TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY ®  •  TODAYINSCI ®
Celebrating 24 Years on the Web
Find science on or your birthday

Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: “The Columbia is lost; there are no survivors.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index A > Category: Altered

Altered Quotes (32 quotes)

[W]e have made a thing, a most terrible weapon, that has altered abruptly and profoundly the nature of the world. We have made a thing that, by all standards of the world we grew up in, is an evil thing. And by doing so, by our participation in making it possible to make these things, we have raised again the question of whether science is good for man, of whether it is good to learn about the world, to try to understand it, to try to control it, to help give to the world of men increased insight, increased power. Because we are scientists, we must say an unalterable yes to these questions; it is our faith and our commitment, seldom made explicit, even more seldom challenged, that knowledge is a good in itself, knowledge and such power as must come with it.
Speech to the American Philosophical Society (Jan 1946). 'Atomic Weapons', printed in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 90(1), 7-10. In Deb Bennett-Woods, Nanotechnology: Ethics and Society (2008), 23. Identified as a speech to the society in Kai Bird, Martin J. Sherwin, American Prometheus: the Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (2005), 323.
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Commitment (28)  |  Control (182)  |  Doing (277)  |  Evil (122)  |  Explicit (3)  |  Faith (209)  |  Good (906)  |  Insight (107)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Learn (672)  |  Making (300)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Participation (15)  |  Possible (560)  |  Power (771)  |  Question (649)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Terrible (41)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Try (296)  |  Understand (648)  |  Weapon (98)  |  World (1850)

La théorie est l’hypothèse vérifiée, après qu’elle a été soumise au contrôle du raisonnement et de la critique expérimentale. La meilleure théorie est celle qui a été vérifiée par le plus grand nombre de faits. Mais une théorie, pour rester bonne, doit toujours se modifier avec les progrès de la science et demeurer constamment soumise à la vérification et à la critique des faits nouveaux qui apparaissent.
A theory is a verified hypothesis, after it has been submitted to the control of reason and experimental criticism. The soundest theory is one that has been verified by the greatest number of facts. But to remain valid, a theory must be continually altered to keep pace with the progress of science and must be constantly resubmitted to verification and criticism as new facts appear.
Original work in French, Introduction à l'Étude de la Médecine Expérimentale (1865), 385. English translation by Henry Copley Green in An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1927, 1957), 220.
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Continually (17)  |  Control (182)  |  Criticism (85)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  Pace (18)  |  Plus (43)  |  Progress (492)  |  Progress Of Science (40)  |  Reason (766)  |  Remain (355)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Validity (50)  |  Verification (32)

A single ray of light from a distant star falling upon the eye of a tyrant in bygone times, may have altered the course of his life, may have changed the destiny of nations, may have transformed the surface of the globe, so intricate, so inconceivably complex are the processes of nature.
Lecture (Feb 1893) delivered before the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, 'On Light and Other High Frequency Phenomena,' collected in Thomas Commerford Martin and Nikola Tesla, The Inventions, Researches and Writings of Nikola Tesla (1894), 298.
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Bygone (4)  |  Change (639)  |  Complex (202)  |  Course (413)  |  Destiny (54)  |  Distant (33)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fall (243)  |  Globe (51)  |  Intricate (29)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Nation (208)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Process (439)  |  Ray (115)  |  Single (365)  |  Star (460)  |  Surface (223)  |  Time (1911)  |  Transform (74)  |  Tyrant (10)

According to my derivative hypothesis, a change takes place first in the structure of the animal, and this, when sufficiently advanced, may lead to modifications of habits… . “Derivation” holds that every species changes, in time, by virtue of inherent tendencies thereto. “Natural Selection” holds that no such change can take place without the influence of altered external circumstances educing or selecting such change… . The hypothesis of “natural selection” totters on the extension of a conjectural condition, explanatory of extinction to the majority of organisms, and not known or observed to apply to the origin of any species.
In On the Anatomy of Vertebrates (1868), Vol. 3, 808.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Alter (64)  |  Animal (651)  |  Apply (170)  |  Change (639)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Condition (362)  |  Conjecture (51)  |  Derivation (15)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Extension (60)  |  External (62)  |  Extinction (80)  |  First (1302)  |  Habit (174)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Influence (231)  |  Inherent (43)  |  Known (453)  |  Lead (391)  |  Majority (68)  |  Modification (57)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Observed (149)  |  Organism (231)  |  Origin (250)  |  Selection (130)  |  Species (435)  |  Structure (365)  |  Time (1911)  |  Virtue (117)

After having produced aquatic animals of all ranks and having caused extensive variations in them by the different environments provided by the waters, nature led them little by little to the habit of living in the air, first by the water's edge and afterwards on all the dry parts of the globe. These animals have in course of time been profoundly altered by such novel conditions; which so greatly influenced their habits and organs that the regular gradation which they should have exhibited in complexity of organisation is often scarcely recognisable.
Hydrogéologie (1802), trans. A. V. Carozzi (1964), 69-70.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Alter (64)  |  Animal (651)  |  Aquatic (5)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Condition (362)  |  Course (413)  |  Different (595)  |  Dry (65)  |  Edge (51)  |  Environment (239)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Extensive (34)  |  First (1302)  |  Gradation (17)  |  Habit (174)  |  Little (717)  |  Living (492)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Novel (35)  |  Organ (118)  |  Produced (187)  |  Rank (69)  |  Regular (48)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Time (1911)  |  Variation (93)  |  Water (503)

An old paleontological in joke proclaims that mammalian evolution is a tale told by teeth mating to produce slightly altered descendant teeth.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Descendant (18)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Joke (90)  |  Mammalian (3)  |  Mate (7)  |  Old (499)  |  Paleontology (32)  |  Proclaim (31)  |  Produce (117)  |  Slightly (3)  |  Tale (17)  |  Teeth (43)  |  Tell (344)  |  Tooth (32)

Biographical history, as taught in our public schools, is still largely a history of boneheads: ridiculous kings and queens, paranoid political leaders, compulsive voyagers, ignorant generals—the flotsam and jetsam of historical currents. The men who radically altered history, the great creative scientists and mathematicians, are seldom mentioned if at all.
Opening paragraph of book review, 'Adventures Of a Mathematician: The Man Who Invented the H-Bomb', New York Times (9 May 1976), 201.
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Altering (3)  |  Biography (254)  |  Compulsive (3)  |  Creative (144)  |  Current (122)  |  Flotsam (3)  |  General (521)  |  Great (1610)  |  Historical (70)  |  History (716)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Jetsam (2)  |  King (39)  |  Leader (51)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mention (84)  |  Mentioned (3)  |  Paranoid (3)  |  Political (124)  |  Public School (4)  |  Queen (14)  |  Radically (5)  |  Ridiculous (24)  |  School (227)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Still (614)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Voyager (3)

But the Presidence of that mighty Power … its particular Agency and Concern therein: and its Purpose and Design … will more evidently appear, when I shall have proved … That the said Earth, though not indifferently and alike fertil in all parts of it, was yet generally much more fertil than ours is … That its Soil was more luxuriant, and teemed forth its Productions in far greater plenty and abundance than the present Earth does … That when Man was fallen, and had abandoned his primitive Innocence, the Case was much altered: and a far different Scene of Things presented; that generous Vertue, masculine Bravery, and prudent Circumspection which he was before Master of, now deserting him … and a strange imbecility immediately seized and laid hold of him: he became pusillanimous, and was easily ruffled with every little Passion within: supine, and as openly exposed to any Temptation or Assault from without. And now these exuberant Productions of the Earth became a continued Decoy and Snare unto him.
In An Essay Toward A Natural History of the Earth (1695), 84-86.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Abundance (26)  |  Alike (60)  |  Alter (64)  |  Circumspection (5)  |  Concern (239)  |  Design (203)  |  Different (595)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Evidently (26)  |  Exposed (33)  |  Fertility (23)  |  Generous (17)  |  Greater (288)  |  Imbecility (5)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Innocence (13)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Masculine (4)  |  Master (182)  |  More (2558)  |  Passion (121)  |  Power (771)  |  Present (630)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Production (190)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Scene (36)  |  Soil (98)  |  Strange (160)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Will (2350)

Changes That Have Occurred in the Globe: When we have seen with our own eyes a mountain progressing into a plain; that is to say, an immense boulder separating from this mountain and covering the fields; an entire castle broken into pieces over the ground; a river swallowed up which then bursts out from its abyss; clear marks of a vast amount of water having once flooded regions now inhabited, and a hundred vestiges of other transformations, then we are much more willing to believe that great changes altered the face of the earth, than a Parisian lady who knows only that the place where her house was built was once a cultivated field. However, a lady from Naples who has seen the buried ruins of Herculaneum, is much less subject to the bias which leads us to believe that everything has always been as it is today.
From article 'Changements arrivées dans le globe', in Dictionnaire philosophique (1764), collected in Œuvres Complètes de Voltaire (1878), Vol. 2, 427-428. Translated by Ian Ellis, from the original French: “Changements arrivées dans le globe: Quand on a vu de ses yeux une montagne s’avancer dans une plaine, c’est-à-dire un immense rocher de cette montagne se détacher et couvrir des champs, un château tout entier enfoncé dans la terre, un fleuve englouti qui sort ensuite de son abîme, des marques indubitables qu’un vaste amas d’eau inondait autrefois un pays habité aujourd’hui, et cent vestiges d’autres révolutions, on est alors plus disposé à croire les grands changements qui ont altéré la face du monde, que ne l’est une dame de Paris qui sait seulement que la place où est bâtie sa maison était autrefois un champ labourable. Mais une dame de Naples, qui a vu sous terre les ruines d’Herculanum, est encore moins asservie au préjugé qui nous fait croire que tout a toujours été comme il est aujourd’hui.”
Science quotes on:  |  Abyss (30)  |  Alter (64)  |  Alteration (31)  |  Amount (153)  |  Belief (615)  |  Bias (22)  |  Boulder (8)  |  Breaking (3)  |  Broken (56)  |  Built (7)  |  Buried (2)  |  Burst (41)  |  Castle (5)  |  Change (639)  |  Country (269)  |  Cover (40)  |  Covering (14)  |  Dire (6)  |  Disappearance (28)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Entire (50)  |  Erosion (20)  |  Everything (489)  |  Eye (440)  |  Face (214)  |  Field (378)  |  Flood (52)  |  Geologic History (2)  |  Great (1610)  |  Ground (222)  |  Herculaneum (4)  |  House (143)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Immense (89)  |  Inhabitation (2)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lady (12)  |  Land (131)  |  Lead (391)  |  Mark (47)  |  More (2558)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Move (223)  |  Naples (2)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paris (11)  |  Place (192)  |  Plain (34)  |  Plus (43)  |  River (140)  |  Rock (176)  |  Ruin (44)  |  Say (989)  |  Sinking (6)  |  Subject (543)  |  Swallow (32)  |  Today (321)  |  Transformation (72)  |  Vast (188)  |  Vestige (11)  |  Water (503)  |  Willing (44)

Facts are things which cannot be altered or disputed.
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Dispute (36)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Thing (1914)

Geometry, which should only obey Physics, when united with it sometimes commands it. If it happens that the question which we wish to examine is too complicated for all the elements to be able to enter into the analytical comparison which we wish to make, we separate the more inconvenient [elements], we substitute others for them, less troublesome, but also less real, and we are surprised to arrive, notwithstanding a painful labour, only at a result contradicted by nature; as if after having disguised it, cut it short or altered it, a purely mechanical combination could give it back to us.
From Essai d’une nouvelle théorie de la résistance des fluides (1752), translated as an epigram in Ivor Grattan-Guinness, Convolutions in French Mathematics, 1800-1840: From the Calculus and Mechanics to Mathematical Analysis and Mathematical Physics (1990), Vol. 1, 33.
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Arrive (40)  |  Back (395)  |  Combination (150)  |  Command (60)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Contradict (42)  |  Cut (116)  |  Disguise (12)  |  Element (322)  |  Enter (145)  |  Examine (84)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Happen (282)  |  Inconvenient (5)  |  Labor (200)  |  Less (105)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Obey (46)  |  Other (2233)  |  Painful (12)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Purely (111)  |  Question (649)  |  Real (159)  |  Result (700)  |  Separate (151)  |  Short (200)  |  Sometimes (46)  |  Substitute (47)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Troublesome (8)  |  United (15)  |  Wish (216)

I experimented with all possible maneuvers—loops, somersaults and barrel rolls. I stood upside down on one finger and burst out laughing, a shrill, distorted laugh. Nothing I did altered the automatic rhythm of the air. Delivered from gravity and buoyancy, I flew around in space.
Describing his early test (1943) in the Mediterranean Sea of the Aqua-Lung he co-invented.
Quoted in 'Sport: Poet of the Depths', Time (28 Mar 1960)
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Alter (64)  |  Automatic (16)  |  Buoyancy (7)  |  Burst (41)  |  Deliver (30)  |  Distort (22)  |  Distortion (13)  |  Down (455)  |  Early (196)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Finger (48)  |  Flying (74)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Laugh (50)  |  Loop (6)  |  Lung (37)  |  Maneuver (2)  |  Mediterranean (9)  |  Mediterranean Sea (6)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Possible (560)  |  Rhythm (21)  |  Roll (41)  |  Sea (326)  |  Shrill (2)  |  Somersault (2)  |  Space (523)  |  Stand (284)  |  Test (221)  |  Upside Down (8)

I suspect one of the reasons that fantasy and science fiction appeal so much to younger readers is that, when the space and time have been altered to allow characters to travel easily anywhere through the continuum and thus escape physical dangers and timepiece inevitabilities, mortality is so seldom an issue.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Allow (51)  |  Alter (64)  |  Anywhere (16)  |  Appeal (46)  |  Character (259)  |  Continuum (8)  |  Danger (127)  |  Easily (36)  |  Escape (85)  |  Fantasy (15)  |  Inevitability (10)  |  Issue (46)  |  Mortality (16)  |  Physical (518)  |  Reader (42)  |  Reason (766)  |  Science Fiction (35)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Space (523)  |  Space And Time (38)  |  Suspect (18)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Travel (125)  |  Young (253)  |  Younger (21)

I was often humiliated to see men disputing for a piece of bread, just as animals might have done. My feelings on this subject have very much altered since I have been personally exposed to the tortures of hunger. I have discovered, in fact, that a man, whatever may have been his origin, his education, and his habits, is governed, under certain circumstances, much more by his stomach than by his intelligence and his heart.
In François Arago, trans. by William Henry Smyth, Baden Powell and Robert Grant, 'The History of My Youth: An Autobiography of Francis Arago', Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men (1859), Vol. 1, 55.
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Animal (651)  |  Biography (254)  |  Bread (42)  |  Certain (557)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Discover (571)  |  Dispute (36)  |  Education (423)  |  Exposed (33)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Govern (66)  |  Governed (4)  |  Habit (174)  |  Heart (243)  |  Humiliation (4)  |  Hunger (23)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Origin (250)  |  See (1094)  |  Stomach (40)  |  Subject (543)  |  Torture (30)  |  Whatever (234)

I would beg the wise and learned fathers (of the church) to consider with all diligence the difference which exists between matters of mere opinion and matters of demonstration. ... [I]t is not in the power of professors of the demonstrative sciences to alter their opinions at will, so as to be now of one way of thinking and now of another. ... [D]emonstrated conclusions about things in nature of the heavens, do not admit of being altered with the same ease as opinions to what is permissible or not, under a contract, mortgage, or bill of exchange.
Letter to Cristina di Lorena, Grand Duchess of Tuscany (the mother of his patron Cosmo), 1615. Quoted in Sedley Taylor, 'Galileo and Papal Infallibility' (Dec 1873), in Macmillan's Magazine: November 1873 to April 1874 (1874) Vol 29, 94.
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Being (1276)  |  Church (64)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Consider (428)  |  Contract (11)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Demonstrative (14)  |  Difference (355)  |  Diligence (22)  |  Do (1905)  |  Exchange (38)  |  Exist (458)  |  Father (113)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mortgage (2)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Permissible (9)  |  Power (771)  |  Professor (133)  |  Religion (369)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wise (143)

It has been said that computing machines can only carry out the processes that they are instructed to do. This is certainly true in the sense that if they do something other than what they were instructed then they have just made some mistake. It is also true that the intention in constructing these machines in the first instance is to treat them as slaves, giving them only jobs which have been thought out in detail, jobs such that the user of the machine fully understands what in principle is going on all the time. Up till the present machines have only been used in this way. But is it necessary that they should always be used in such a manner? Let us suppose we have set up a machine with certain initial instruction tables, so constructed that these tables might on occasion, if good reason arose, modify those tables. One can imagine that after the machine had been operating for some time, the instructions would have altered out of all recognition, but nevertheless still be such that one would have to admit that the machine was still doing very worthwhile calculations. Possibly it might still be getting results of the type desired when the machine was first set up, but in a much more efficient manner. In such a case one would have to admit that the progress of the machine had not been foreseen when its original instructions were put in. It would be like a pupil who had learnt much from his master, but had added much more by his own work. When this happens I feel that one is obliged to regard the machine as showing intelligence.
Lecture to the London Mathematical Society, 20 February 1947. Quoted in B. E. Carpenter and R. W. Doran (eds.), A. M. Turing's Ace Report of 1946 and Other Papers (1986), 122-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Carry (130)  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Computer (131)  |  Construct (129)  |  Detail (150)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  Efficiency (46)  |  Feel (371)  |  First (1302)  |  Good (906)  |  Happen (282)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Intention (46)  |  Job (86)  |  Machine (271)  |  Master (182)  |  Mistake (180)  |  More (2558)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Present (630)  |  Principle (530)  |  Progress (492)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Reason (766)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Regard (312)  |  Result (700)  |  Sense (785)  |  Set (400)  |  Slave (40)  |  Something (718)  |  Still (614)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Table (105)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Type (171)  |  Understand (648)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)  |  Worthwhile (18)

It is very desirable to have a word to express the Availability for work of the heat in a given magazine; a term for that possession, the waste of which is called Dissipation. Unfortunately the excellent word Entropy, which Clausius has introduced in this connexion, is applied by him to the negative of the idea we most naturally wish to express. It would only confuse the student if we were to endeavour to invent another term for our purpose. But the necessity for some such term will be obvious from the beautiful examples which follow. And we take the liberty of using the term Entropy in this altered sense ... The entropy of the universe tends continually to zero.
Sketch of Thermodynamics (1868), 100-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Alteration (31)  |  Application (257)  |  Applied (176)  |  Availability (10)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Call (781)  |  Rudolf Clausius (9)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Connection (171)  |  Continuity (39)  |  Desirable (33)  |  Desire (212)  |  Dissipation (2)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Entropy (46)  |  Example (98)  |  Excellence (40)  |  Express (192)  |  Expression (181)  |  Follow (389)  |  Heat (180)  |  Idea (881)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Invention (400)  |  Liberty (29)  |   Magazine (26)  |  Most (1728)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Negative (66)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Possession (68)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Sense (785)  |  Student (317)  |  Tend (124)  |  Term (357)  |  Unfortunately (40)  |  Universe (900)  |  Waste (109)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)  |  Word (650)  |  Work (1402)  |  Zero (38)

It then came into my mind what that most careful observer of natural phenomena [Amontons] had written about the correction of the barometer; for he had observed that the height of the column of mercury in the barometer was a little (though sensibly enough) altered by the varying temperature of the mercury. From this I gathered that a thermometer might be perhaps constructed with mercury.
From 'Experimenta circa gradum caloris liquorum nonnullorum ebullientium instituta', Philosophical Transactions (1724), 33, 1, as translated in William Francis Magie, A Source Book in Physics (1935), 131.
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Guillaume Amontons (3)  |  Barometer (7)  |  Careful (28)  |  Column (15)  |  Construct (129)  |  Correction (42)  |  Enough (341)  |  Gather (76)  |  Height (33)  |  Invention (400)  |  Little (717)  |  Mercury (54)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural (810)  |  Observe (179)  |  Observed (149)  |  Observer (48)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Thermometer (11)  |  Vary (27)

Often in evolutionary processes a species must adapt to new conditions in order to survive. Today the atomic bomb has altered profoundly the nature of the world as we know it, and the human race consequently finds itself in a new habitat to which it must adapt its thinking.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Adapt (70)  |  Alter (64)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Condition (362)  |  Consequently (5)  |  Evolutionary (23)  |  Find (1014)  |  Habitat (17)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Know (1538)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Often (109)  |  Order (638)  |  Process (439)  |  Profoundly (13)  |  Race (278)  |  Species (435)  |  Survive (87)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Today (321)  |  World (1850)

Organic chemistry has literally placed a new nature beside the old. And not only for the delectation and information of its devotees; the whole face and manner of society has been altered by its products. We are clothed, ornamented and protected by forms of matter foreign to Nature; we travel and are propelled, in, on and by them. Their conquest of our powerful insect enemies, their capacity to modify the soil and control its microscopic flora, their ability to purify and protect our water, have increased the habitable surface of the earth and multiplied our food supply; and the dramatic advances in synthetic medicinal chemistry comfort and maintain us, and create unparalleled social opportunities (and problems).
In 'Synthesis', in A. Todd (ed.), Perspectives in Organic Chemistry (1956), 180.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Advance (298)  |  Alter (64)  |  Bacteria (50)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Conquest (31)  |  Control (182)  |  Create (245)  |  Dramatic (19)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Face (214)  |  Food (213)  |  Foreign (45)  |  Form (976)  |  Information (173)  |  Insect (89)  |  Literally (30)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Matter (821)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Microscopic (27)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Old (499)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organic Chemistry (41)  |  Ornament (20)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Problem (731)  |  Product (166)  |  Protect (65)  |  Purification (10)  |  Social (261)  |  Society (350)  |  Soil (98)  |  Supply (100)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Of The Earth (36)  |  Synthesis (58)  |  Synthetic (27)  |  Travel (125)  |  Water (503)  |  Whole (756)

The description of some of the experiments, which are communicated here, was completely worked out at my writing-table, before I had seen anything of the phenomena in question. After making the experiments on the following day, it was found that nothing in the description required to be altered. I do not mention this from feelings of pride, but in order to make clear the extraordinary ease and security with which the relations in question can be considered on the principles of Arrhenius' theory of free ions. Such facts speak more forcibly then any polemics for the value of this theory .
Philosophical Magazine (1891), 32, 156.
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Alteration (31)  |  Svante Arrhenius (11)  |  Communication (101)  |  Completely (137)  |  Completeness (19)  |  Consider (428)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Description (89)  |  Do (1905)  |  Ease (40)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Free (239)  |  Ion (21)  |  Making (300)  |  Mention (84)  |  More (2558)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Observation (593)  |  Order (638)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Polemic (3)  |  Pride (84)  |  Principle (530)  |  Question (649)  |  Relation (166)  |  Required (108)  |  Security (51)  |  Speak (240)  |  Table (105)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Value (393)  |  Work (1402)  |  Writing (192)

The essence of religion is inertia; the essence of science is change. It is the function of the one to preserve, it is the function of the other to improve. If, as in Egypt, they are firmly chained together, either science will advance, in which case the religion will be altered, or the religion will preserve its purity, and science will congeal.
In The Martyrdom of Man (1876), 41.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Alter (64)  |  Chained (2)  |  Change (639)  |  Egypt (31)  |  Essence (85)  |  Function (235)  |  Improve (64)  |  Inertia (17)  |  Other (2233)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Purity (15)  |  Religion (369)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Together (392)  |  Will (2350)

The existing premises, wholly altered by geologic science, are no longer those of Hume. The foot-print in the sand—to refer to his happy illustration—does now stand alone. Instead of one, we see many footprints, each in turn in advance of the print behind it, and on a higher level.
Lecture to the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution, 'Geology in its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Part 1', collected in The Testimony of the Rocks: or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed (1857), 223.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Alone (324)  |  Alter (64)  |  Behind (139)  |  Footprint (16)  |  Geology (240)  |  Happy (108)  |   David Hume (34)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Premise (40)  |  Sand (63)  |  See (1094)  |  Stand (284)  |  Turn (454)  |  Wholly (88)

The gold of truth cannot be altered by the acid of falsehood.
End of page filler in The Medico-pharmaceutical Critic and Guide (1910), 13, 261.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Alter (64)  |  Falsehood (30)  |  Gold (101)  |  Truth (1109)

The great testimony of history shows how often in fact the development of science has emerged in response to technological and even economic needs, and how in the economy of social effort, science, even of the most abstract and recondite kind, pays for itself again and again in providing the basis for radically new technological developments. In fact, most people—when they think of science as a good thing, when they think of it as worthy of encouragement, when they are willing to see their governments spend substance upon it, when they greatly do honor to men who in science have attained some eminence—have in mind that the conditions of their life have been altered just by such technology, of which they may be reluctant to be deprived.
In 'Contemporary World', Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Feb 1948), 4, 67.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Alter (64)  |  Alteration (31)  |  Attain (126)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Basis (180)  |  Condition (362)  |  Deprivation (5)  |  Development (441)  |  Do (1905)  |  Economic (84)  |  Economy (59)  |  Effort (243)  |  Emergence (35)  |  Eminence (25)  |  Encouragement (27)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Good (906)  |  Government (116)  |  Great (1610)  |  History (716)  |  Honor (57)  |  Honour (58)  |  Kind (564)  |  Life (1870)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Pay (45)  |  People (1031)  |  Progress Of Science (40)  |  Providing (5)  |  Radical (28)  |  Recondite (8)  |  Reluctance (6)  |  Response (56)  |  See (1094)  |  Show (353)  |  Social (261)  |  Spend (97)  |  Substance (253)  |  Technological (62)  |  Technology (281)  |  Testimony (21)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Willing (44)  |  Worthy (35)

The moment man first picked up a stone or a branch to use as a tool, he altered irrevocably the balance between him and his environment. From this point on, the way in which the world around him changed was different. It was no longer regular or predictable. New objects appeared that were not recognizable as a mutation of something that existed before, and as each one merged it altered the environment not for one season, but for ever.
from Introduction to Connections by James Burke, Macmillan (1978)
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Altering (3)  |  Balance (82)  |  Branch (155)  |  Change (639)  |  Different (595)  |  Environment (239)  |  Exist (458)  |  First (1302)  |  Irrevocable (3)  |  Man (2252)  |  Moment (260)  |  Mutation (40)  |  New (1273)  |  Object (438)  |  Point (584)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Regular (48)  |  Season (47)  |  Something (718)  |  Stone (168)  |  Tool (129)  |  Use (771)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)

The original question, “Can machines think?,” I believe too meaningless to deserve discussion. Nevertheless I believe that at the end of the century the use of words and general educated opinion will have altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted.
(1950) As quoted in The World of Mathematics (1956), 2083.
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Century (319)  |  Contradict (42)  |  Deserve (65)  |  Discussion (78)  |  End (603)  |  General (521)  |  Machine (271)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Question (649)  |  Speak (240)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Use (771)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)

The Sun is no lonelier than its neighbors; indeed, it is a very common-place star,—dwarfish, though not minute,—like hundreds, nay thousands, of others. By accident the brighter component of Alpha Centauri (which is double) is almost the Sun's twin in brightness, mass, and size. Could this Earth be transported to its vicinity by some supernatural power, and set revolving about it, at a little less than a hundred million miles' distance, the star would heat and light the world just as the Sun does, and life and civilization might go on with no radical change. The Milky Way would girdle the heavens as before; some of our familiar constellations, such as Orion, would be little changed, though others would be greatly altered by the shifting of the nearer stars. An unfamiliar brilliant star, between Cassiopeia and Perseus would be—the Sun. Looking back at it with our telescopes, we could photograph its spectrum, observe its motion among the stars, and convince ourselves that it was the same old Sun; but what had happened to the rest of our planetary system we would not know.
The Solar System and its Origin (1935), 2-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Alpha Centauri (2)  |  Alter (64)  |  Alteration (31)  |  Back (395)  |  Brightness (12)  |  Brilliant (57)  |  Cassiopeia (2)  |  Change (639)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Common (447)  |  Component (51)  |  Constellation (18)  |  Convince (43)  |  Distance (171)  |  Double (18)  |  Dwarf (7)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Heat (180)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Little (717)  |  Loneliness (6)  |  Look (584)  |  Looking (191)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mile (43)  |  Milky Way (29)  |  Million (124)  |  Minute (129)  |  Motion (320)  |  Nearer (45)  |  Nearness (3)  |  Neighbor (14)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observe (179)  |  Old (499)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Perseus (2)  |  Photograph (23)  |  Planet (402)  |  Planetary (29)  |  Power (771)  |  Radical (28)  |  Rest (287)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Set (400)  |  Shift (45)  |  Size (62)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Spectrum (35)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Sun (407)  |  Supernatural (26)  |  System (545)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Transport (31)  |  Transportation (19)  |  Twin (16)  |  Unfamiliar (17)  |  Unfamiliarity (5)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)

The total quantity of all the forces capable of work in the whole universe remains eternal and unchanged throughout all their changes. All change in nature amounts to this, that force can change its form and locality, without its quantity being changed. The universe possesses, once for all, a store of force which is not altered by any change of phenomena, can neither be increased nor diminished, and which maintains any change which takes place on it.
The Conservation of Energy, from a Lecture, 1863. Trans. Edmund Blair Bolles (ed.), Galileo's Commandment: An Anthology of Science Writing (2000), 407.
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Amount (153)  |  Being (1276)  |  Capable (174)  |  Change (639)  |  Conservation Of Energy (30)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Remain (355)  |  Store (49)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Total (95)  |  Universe (900)  |  Whole (756)  |  Work (1402)

The tropical rain forests of the world harbor the majority of the planet’s species, yet this wealth of species is being quickly spent. While the exact numbers of species involved and the rate of forest clearing are still under debate, the trend is unmistakable—the richest terrestrial biome is being altered at a scale unparalleled in geologic history.
In The Fragmented Forest: Island Biogeography Theory and the Preservation of Biotic Diversity (1984),
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Being (1276)  |  Clearing (2)  |  Debate (40)  |  Deforestation (50)  |  Forest (161)  |  Geologic History (2)  |  Harbor (8)  |  History (716)  |  Involved (90)  |  Majority (68)  |  Number (710)  |  Planet (402)  |  Rain (70)  |  Rain Forest (34)  |  Rate (31)  |  Richest (2)  |  Scale (122)  |  Species (435)  |  Spent (85)  |  Still (614)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Trend (23)  |  Tropical (9)  |  Unmistakable (6)  |  Unparalleled (3)  |  Wealth (100)  |  World (1850)

There is nothing distinctively scientific about the hypothetico-deductive process. It is not even distinctively intellectual. It is merely a scientific context for a much more general stratagem that underlies almost all regulative processes or processes of continuous control, namely feedback, the control of performance by the consequences of the act performed. In the hypothetico-deductive scheme the inferences we draw from a hypothesis are, in a sense, its logical output. If they are true, the hypothesis need not be altered, but correction is obligatory if they are false. The continuous feedback from inference to hypothesis is implicit in Whewell’s account of scientific method; he would not have dissented from the view that scientific behaviour can be classified as appropriately under cybernetics as under logic.
Induction and Intuition in Scientific Thought (1969), 54-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Act (278)  |  Alter (64)  |  Alteration (31)  |  Behaviour (42)  |  Classification (102)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Context (31)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Control (182)  |  Correction (42)  |  Cybernetic (5)  |  Cybernetics (5)  |  Deduction (90)  |  Dissent (8)  |  Distinctive (25)  |  Draw (140)  |  False (105)  |  Feedback (10)  |  General (521)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Implicit (12)  |  Inference (45)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Logic (311)  |  Merely (315)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Obligatory (3)  |  Output (12)  |  Perform (123)  |  Performance (51)  |  Process (439)  |  Regulation (25)  |  Scheme (62)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Sense (785)  |  Stratagem (2)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Underlie (19)  |  View (496)  |  William Whewell (70)

Those who have handled sciences have been either men of experiment or men of dogmas. The men of experiment are like the ant; they only collect and use; the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. But the bee takes a middle course; it gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and of the field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own. Not unlike this is the true business of philosophy; for it neither relies solely or chiefly on the powers of the mind, nor does it take the matter which it gathers from natural history and mechanical experiments and lay it up in the memory whole, as it finds it; but lays it up in the understanding altered and digested. Therefore from a closer and purer league between these two faculties, the experimental and the rational (such as has never yet been made), much may be hoped.
From Novum Organum (1620), Book 1, Aphorism 95. Translated as The New Organon: Aphorisms Concerning the Interpretation of Nature and the Kingdom of Man), collected in James Spedding, Robert Ellis and Douglas Heath (eds.), The Works of Francis Bacon (1857), Vol. 4, 92-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Ant (34)  |  Bee (44)  |  Business (156)  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Closer (43)  |  Cobweb (6)  |  Course (413)  |  Dogma (49)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Field (378)  |  Find (1014)  |  Flower (112)  |  Garden (64)  |  Gather (76)  |  History (716)  |  Material (366)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Memory (144)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Never (1089)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Power (771)  |  Rational (95)  |  Research (753)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Spider (14)  |  Substance (253)  |  Transform (74)  |  Two (936)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Use (771)  |  Whole (756)


Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
Quotations by:Albert EinsteinIsaac NewtonLord KelvinCharles DarwinSrinivasa RamanujanCarl SaganFlorence NightingaleThomas EdisonAristotleMarie CurieBenjamin FranklinWinston ChurchillGalileo GalileiSigmund FreudRobert BunsenLouis PasteurTheodore RooseveltAbraham LincolnRonald ReaganLeonardo DaVinciMichio KakuKarl PopperJohann GoetheRobert OppenheimerCharles Kettering  ... (more people)

Quotations about:Atomic  BombBiologyChemistryDeforestationEngineeringAnatomyAstronomyBacteriaBiochemistryBotanyConservationDinosaurEnvironmentFractalGeneticsGeologyHistory of ScienceInventionJupiterKnowledgeLoveMathematicsMeasurementMedicineNatural ResourceOrganic ChemistryPhysicsPhysicianQuantum TheoryResearchScience and ArtTeacherTechnologyUniverseVolcanoVirusWind PowerWomen ScientistsX-RaysYouthZoology  ... (more topics)
Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages:
Visit our Science and Scientist Quotations index for more Science Quotes from archaeologists, biologists, chemists, geologists, inventors and inventions, mathematicians, physicists, pioneers in medicine, science events and technology.

Names index: | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Categories index: | 1 | 2 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
Thank you for sharing.
- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton


by Ian Ellis
who invites your feedback
Thank you for sharing.
Today in Science History
Sign up for Newsletter
with quiz, quotes and more.