Quick answer“An expert is a person who has found out by his own painful experience all the mistakes that one can make in a very narrow field.” is a famous quote by Niels Bohr. It comes from 'Dr. Edward Teller's Magnificent Obsession' (LIFE magazine, 6 September 1954). It is widely quoted on wisdom and learning.
Niels Bohr's definition of an expert, as remembered by Edward Teller, is a person who has found out by painful experience all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field. It is a joke about how expertise is really earned.
Origin: As quoted by Edward Teller in Robert Coughlan's LIFE magazine profile 'Dr. Edward Teller's Magnificent Obsession' (6 September 1954, p. 62). A shorter variant also circulates — 'An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a very narrow field' — quoted by Teller in 1972. Bohr himself published nothing with this wording; it survives only as a remark remembered by colleagues, so it is kept as an attributed remark, Tier 2.
Key facts
| Quote | “An expert is a person who has found out by his own painful experience all the mistakes that one can make in a very narrow field.” |
|---|---|
| Author | Niels Bohr |
| Source | 'Dr. Edward Teller's Magnificent Obsession' (LIFE magazine, 6 September 1954) |
| Themes | wisdom, learning |
| Language | English |
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