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: “A change in motion is proportional to the motive force impressed and takes place along the straight line in which that force is impressed.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index C > Category: Column

Column Quotes (15 quotes)

[The ancient monuments] were all dwarfs in size and pigmies in spirit beside this mighty Statue of Liberty, and its inspiring thought. Higher than the monument in Trafalgar Square which commemorates the victories of Nelson on the sea; higher than the Column Vendome, which perpetuates the triumphs of Napoleon on the land; higher than the towers of the Brooklyn Bridge, which exhibit the latest and greatest results of science, invention, and industrial progress, this structure rises toward the heavens to illustrate an idea ... which inspired the charter in the cabin of the Mayflower and the Declaration of Independence from the Continental Congress.
Speech at unveiling of the Statue of Liberty, New York. In E.S. Werner (ed.), Werner's Readings and Recitations (1908), 107.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Emperor Napoléon Bonaparte (20)  |  Bridge (49)  |  Brooklyn Bridge (2)  |  Charter (4)  |  Commemorate (3)  |  Congress (20)  |  Declaration (10)  |  Declaration Of Independence (5)  |  Dwarf (7)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Higher (37)  |  Idea (881)  |  Industrial (15)  |  Inspire (58)  |  Invention (400)  |  Mighty (13)  |  Monument (45)  |  Napoleon (16)  |  Perpetuate (11)  |  Pigmy (4)  |  Progress (492)  |  Result (700)  |  Rise (169)  |  Sea (326)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Square (73)  |  Statue (17)  |  Statue Of Liberty (2)  |  Structure (365)  |  Thought (995)  |  Tower (45)  |  Trafalgar (2)  |  Triumph (76)  |  Victory (40)

A few days afterwards, I went to him [the same actuary referred to in another quote] and very gravely told him that I had discovered the law of human mortality in the Carlisle Table, of which he thought very highly. I told him that the law was involved in this circumstance. Take the table of the expectation of life, choose any age, take its expectation and make the nearest integer a new age, do the same with that, and so on; begin at what age you like, you are sure to end at the place where the age past is equal, or most nearly equal, to the expectation to come. “You don’t mean that this always happens?”—“Try it.” He did try, again and again; and found it as I said. “This is, indeed, a curious thing; this is a discovery!” I might have sent him about trumpeting the law of life: but I contented myself with informing him that the same thing would happen with any table whatsoever in which the first column goes up and the second goes down.
In Budget of Paradoxes (1872), 172.
Science quotes on:  |  Actuary (2)  |  Age (509)  |  Begin (275)  |  Choose (116)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Content (75)  |  Curious (95)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  End (603)  |  Equal (88)  |  Expectation (67)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Gravely (2)  |  Happen (282)  |  Highly (16)  |  Human (1512)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Inform (50)  |  Informing (5)  |  Integer (12)  |  Involve (93)  |  Involved (90)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mean (810)  |  Mortality (16)  |  Most (1728)  |  Myself (211)  |  Nearly (137)  |  New (1273)  |  New Age (6)  |  Past (355)  |  Place (192)  |  Quote (46)  |  Send (23)  |  Table (105)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Trumpet (3)  |  Try (296)  |  Up (5)  |  Whatsoever (41)

Germs of a theory, though in their present condition they are vague and formless … may be said to resemble stones in the quarry, rough and unhewn, but which may some time become corner-stones, columns, and entablatures in the future edifice.
In Report on the Geology of the High Plateaus of Utah (1880), 114.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Condition (362)  |  Corner (59)  |  Cornerstone (8)  |  Edifice (26)  |  Formless (4)  |  Future (467)  |  Germ (54)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Present (630)  |  Quarry (14)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Rough (5)  |  Stone (168)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)  |  Vague (50)

His “Mathematical Games” column in Scientific American is one of the few bridges over C.P. Snow’s famous “gulf of mutual incomprehension’' that lies between technical and literary cultures.
In 'Martin Gardner: A “Documentary”', collected in Elwyn Berlekamp and Tom Rodgers (eds.), The Mathematician and the Pied Puzzler: A Collection in Tribute to Martin Gardner (1999), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Bridge (49)  |  Culture (157)  |  Famous (12)  |  Game (104)  |  Gulf (18)  |  Incomprehension (3)  |  Lie (370)  |  Literary (15)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mutual (54)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific American (2)  |  Snow (39)  |  Baron C.P. Snow (21)  |  Technical (53)

I can’t think of any definition of the words mathematician or scientist that would apply to me. I think of myself as a journalist who knows just enough about mathematics to be able to take low-level math and make it clear and interesting to nonmathematicians. Let me say that I think not knowing too much about a subject is an asset for a journalist, not a liability. The great secret of my column is that I know so little about mathematics that I have to work hard to understand the subject myself. Maybe I can explain things more clearly than a professional mathematician can.
In Scot Morris, 'Interview: Martin Gardner', Omni, 4, No. 4 (Jan 1982), 68.
Science quotes on:  |  Apply (170)  |  Asset (6)  |  Clearly (45)  |  Definition (238)  |  Enough (341)  |  Explain (334)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hard (246)  |  Interest (416)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Journalist (8)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Liability (7)  |  Little (717)  |  Low (86)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  More (2558)  |  Myself (211)  |  Professional (77)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Secret (216)  |  Subject (543)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Understand (648)  |  Word (650)  |  Work (1402)  |  Work Hard (14)

In the beginning of the year 1800 the illustrious professor [Volta] conceived the idea of forming a long column by piling up, in succession, a disc of copper, a disc of zinc, and a disc of wet cloth, with scrupulous attention to not changing this order. What could be expected beforehand from such a combination? Well, I do not hesitate to say, this apparently inert mass, this bizarre assembly, this pile of so many couples of unequal metals separated by a little liquid is, in the singularity of effect, the most marvellous instrument which men have yet invented, the telescope and the steam engine not excepted.
In François Arago, 'Bloge for Volta' (1831), Oeuvres Completes de François Arago (1854), Vol. 1, 219-20.
Science quotes on:  |  Assembly (13)  |  Attention (196)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Bizarre (6)  |  Changing (7)  |  Cloth (6)  |  Combination (150)  |  Conceived (3)  |  Copper (25)  |  Couple (9)  |  Do (1905)  |  Effect (414)  |  Engine (99)  |  Expect (203)  |  Expected (5)  |  Forming (42)  |  Hesitate (24)  |  Idea (881)  |  Illustrious (10)  |  Inert (14)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Invention (400)  |  Liquid (50)  |  Little (717)  |  Long (778)  |  Marvel (37)  |  Marvellous (25)  |  Mass (160)  |  Metal (88)  |  Most (1728)  |  Order (638)  |  Pile (12)  |  Professor (133)  |  Say (989)  |  Scrupulous (7)  |  Separate (151)  |  Singularity (4)  |  Steam (81)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Succession (80)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Unequal (12)  |  Count Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta (5)  |  Wet (6)  |  Year (963)  |  Zinc (3)

In the month of August 678, in the eighth year of Egfrid’s reign, there appeared a star known as a comet, which remained visible for three months, rising in the morning and emitting what seemed to be a tall column of bright flame.
Bede
From Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, Book V, Chap. XXIII., as translated by Leo Sherley-Price, revised by R.E. Latham, Ecclesiastical History of the English People (1955, 1990), 224.
Science quotes on:  |  Bright (81)  |  Comet (65)  |  Emit (15)  |  Flame (44)  |  Known (453)  |  Month (91)  |  Morning (98)  |  Reign (24)  |  Remain (355)  |  Rise (169)  |  Rising (44)  |  Star (460)  |  Tall (11)  |  Visible (87)  |  Year (963)

It is the middle of the night when a glittering theatre of light suddenly appears in front of the Dhaka. Where, moments before there was only darkness, suddenly there are hundreds of columns of light. The sound of helicopters and car horns carry across to the ship on the breeze. There is the scent of rain after it has evaporated from warm streets. This is unmistakably Singapore, the small city-state at the most southern point of the Asiatic mainland. Singapore was built as a centre for world trade by the British over 250 years ago, and today, Singapore has the largest container harbour in the world. This is where the axes of world trade cross paths: from the Far East to Europe, from the Far East to Southeast Asia/the East, and from the Far East to Australia. Everything runs like clockwork here. Within five hours the Dhaka has been unloaded.
Made on Earth
Science quotes on:  |  Across (32)  |  Appear (122)  |  Asia (7)  |  Australia (11)  |  Axe (16)  |  Breeze (8)  |  British (42)  |  Build (211)  |  Car (75)  |  Carry (130)  |  Centre (31)  |  City (87)  |  Clockwork (7)  |  Container (2)  |  Cross (20)  |  Darkness (72)  |  East (18)  |  Europe (50)  |  Evaporate (5)  |  Everything (489)  |  Far (158)  |  Five (16)  |  Front (16)  |  Glitter (10)  |  Harbor (8)  |  Helicopter (2)  |  Horn (18)  |  Hour (192)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Hundreds (6)  |  Large (398)  |  Largest (39)  |  Light (635)  |  Mainland (3)  |  Middle (19)  |  Moment (260)  |  Most (1728)  |  Night (133)  |  Path (159)  |  Point (584)  |  Rain (70)  |  Run (158)  |  Scent (7)  |  Ship (69)  |  Singapore (2)  |  Small (489)  |  Sound (187)  |  Southern (3)  |  State (505)  |  Street (25)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Theatre (5)  |  Today (321)  |  Trade (34)  |  Unmistakably (2)  |  Warm (74)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

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)  |  Altered (32)  |  Guillaume Amontons (3)  |  Barometer (7)  |  Careful (28)  |  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)

Nature, the parent of all things, designed the human backbone to be like a keel or foundation. It is because we have a backbone that we can walk upright and stand erect. But this was not the only purpose for which Nature provided it; here, as elsewhere, she displayed great skill in turning the construction of a single member to a variety of different uses.
It Provides a Path for the Spinal Marrow, Yet is Flexible.
Firstly, she bored a hole through the posterior region of the bodies of all the vertebrae, thus fashioning a suitable pathway for the spinal marrow which would descend through them.
Secondly, she did not make the backbone out of one single bone with no joints. Such a unified construction would have afforded greater stability and a safer seat for the spinal marrow since, not having joints, the column could not have suffered dislocations, displacements, or distortions. If the Creator of the world had paid such attention to resistance to injury and had subordinated the value and importance of all other aims in the fabric of parts of the body to this one, he would certainly have made a single backbone with no joints, as when someone constructing an animal of wood or stone forms the backbone of one single and continuous component. Even if man were destined only to bend and straighten his back, it would not have been appropriate to construct the whole from one single bone. And in fact, since it was necessary that man, by virtue of his backbone, be able to perform a great variety of movements, it was better that it be constructed from many bones, even though as a result of this it was rendered more liable to injury.
From De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem: (1543), Book I, 57-58, as translated by William Frank Richardson, in 'Nature’s Skill in Creating a Backbone to Hold Us Erect', On The Fabric of the Human Body: Book I: The Bones and Cartilages (1998), 138.
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Animal (651)  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Attention (196)  |  Back (395)  |  Backbone (12)  |  Bend (13)  |  Better (493)  |  Body (557)  |  Bone (101)  |  Bored (5)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Component (51)  |  Construct (129)  |  Construction (114)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Creator (97)  |  Descend (49)  |  Design (203)  |  Destined (42)  |  Different (595)  |  Dislocation (4)  |  Displacement (9)  |  Display (59)  |  Distortion (13)  |  Fabric (27)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Flexible (7)  |  Form (976)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Body (34)  |  Importance (299)  |  Injury (36)  |  Joint (31)  |  Keel (4)  |  Man (2252)  |  Marrow (5)  |  Member (42)  |  More (2558)  |  Movement (162)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Other (2233)  |  Parent (80)  |  Path (159)  |  Pathway (15)  |  Perform (123)  |  Posterior (7)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Render (96)  |  Resistance (41)  |  Result (700)  |  Single (365)  |  Skill (116)  |  Someone (24)  |  Stability (28)  |  Stand (284)  |  Stone (168)  |  Straight (75)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Unified (10)  |  Use (771)  |  Value (393)  |  Variety (138)  |  Vertebra (4)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Walk (138)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wood (97)  |  World (1850)

The elms of New England! They are as much a part of her beauty as the columns of the Parthenon were the glory of its architecture.
In Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit (1887), 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Architecture (50)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Elm (4)  |  Glory (66)  |  New (1273)  |  New England (2)  |  Parthenon (2)  |  Tree (269)

This frustration of reading the tabloid press… it would easy to become convinced that the human race is on a mission to divide things into two clean columns… Good or evil, healthy or deadly or natural or chemical… everything organic and natural is good, ignoring the fact that organic natural substances include arsenic… Everything chemical is bad, ignoring that fact the everything is chemicals. Everything is chemicals! The day they discover yoga mats are carcinogenic will be the happiest day of my life.
Introducing his song, 'The Fence', on DVD, Live at the Royal Albert Hall (2011).
Science quotes on:  |  Arsenic (10)  |  Bad (185)  |  Become (821)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Clean (52)  |  Convinced (23)  |  Day (43)  |  Deadly (21)  |  Discover (571)  |  Divide (77)  |  Easy (213)  |  Everything (489)  |  Evil (122)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Frustration (14)  |  Good (906)  |  Happiest (2)  |  Healthy (70)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Ignoring (11)  |  Include (93)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mission (23)  |  Natural (810)  |  Organic (161)  |  Press (21)  |  Race (278)  |  Reading (136)  |  Substance (253)  |  Tabloid (2)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Two (936)  |  Will (2350)

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
In Leaves of Grass (1881, 1882), 214.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Applause (9)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Chart (7)  |  Diagram (20)  |  Divide (77)  |  Figure (162)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Look (584)  |  Measure (241)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Moist (13)  |  Myself (211)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Proof (304)  |  Rising (44)  |  Sick (83)  |  Silence (62)  |  Sitting (44)  |  Soon (187)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tired (13)  |  Wander (44)

When the elements are arranged in vertical columns according to increasing atomic weight, so that the horizontal lines contain analogous elements again according to increasing atomic weight, an arrangement results from which several general conclusions may be drawn.
'The Relations of the Properties to the Atomic Weights of the Elements', Zeitschrift fur Chemie, 1869.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Analogy (76)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Atomic Weight (6)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Element (322)  |  General (521)  |  Horizontal (9)  |  Periodic Table (19)  |  Result (700)  |  Row (9)  |  Weight (140)

You see, if the height of the mercury [barometer] column is less on the top of a mountain than at the foot of it (as I have many reasons for believing, although everyone who has so far written about it is of the contrary opinion), it follows that the weight of the air must be the sole cause of the phenomenon, and not that abhorrence of a vacuum, since it is obvious that at the foot of the mountain there is more air to have weight than at the summit, and we cannot possibly say that the air at the foot of the mountain has a greater aversion to empty space than at the top.
In letter to brother-in-law Perier (Nov 1647) as given in Daniel Webster Hering, Physics: the Science of the Forces of Nature (1922), 114. As also stated by Hering, Perier conducted an experiment on 19 Sep 1648 comparing readings on two barometers, one at the foot, and another at the top of 4,000-ft Puy-de-Dôme neighboring mountain.
Science quotes on:  |  Abhorrence (8)  |  Air (366)  |  Aversion (9)  |  Barometer (7)  |  Belief (615)  |  Cause (561)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Empty (82)  |  Follow (389)  |  Greater (288)  |  Height (33)  |  Mercury (54)  |  More (2558)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Must (1525)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Reason (766)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Sole (50)  |  Space (523)  |  Summit (27)  |  Top (100)  |  Vacuum (41)  |  Weight (140)


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.