, that electric fields could not exist in the highly conducting plasma of space. It was three years later that I was shamed by S. Chandrasekhar into investigating Alfvén's work objectively. My degree of shock and surprise in finding Alfvén right and his critics wrong can hardly be described. I learned that a cosmic ray acceleration mechanism basically identical to the famous mechanism suggested by Fermi in 1949 had [previously] been put forth by Alfvén.
 * Alex Dessler in: The World & I Vol. 3, Nr 5-6 (1988), p. 195

title: Hannes Alfvén