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: “Nature does nothing in vain when less will serve; for Nature is pleased with simplicity and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index G > Category: Guess

Guess Quotes (67 quotes)

… just as the astronomer, the physicist, the geologist, or other student of objective science looks about in the world of sense, so, not metaphorically speaking but literally, the mind of the mathematician goes forth in the universe of logic in quest of the things that are there; exploring the heights and depths for facts—ideas, classes, relationships, implications, and the rest; observing the minute and elusive with the powerful microscope of his Infinitesimal Analysis; observing the elusive and vast with the limitless telescope of his Calculus of the Infinite; making guesses regarding the order and internal harmony of the data observed and collocated; testing the hypotheses, not merely by the complete induction peculiar to mathematics, but, like his colleagues of the outer world, resorting also to experimental tests and incomplete induction; frequently finding it necessary, in view of unforeseen disclosures, to abandon one hopeful hypothesis or to transform it by retrenchment or by enlargement:—thus, in his own domain, matching, point for point, the processes, methods and experience familiar to the devotee of natural science.
In Lectures on Science, Philosophy and Art (1908), 26
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Class (168)  |  Colleague (51)  |  Complete (209)  |  Data (162)  |  Depth (97)  |  Devotee (7)  |  Disclosure (7)  |  Domain (72)  |  Elusive (8)  |  Enlargement (8)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Familiar (47)  |  Find (1014)  |  Forth (14)  |  Frequently (21)  |  Geologist (82)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Height (33)  |  Hopeful (6)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Idea (881)  |  Implication (25)  |  Incomplete (31)  |  Induction (81)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Infinitesimal (30)  |  Internal (69)  |  Limitless (14)  |  Literally (30)  |  Located (2)  |  Logic (311)  |  Look (584)  |  Making (300)  |  Match (30)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Merely (315)  |  Metaphor (37)  |  Method (531)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Minute (129)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Objective (96)  |  Observe (179)  |  Observed (149)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outer (13)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Point (584)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Process (439)  |  Quest (39)  |  Regard (312)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Resort (8)  |  Rest (287)  |  Sense (785)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Student (317)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Test (221)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Transform (74)  |  Unforeseen (11)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vast (188)  |  View (496)  |  World (1850)

[A scientist] naturally and inevitably … mulls over the data and guesses at a solution. [He proceeds to] testing of the guess by new data—predicting the consequences of the guess and then dispassionately inquiring whether or not the predictions are verified.
From manuscript on Francis Bacon as a scientist (1942), Edwin Hubble collection, Box 2, Huntington Library, San Marino, California. As cited by Norriss S. Hetherington in 'Philosophical Values and Observation in Edwin Hubble's Choice of a Model of the Universe', Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences (1982), 13, No. 1, 42.
Science quotes on:  |  Consequence (220)  |  Data (162)  |  Dispassionate (9)  |  Inevitability (10)  |  Inquiry (88)  |  New (1273)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Solution (282)  |  Test (221)  |  Verification (32)

[About the mechanical properties of the molecules of a chemical substance being studied:] They could be measured, but that would have taken several months. So someone said, ‘Let’s get Teller in and make him guess the data.’ We got him into a room and locked the door, so no one else could get at him, and he asked questions and did some figuring at the blackboard. He got the answers in about two hours, not entirely accurately, of course, but—as we found out when we got around to verifying them—close enough for the purpose.
Recalls the first time she was ever really awed by mental abilities of Edward Teller. She had joined the Manhattan Project, and needed data on the physical properties of molecules of a certain substance to get started on her assigned task of calculating its chemical properties. As quoted in Robert Coughlan, 'Dr. Edward Teller’s Magnificent Obsession', Life (6 Sep 1954), 61.
Science quotes on:  |  Accurate (88)  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Being (1276)  |  Blackboard (11)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Course (413)  |  Data (162)  |  Door (94)  |  Enough (341)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Hour (192)  |  Lock (14)  |  Measure (241)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Month (91)  |  Property (177)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Question (649)  |  Room (42)  |  Study (701)  |  Substance (253)  |  Edward Teller (43)  |  Two (936)  |  Useful (260)  |  Verify (24)

[J.J.] Sylvester’s methods! He had none. “Three lectures will be delivered on a New Universal Algebra,” he would say; then, “The course must be extended to twelve.” It did last all the rest of that year. The following year the course was to be Substitutions-Théorie, by Netto. We all got the text. He lectured about three times, following the text closely and stopping sharp at the end of the hour. Then he began to think about matrices again. “I must give one lecture a week on those,” he said. He could not confine himself to the hour, nor to the one lecture a week. Two weeks were passed, and Netto was forgotten entirely and never mentioned again. Statements like the following were not unfrequent in his lectures: “I haven’t proved this, but I am as sure as I can be of anything that it must be so. From this it will follow, etc.” At the next lecture it turned out that what he was so sure of was false. Never mind, he kept on forever guessing and trying, and presently a wonderful discovery followed, then another and another. Afterward he would go back and work it all over again, and surprise us with all sorts of side lights. He then made another leap in the dark, more treasures were discovered, and so on forever.
As quoted by Florian Cajori, in Teaching and History of Mathematics in the United States (1890), 265-266.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Back (395)  |  Confine (26)  |  Course (413)  |  Dark (145)  |  Deliver (30)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  End (603)  |  Extend (129)  |  False (105)  |  Follow (389)  |  Forever (111)  |  Forget (125)  |  Forgotten (53)  |  Frequent (26)  |  Go Back (4)  |  Himself (461)  |  Hour (192)  |  Keep (104)  |  Last (425)  |  Leap (57)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Light (635)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Matrix (14)  |  Mention (84)  |  Mentioned (3)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Next (238)  |  Pass (241)  |  Prove (261)  |  Rest (287)  |  Say (989)  |  Side (236)  |  Statement (148)  |  Surprise (91)  |  James Joseph Sylvester (58)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Trying (144)  |  Turn (454)  |  Turn Out (9)  |  Two (936)  |  Universal (198)  |  Week (73)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

[To a man expecting a scientific proof of the impossibility of flying saucers] I might have said to him: “Listen, I mean that from my knowledge of the world that I see around me, I think that it is much more likely that the reports of flying saucers are the results of the known irrational characteristics of terrestrial intelligence than of the unknown rational efforts of extra-terrestrial intelligence.” It is just more likely, that is all. It is a good guess. And we always try to guess the most likely explanation, keeping in the back of the mind the fact that if it does not work we must discuss the other possibilities.
In The Character of Physical Law (1965, 2001), 166.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Effort (243)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Extraterrestrial (6)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Flying (74)  |  Flying Saucer (3)  |  Good (906)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Irrational (16)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Likelihood (10)  |  Listen (81)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mean (810)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Proof (304)  |  Rational (95)  |  Report (42)  |  Result (700)  |  Scientific (955)  |  See (1094)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Try (296)  |  UFO (4)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

[Two college boys on the Flambeau River in a canoe]… their watches had run down, and for the first time in their lives there was no clock, whistle, or radio to set watches by. For two days they had lived by “sun-time,” and were getting a thrill out of it. No servant brought them meals: they got their meat out of the river, or went without. No traffic cop whistled them off the hidden rock in the next rapids. No friendly roof kept them dry when they misguessed whether or not to pitch the tent. No guide showed them which camping spots offered a nightlong breeze, and which a nightlong misery of mosquitoes; which firewood made clean coals, and which only smoke.
In 'Wisconsin: Flambeau', A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There (1949, 1987), 112-113.
Science quotes on:  |  Adventure (69)  |  Boy (100)  |  Breeze (8)  |  Camp (12)  |  Canoe (6)  |  Clock (51)  |  Dry (65)  |  Firewood (2)  |  First Time (14)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Friendly (7)  |  Guide (107)  |  Meal (19)  |  Meat (19)  |  Misery (31)  |  Mosquito (16)  |  Night (133)  |  Radio (60)  |  River (140)  |  Rock (176)  |  Roof (14)  |  Servant (40)  |  Smoke (32)  |  Sun (407)  |  Tent (13)  |  Thrill (26)  |  Watch (118)  |  Whistle (3)

Deviner avant de démontrer! Ai-je besoin de rappeler que c'est ainsi que se sont faites toutes les découvertes importantes.
Guessing before proving! Need I remind you that it is so that all important discoveries have been made?
La valeur de la science. In Anton Bovier, Statistical Mechanics of Disordered Systems (2006), 218.
Science quotes on:  |  Discovery (837)  |  Proof (304)

Il est impossible de contempler le spectacle de l’univers étoilé sans se demander comment il s’est formé: nous devions peut-être attendre pour chercher une solution que nous ayons patiemment rassemblé les éléments …mais si nous étions si raisonnables, si nous étions curieux sans impatience, il est probable que nous n’avions jamais créé la Science et que nous nous serions toujours contentés de vivre notre petite vie. Notre esprit a donc reclamé impérieusement cette solution bien avant qu’elle fut mûre, et alors qu’il ne possédait que de vagues lueurs, lui permettant de la deviner plutôt que de l’attendre.
It is impossible to contemplate the spectacle of the starry universe without wondering how it was formed: perhaps we ought to wait, and not look for a solution until have patiently assembled the elements … but if we were so reasonable, if we were curious without impatience, it is probable we would never have created Science and we would always have been content with a trivial existence. Thus the mind has imperiously laid claim to this solution long before it was ripe, even while perceived in only faint glimmers—allowing us to guess a solution rather than wait for it.
From Leçons sur les Hypothèses Consmogoniques (1913) as cited in D. Ter Haar and A.G.W. Cameron, 'Historical Review of Theories of the Origin of the Solar System', collected in Robert Jastrow and A. G. W. Cameron (eds.), Origin of the Solar System: Proceedings of a Conference Held at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, January 23-24, 1962, (1963), 3. 'Cosmogonical Hypotheses' (1913), collected in Harlow Shapley, Source Book in Astronomy, 1900-1950 (1960), 347.
Science quotes on:  |  Assemble (14)  |  Claim (154)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Content (75)  |  Created (6)  |  Curious (95)  |  Element (322)  |  Existence (481)  |  Faint (10)  |  Form (976)  |  Formation (100)  |  Glimmer (5)  |  Impatience (13)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Long (778)  |  Look (584)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Never (1089)  |  Origin Of The Universe (20)  |  Patience (58)  |  Perceived (4)  |  Reasonable (29)  |  Ripe (5)  |  Solution (282)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Star (460)  |  Trivial (59)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vague (50)  |  Wait (66)  |  Wonder (251)

A hypothesis may be simply defined as a guess. A scientific hypothesis is an intelligent guess.
In Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 114.
Science quotes on:  |  Definition (238)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Simple (426)

Across the road from my cabin was a huge clear-cut—hundreds of acres of massive spruce stumps interspersed with tiny Douglas firs—products of what they call “Reforestation,” which I guess makes the spindly firs en masse a “Reforest,” which makes an individual spindly fir a “Refir,” which means you could say that Weyerhauser, who owns the joint, has Refir Madness, since they think that sawing down 200-foot-tall spruces and replacing them with puling 2-foot Refirs is no different from farming beans or corn or alfalfa. They even call the towering spires they wipe from the Earth’s face forever a “crop”--as if they’d planted the virgin forest! But I'm just a fisherman and may be missing some deeper significance in their nomenclature and stranger treatment of primordial trees.
In David James Duncan, The River Why (1983), 71.
Science quotes on:  |  Acre (13)  |  Bean (3)  |  Cabin (5)  |  Call (781)  |  Clear-Cut (10)  |  Corn (20)  |  Crop (26)  |  Cut (116)  |  Deeper (4)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Douglas Fir (2)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Face (214)  |  Farming (8)  |  Fisherman (9)  |  Forest (161)  |  Forever (111)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Individual (420)  |  Joint (31)  |  Madness (33)  |  Massive (9)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Miss (51)  |  Missing (21)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Plant (320)  |  Primordial (14)  |  Product (166)  |  Reforestation (6)  |  Replacement (13)  |  Road (71)  |  Sawing (3)  |  Say (989)  |  Significance (114)  |  Spire (5)  |  Stranger (16)  |  Stump (3)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Towering (11)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Tree (269)  |  Virgin (11)

Cancer cells invade surrounding tissue, make their way into blood vessels, and spread throughout the body. What are they searching for? My guess is oxygen.
In Acceptance Remarks, 2016 Lasker Awards Ceremony, published in 'Oxygen Sensing – An Essential Process for Survival', on laskerfoundation.org website.
Science quotes on:  |  Biomedicine (5)  |  Blood (144)  |  Body (557)  |  Cancer (61)  |  Cell (146)  |  Invasion (9)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Research (753)  |  Search (175)  |  Spread (86)  |  Tissue (51)

Charlie Holloway (human): “What we hoped to achieve was to meet our makers. To get answers. Why they even made us in the first place.”
David (AI robot): “Why do you think your people made me?”
Charlie Holloway (human): “We made you because we could.”
David (AI robot): “Can you imagine how disappointing it would be for you to hear the same thing from your creator?”
Charlie Holloway (human): “I guess it’s good you can’t be disappointed.”
Prometheus (2012)
Science quotes on:  |  Achieve (75)  |  Answer (389)  |  Artificial Intelligence (12)  |  Creator (97)  |  David (6)  |  Disappoint (14)  |  Disappointed (6)  |  Do (1905)  |  First (1302)  |  Good (906)  |  Hear (144)  |  Hope (321)  |  Human (1512)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Maker (34)  |  Meet (36)  |  People (1031)  |  Place (192)  |  Robot (14)  |  Same (166)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Why (491)

Every discovery, every enlargement of the understanding, begins as an imaginative preconception of what the truth might be. The imaginative preconception—a “hypothesis”—arises by a process as easy or as difficult to understand as any other creative act of mind; it is a brainwave, an inspired guess, a product of a blaze of insight. It comes anyway from within and cannot be achieved by the exercise of any known calculus of discovery.
In Advice to a Young Scientist (1979), 84.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Arise (162)  |  Begin (275)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Blaze (14)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Creative (144)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Easy (213)  |  Enlargement (8)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Insight (107)  |  Inspire (58)  |  Known (453)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Other (2233)  |  Preconception (13)  |  Process (439)  |  Product (166)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)

Every theoretical physicist who is any good knows six or seven different theoretical representations for exactly the same physics. He knows that they are all equivalent, and that nobody is ever going to be able to decide which one is right at that level, but he keeps them in his head, hoping that they will give him different ideas for guessing.
In The Character of Physical Law (1965, 2001), 168.
Science quotes on:  |  Decide (50)  |  Different (595)  |  Equivalent (46)  |  Good (906)  |  Idea (881)  |  Know (1538)  |  Level (69)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Representation (55)  |  Right (473)  |  Theoretical Physicist (21)  |  Theoretical Physics (26)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Will (2350)

Face this world. Learn its ways, watch it, be careful of too hasty guesses at its meaning. In the end you will find clues to it all.
In The Time Machine (1898), 90.
Science quotes on:  |  Careful (28)  |  Clue (20)  |  End (603)  |  Face (214)  |  Find (1014)  |  Hasty (7)  |  Learn (672)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Watch (118)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

First you guess. Don’t laugh, this is the most important step. Then you compute the consequences. Compare the consequences to experience. If it disagrees with experience, the guess is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn’t matter how beautiful your guess is or how smart you are or what your name is. If it disagrees with experience, it’s wrong.
As condensed in Florentin Smarandache, V. Christianto, Multi-Valued Logic, Neutrosophy, and Schrodinger Equation? (2006), 73 & 160 (footnote), paraphrasing from Lecture No. 7, 'Seeking New Laws', Messenger Lectures, Cornell (1964). The original verbatim quote, taken from the transcript is elsewhere on the Richard Feynman Quotations webpage, beginning: “In general, we look for a new law…”.
Science quotes on:  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Compare (76)  |  Compute (19)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Disagree (14)  |  Experience (494)  |  First (1302)  |  Important (229)  |  Key (56)  |  Laugh (50)  |  Matter (821)  |  Most (1728)  |  Name (359)  |  Simple (426)  |  Smart (33)  |  Statement (148)  |  Step (234)  |  Wrong (246)

For myself, I like a universe that, includes much that is unknown and, at the same time, much that is knowable. A universe in which everything is known would be static and dull, as boring as the heaven of some weak-minded theologians. A universe that is unknowable is no fit place for a thinking being. The ideal universe for us is one very much like the universe we inhabit. And I would guess that this is not really much of a coincidence.
Concluding paragraph, 'Can We know the Universe? Reflections on a Grain of Salt', Broca's Brain (1979, 1986), 21.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Boredom (11)  |  Boring (7)  |  Coincidence (20)  |  Dull (58)  |  Dullness (4)  |  Everything (489)  |  Fit (139)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Include (93)  |  Inhabitation (2)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Myself (211)  |  Static (9)  |  Theologian (23)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universe (900)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Weak (73)

Forc’d by reflective Reason, I confess,
Human science is uncertain guess.
From poem, 'Solomon', Collected in Samuel Johnson (ed.), The Works of the English Poets: Volume the Thirty-First: The Poems of Prior: Volume II (1760), 126.
Science quotes on:  |  Confess (42)  |  Forced (3)  |  Human (1512)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reflective (3)  |  Uncertain (45)

Guessing right for the wrong reason does not merit scientific immortality.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Immortality (11)  |  Merit (51)  |  Reason (766)  |  Right (473)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Wrong (246)

Has Matter more than Motion? Has it Thought,
Judgment, and Genius? Is it deeply learn’d
In Mathematics? Has it fram’d such Laws,
Which, but to guess, a Newton made immortal?—
If so, how each sage Atom laughs at me,
Who think a Clod inferior to a Man!
The Complaint: or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality (1742, 1750), Night 9, 279.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Clod (3)  |  Genius (301)  |  Immortal (35)  |  Inferior (37)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Laugh (50)  |  Law (913)  |  Learn (672)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Motion (320)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Sage (25)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)

Here lies one who for medicines would not give
A little gold, and so his life he lost;
I fancy now he’d wish again to live,
Could he but guess how much his funeral cost.
Anonymous
Science quotes on:  |  Cost (94)  |  Death (406)  |  Fancy (50)  |  Funeral (5)  |  Gold (101)  |  Lie (370)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Live (650)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Money (178)  |  Wish (216)

Human science is an uncertain guess.
'Solomon on the Vanity of the World, Book I, On Knowledge'. In Matthew Prior, John Mitford (Ed.), The Poetical Works of Matthew Prior (1854), Vol. 2, 118.
Science quotes on:  |  Human (1512)  |  Uncertain (45)

I am entitled to say, if I like, that awareness exists in all the individual creatures on the planet—worms, sea urchins, gnats, whales, subhuman primates, superprimate humans, the lot. I can say this because we do not know what we are talking about: consciousness is so much a total mystery for our own species that we cannot begin to guess about its existence in others.
In Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony(1984), 223.
Science quotes on:  |  Awareness (42)  |  Begin (275)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Cannot (8)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Creature (242)  |  Do (1905)  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  Gnat (7)  |  Human (1512)  |  Individual (420)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lot (151)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Other (2233)  |  Planet (402)  |  Primate (11)  |  Say (989)  |  French Saying (67)  |  Sea (326)  |  Sea Urchin (3)  |  Species (435)  |  Subhuman (2)  |  Talk (108)  |  Talking (76)  |  Total (95)  |  Whale (45)  |  Worm (47)

I cannot judge my work while I am doing it. I have to do as painters do, stand back and view it from a distance, but not too great a distance. How great? Guess.
Quoted without citation in W.H. Auden and L. Kronenberger (eds.) The Viking Book of Aphorisms (1966), 291. Webmaster has tried without success to locate a primary source. Can you help?
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Distance (171)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  Great (1610)  |  Judge (114)  |  Painter (30)  |  Stand (284)  |  View (496)  |  Work (1402)

I never guess. It is a shocking habit—destructive to the logical faculty.
Spoken by fictitious character Sherlock Holmes in The Sign of Four (1890), 17.
Science quotes on:  |  Destructive (10)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Habit (174)  |  Logic (311)  |  Never (1089)  |  Shocking (3)

I think equation guessing might be the best method to proceed to obtain the laws for the part of physics which is presently unknown.
In his Nobel Prize Lecture (11 Dec 1965), 'The Development of the Space-Time View of Quantum Electrodynamics'. Collected in Stig Lundqvist, Nobel Lectures: Physics, 1963-1970 (1998), 177.
Science quotes on:  |  Best (467)  |  Equation (138)  |  Law (913)  |  Method (531)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Think (1122)  |  Unknown (195)

I think that we shall have to get accustomed to the idea that we must not look upon science as a 'body of knowledge,' but rather as a system of hypotheses; that is to say, as a system of guesses or anticipations which in principle cannot be justified, but with which we work as long as they stand up to tests, and of which we are never justified in saying that we know they are 'true' or 'more or less certain' or even 'probable.'
The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1959), 317.
Science quotes on:  |  Accustom (52)  |  Accustomed (46)  |  Anticipation (18)  |  Body (557)  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Idea (881)  |  Justification (52)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Long (778)  |  Look (584)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Must (1525)  |  Never (1089)  |  Principle (530)  |  Probability (135)  |  Say (989)  |  Stand (284)  |  System (545)  |  Test (221)  |  Think (1122)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Work (1402)

I was the only female in my class. I sat on one side of the room and the guys on the other side of the room. I guess they didn't want to associate with me. But I could hold my own with them, and sometimes did better.
In interview with Laurel M. Sheppard, 'An Interview with Mary Ross: First Native American Woman Engineer Aerospace Pioneer Returns to her Native American Roots', on website of Lash Publications.
Science quotes on:  |  Associate (25)  |  Better (493)  |  Class (168)  |  Female (50)  |  Men (20)  |  Other (2233)  |  Room (42)  |  Side (236)  |  Sit (51)  |  Want (504)

If arithmetical skill is the measure of intelligence, then computers have been more intelligent than all human beings all along. If the ability to play chess is the measure, then there are computers now in existence that are more intelligent than any but a very few human beings. However, if insight, intuition, creativity, the ability to view a problem as a whole and guess the answer by the “feel” of the situation, is a measure of intelligence, computers are very unintelligent indeed. Nor can we see right now how this deficiency in computers can be easily remedied, since human beings cannot program a computer to be intuitive or creative for the very good reason that we do not know what we ourselves do when we exercise these qualities.
In Machines That Think (1983).
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Answer (389)  |  Being (1276)  |  Chess (27)  |  Computer (131)  |  Creative (144)  |  Creativity (84)  |  Deficiency (15)  |  Do (1905)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Existence (481)  |  Feel (371)  |  Good (906)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Insight (107)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Intuition (82)  |  Know (1538)  |  Measure (241)  |  More (2558)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Problem (731)  |  Reason (766)  |  Right (473)  |  See (1094)  |  Situation (117)  |  Skill (116)  |  View (496)  |  Whole (756)

If it [a hypothesis] disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement, is the key to science: it doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is; it doesn’t make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is—if it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong; that’s all there is to it.
Verbatim from Lecture No. 7, 'Seeking New Laws', Messenger Lectures, Cornell, (1964) in video and transcript online at caltech.edu website. Also in Christopher Sykes, No Ordinary Genius: The Illustrated Richard Feynman (1994), 143. This quote continues one elsewhere on the Richard Feynman Quotations webpage, which begins: “In general, we look for a new law by…”.
Science quotes on:  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Difference (355)  |  Disagree (14)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Key (56)  |  Name (359)  |  Science (39)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Simple (426)  |  Smart (33)  |  Statement (148)  |  Wrong (246)

In general, we look for a new law by the following process. First, we guess it. Then we—don’t laugh, that’s really true. Then we compute the consequences of the guess to see if this is right—if this law that we guessed is right—we see what it would imply. And then we compare those computation results to nature—or, we say compare to experiment or experience—compare it directly with observation to see if it works. If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong.
Verbatim from Lecture No. 7, 'Seeking New Laws', Messenger Lectures, Cornell, (1964) in video and transcript online at caltech.edu website. Also, lightly paraphrased, in Christopher Sykes, No Ordinary Genius: The Illustrated Richard Feynman (1994), 143. There is another paraphrase elsewhere on the Richard Feynman Quotations webpage, beginning: “First you guess…”. Also see the continuation of this quote, verbatim, beginning: “If it disagrees with experiment…”.
Science quotes on:  |  Compare (76)  |  Computation (28)  |  Compute (19)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Direct (228)  |  Disagree (14)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Imply (20)  |  Laugh (50)  |  Law (913)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Observation (593)  |  Process (439)  |  Real (159)  |  Result (700)  |  Right (473)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  True (239)  |  Verify (24)  |  Work (1402)  |  Wrong (246)

In the last four days I have got the spectrum given by Tantalum. Chromium. Manganese. Iron. Nickel. Cobalt. and Copper and part of the Silver spectrum. The chief result is that all the elements give the same kind of spectrum, the result for any metal being quite easy to guess from the results for the others. This shews that the insides of all the atoms are very much alike, and from these results it will be possible to find out something of what the insides are made up of.
Letter to his mother (2 Nov 1913). In J. L. Heilbron (ed.), H. G. J. Moseley: The Life and Letters of an English Physicist 1887-1915 (1974), 209.
Science quotes on:  |  Alike (60)  |  Atom (381)  |  Being (1276)  |  Chief (99)  |  Chromium (2)  |  Cobalt (4)  |  Copper (25)  |  Easy (213)  |  Element (322)  |  Find (1014)  |  Iron (99)  |  Kind (564)  |  Last (425)  |  Manganese (2)  |  Metal (88)  |  Nickel (3)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possible (560)  |  Result (700)  |  Silver (49)  |  Something (718)  |  Spectrum (35)  |  Tantalum (2)  |  Will (2350)

In the sciences hypothesis always precedes law, which is to say, there is always a lot of tall guessing before a new fact is established. The guessers are often quite as important as the factfinders; in truth, it would not be difficult to argue that they are more important.
From Baltimore Evening Sun (6 Apr 1931). Collected in A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949, 1956), 329.
Science quotes on:  |  Argue (25)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Establish (63)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Important (229)  |  Law (913)  |  Lot (151)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Precede (23)  |  Say (989)  |  Truth (1109)

In the Vienna of the late 1920s and 1930s there throve an internationally famous philosophical bunch called the logical positivists. … They said that a key ingredient of knowledge was “sense data,” and proclaimed emphatically, in the words of … J.S.L. Gilmour, that sense data are “objective and unalterable.” …Good guess, but no cigar!
In 'A Trip Through the Perception Factory', Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century (2000), 64.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Data (162)  |  Emphatically (8)  |  Famous (12)  |  Good (906)  |  Ingredient (16)  |  International (40)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Late (119)  |  Logic (311)  |  Objective (96)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Positivist (5)  |  Proclaim (31)  |  Sense (785)  |  Thrive (22)  |  Unalterable (7)  |  Word (650)

Inductive reasoning is, of course, good guessing, not sound reasoning, but the finest results in science have been obtained in this way. Calling the guess a “working hypothesis,” its consequences are tested by experiment in every conceivable way.
In Higher Mathematics for Students of Chemistry and Physics (1902), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Conceivable (28)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Course (413)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Finest (3)  |  Good (906)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Inductive (20)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Result (700)  |  Sound (187)  |  Test (221)  |  Way (1214)

It is because of his brain that [modern man] has risen above the animals. Guess which animals he has risen above.
The Great Bustard and Other People (1944), 30.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Brain (281)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Man (2252)  |  Modern (402)

Just by studying mathematics we can hope to make a guess at the kind of mathematics that will come into the physics of the future ... If someone can hit on the right lines along which to make this development, it m may lead to a future advance in which people will first discover the equations and then, after examining them, gradually learn how to apply the ... My own belief is that this is a more likely line of progress than trying to guess at physical pictures.
'The Evolution of the Physicist's Picture of Nature', Scientific American, May 1963, 208, 47. In Steve Adams, Frontiers (2000), 57.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Apply (170)  |  Belief (615)  |  Development (441)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Equation (138)  |  First (1302)  |  Future (467)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Hope (321)  |  Kind (564)  |  Lead (391)  |  Learn (672)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  More (2558)  |  People (1031)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physics (564)  |  Picture (148)  |  Progress (492)  |  Right (473)  |  Studying (70)  |  Trying (144)  |  Will (2350)

Melvin [Calvin]’s marvellous technique for delivering a scientific lecture was unique. His mind must have roamed constantly, especially in planning lectures. His remarkable memory enabled him to formulate a lecture or manuscript with no breaks in the sequence of his thoughts. His lectures usually began hesitatingly, as if he had little idea of how to begin or what to say. This completely disarmed his audiences, who would try to guess what he might have to say. Soon enough, however, his ideas would coalesce, to be delivered like an approaching freight train, reaching a crescendo of information at breakneck speed and leaving his rapt audience nearly overwhelmed.
Co-author with Andrew A. Benson, 'Melvin Calvin', Biographical Memoirs of the US National Academy of Science.
Science quotes on:  |  Audience (28)  |  Begin (275)  |  Biography (254)  |  Break (109)  |  Melvin Calvin (11)  |  Coalesce (5)  |  Completely (137)  |  Crescendo (3)  |  Deliver (30)  |  Enough (341)  |  Formulate (16)  |  Freight (3)  |  Hesitation (19)  |  Idea (881)  |  Information (173)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Little (717)  |  Manuscript (10)  |  Marvellous (25)  |  Memory (144)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Overwhelmed (6)  |  Planning (21)  |  Rapt (5)  |  Roam (3)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Soon (187)  |  Speed (66)  |  Technique (84)  |  Thought (995)  |  Train (118)  |  Try (296)  |  Unique (72)  |  Usually (176)

My guess is that well over eighty per cent. of the human race goes through life without having a single original thought..
Minority Report (1956, 2006 reprint), 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Idea (881)  |  Life (1870)  |  Original (61)  |  Race (278)  |  Single (365)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)

My own emotional feeling is that life has a purpose—ultimately, I’d guess that purpose it has is the purpose that we’ve given it and not a purpose that come out of any cosmic design.
Alan Guth
As quoted in Michio Kaku, Parallel Worlds: A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos (2006), 359.
Science quotes on:  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Design (203)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Give (208)  |  Life (1870)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Ultimately (56)

Nothing is known in our profession by guess; and I do not believe, that from the first dawn of medical science to the present moment, a single correct idea has ever emanated from conjecture: it is right therefore, that those who are studying their profession should be aware that there is no short road to knowledge; and that observation on the diseased living, examination of the dead, and experiments upon living animals, are the only sources of true knowledge; and that inductions from these are the sole bases of legitimate theory.
Astley Paston Cooper, Astley Cooper, Bransby Blake Cooper, A Treatise on Dislocations and Fractures of the Joints (1851), 155.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Base (120)  |  Conjecture (51)  |  Dawn (31)  |  Do (1905)  |  Examination (102)  |  Experiment (736)  |  First (1302)  |  Idea (881)  |  Induction (81)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Legitimate (26)  |  Living (492)  |  Medical Science (19)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Moment (260)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Observation (593)  |  Present (630)  |  Profession (108)  |  Right (473)  |  Short (200)  |  Single (365)  |  Sole (50)  |  Studying (70)  |  Theory (1015)

Ohm found that the results could be summed up in such a simple law that he who runs may read it, and a schoolboy now can predict what a Faraday then could only guess at roughly. By Ohm's discovery a large part of the domain of electricity became annexed by Coulomb's discovery of the law of inverse squares, and completely annexed by Green's investigations. Poisson attacked the difficult problem of induced magnetisation, and his results, though differently expressed, are still the theory, as a most important first approximation. Ampere brought a multitude of phenomena into theory by his investigations of the mechanical forces between conductors supporting currents and magnets. Then there were the remarkable researches of Faraday, the prince of experimentalists, on electrostatics and electrodynamics and the induction of currents. These were rather long in being brought from the crude experimental state to a compact system, expressing the real essence. Unfortunately, in my opinion, Faraday was not a mathematician. It can scarely be doubted that had he been one, he would have anticipated much later work. He would, for instance, knowing Ampere's theory, by his own results have readily been led to Neumann’s theory, and the connected work of Helmholtz and Thomson. But it is perhaps too much to expect a man to be both the prince of experimentalists and a competent mathematician.
From article 'Electro-magnetic Theory II', in The Electrician (16 Jan 1891), 26, No. 661, 331.
Science quotes on:  |  André-Marie Ampère (11)  |  Approximation (32)  |  Attack (86)  |  Being (1276)  |  Both (496)  |  Compact (13)  |  Completely (137)  |  Conductor (17)  |  Connect (126)  |  Charles-Augustin Coulomb (3)  |  Crude (32)  |  Current (122)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Domain (72)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Electrodynamics (10)  |  Electromagnetism (19)  |  Electrostatic (7)  |  Electrostatics (6)  |  Essence (85)  |  Expect (203)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Experimentalist (20)  |  Express (192)  |  Michael Faraday (91)  |  First (1302)  |  Force (497)  |  Green (65)  |  Hermann von Helmholtz (32)  |  Induction (81)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Large (398)  |  Law (913)  |  Long (778)  |  Magnet (22)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Most (1728)  |  Multitude (50)  |  Ohm (5)  |  Georg Simon Ohm (3)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Siméon-Denis Poisson (7)  |  Predict (86)  |  Problem (731)  |  Read (308)  |  Result (700)  |  Run (158)  |  Simple (426)  |  Square (73)  |  State (505)  |  Still (614)  |  System (545)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Sir J.J. Thomson (18)  |  Unfortunately (40)  |  Work (1402)

Science is not a system of certain, or -established, statements; nor is it a system which steadily advances towards a state of finality... And our guesses are guided by the unscientific, the metaphysical (though biologically explicable) faith in laws, in regularities which we can uncover—discover. Like Bacon, we might describe our own contemporary science—'the method of reasoning which men now ordinarily apply to nature'—as consisting of 'anticipations, rash and premature' and as 'prejudices'.
The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1959), 278.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Advancement (63)  |  Anticipation (18)  |  Application (257)  |  Apply (170)  |  Biology (232)  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Contemporary (33)  |  Describe (132)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Faith (209)  |  Finality (8)  |  Guidance (30)  |  Law (913)  |  Metaphysical (38)  |  Metaphysics (53)  |  Method (531)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Premature (22)  |  Rash (15)  |  Rashness (2)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Regularity (40)  |  State (505)  |  Statement (148)  |  System (545)  |  Uncover (20)  |  Unscientific (13)  |  Well-Established (6)

Scientists themselves readily admit that they do not fully understand the consequences of our many-faceted assault upon the interwoven fabric of atmosphere, water, land and life in all its biological diversity. But things could also turn out to be worse than the current scientific best guess. In military affairs, policy has long been based on the dictum that we should be prepared for the worst case. Why should it be so different when the security is that of the planet and our long-term future?
Speech, 'Global Security Lecture' at Cambridge University (28 Apr 1993).
Science quotes on:  |  Admit (49)  |  Assault (12)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Best (467)  |  Biodiversity (25)  |  Biological (137)  |  Biology (232)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Current (122)  |  Dictum (10)  |  Different (595)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Do (1905)  |  Fabric (27)  |  Future (467)  |  Interwoven (10)  |  Land (131)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Military (45)  |  Planet (402)  |  Policy (27)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Security (51)  |  Term (357)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Turn (454)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Water (503)  |  Why (491)  |  Worst (57)

Study the hindrances, acquaint yourself with the causes which have led up to the disease. Don’t guess at them, but know them through and through if you can; and if you do not know them, know that you do not, and still inquire. “Cannot” is a word for the idle, the indifferent, the self-satisfied, but it is not admissible in science. “I do not know” is manly if it does not stop there, but to say “I cannot” is a judgment both entirely illogical, and in itself bad as favouring rest in ignorance.
In Sir William Withey Gull and Theodore Dyke Acland (ed.), A Collection of the Published Writings of William Withey Gull (1896), lix.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquaint (11)  |  Admissible (6)  |  Bad (185)  |  Both (496)  |  Cause (561)  |  Diagnosis (65)  |  Disease (340)  |  Do (1905)  |  Favor (69)  |  Hindrance (9)  |  Idle (34)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Illogical (2)  |  Indifferent (17)  |  Inquire (26)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Know (1538)  |  Manly (3)  |  Rest (287)  |  Say (989)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Satisfied (2)  |  Still (614)  |  Stop (89)  |  Study (701)  |  Through (846)  |  Word (650)

The creative scientist studies nature with the rapt gaze of the lover, and is guided as often by aesthetics as by rational considerations in guessing how nature works.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Aesthetic (48)  |  Aesthetics (12)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Creative (144)  |  Gaze (23)  |  Guide (107)  |  Lover (11)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Often (109)  |  Rapt (5)  |  Rational (95)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Study (701)  |  Work (1402)

The difference between a successful and an unsuccessful business man lies often in the greater accuracy of the former’s guesses. Statistics are no substitution for judgment. Their use is to check and discipline the judgments on which in the last resort business decisions depend.
In report on a speech delivered to a business group (Sep 1930), in 'Production Prices and Depression: Professor Clay on the Trade Outlook', Evening Sentinel (Staffordshire, 13 Oct 1930), 5. As cited on the quoteinvestigator.com website.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Business (156)  |  Check (26)  |  Decision (98)  |  Depend (238)  |  Difference (355)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Economics (44)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Substitution (16)  |  Successful (134)  |  Unsuccessful (4)

The first objection to Darwinism is that it is only a guess and was never anything more. It is called a “hypothesis,” but the word “hypothesis,” though euphonioous, dignified and high-sounding, is merely a scientific synonym for the old-fashioned word “guess.” If Darwin had advanced his views as a guess they would not have survived for a year, but they have floated for half a century, buoyed up by the inflated word “hypothesis.” When it is understood that “hypothesis” means “guess,” people will inspect it more carefully before accepting it.
'God and Evolution', New York Times (26 Feb 1922), 84. Rebuttals were printed a few days later from Henry Fairfield Osborn and Edwin Grant Conklin.
Science quotes on:  |  Acceptance (56)  |  Accepting (22)  |  Call (781)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Century (319)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Dignified (13)  |  Dignity (44)  |  Evolution (635)  |  First (1302)  |  Float (31)  |  High (370)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Merely (315)  |  More (2558)  |  Never (1089)  |  Objection (34)  |  Old (499)  |  Old-Fashioned (9)  |  People (1031)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Survival (105)  |  Synonym (2)  |  Understood (155)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)  |  Year (963)

The history of civilization proves beyond doubt just how sterile the repeated attempts of metaphysics to guess at nature’s laws have been. Instead, there is every reason to believe that when the human intellect ignores reality and concentrates within, it can no longer explain the simplest inner workings of life’s machinery or of the world around us.
From Reglas y Consejos sobre Investigacíon Cientifica: Los tónicos de la voluntad. (1897), as translated by Neely and Larry W. Swanson, in Advice for a Young Investigator (1999), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Attempt (266)  |  Belief (615)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Concentrate (28)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Explain (334)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Intellect (32)  |  Ignore (52)  |  Inner (72)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Machinery (59)  |  Metaphysics (53)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Proof (304)  |  Prove (261)  |  Reality (274)  |  Reason (766)  |  Repeated (5)  |  Simplest (10)  |  Sterile (24)  |  Working (23)  |  World (1850)

The key to SETI is to guess the type of communication that an alien society would use. The best guesses so far have been that they would use radio waves, and that they would choose a frequency based on 'universal' knowledge—for instance, the 1420 MHz hydrogen frequency. But these are assumptions formulated by the human brain. Who knows what sort of logic a superadvanced nonhuman life form might use? ... Just 150 years ago, an eyeblink in history, radio waves themselves were inconceivable, and we were thinking of lighting fires to signal the Martians.
Quoted on PBS web page related to Nova TV program episode on 'Origins: Do Aliens Exist in the Milky Way'.
Science quotes on:  |  Alien (35)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Best (467)  |  Brain (281)  |  Choose (116)  |  Communication (101)  |  Extraterrestrial Life (20)  |  Fire (203)  |  Form (976)  |  Frequency (25)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lifeform (2)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mars (47)  |  Radio (60)  |  SETI (3)  |  Signal (29)  |  Society (350)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Type (171)  |  Universal (198)  |  Use (771)  |  Wave (112)  |  Year (963)

The shrewd guess, the fertile hypothesis, the courageous leap to a tentative conclusion—these are the most valuable coin of the thinker at work.
In The Process of Education (1960).
Science quotes on:  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Fertile (30)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Leap (57)  |  Most (1728)  |  Tentative (18)  |  Thinker (41)  |  Work (1402)

The way of pure research is opposed to all the copy-book maxims concerning the virtues of industry and a fixed purpose, and the evils of guessing, but it is damned useful when it comes off. It is the diametrical opposite of Edison’s reputed method of trying every conceivable expedient until he hit the right one. It requires, not diligence, but experience, information, and a good nose for the essence of a problem.
Letter to Paul de Kruif (3 Aug 1933), as quoted in Nathan Reingold, Science in America: A Documentary History 1900-1939 (1981), 409.
Science quotes on:  |  Book (413)  |  Conceivable (28)  |  Copy (34)  |  Diligence (22)  |  Thomas Edison (83)  |  Essence (85)  |  Evil (122)  |  Expedience (2)  |  Experience (494)  |  Good (906)  |  Industry (159)  |  Information (173)  |  Maxim (19)  |  Method (531)  |  Nose (14)  |  Opposed (3)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Problem (731)  |  Pure (299)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Require (229)  |  Requirement (66)  |  Research (753)  |  Right (473)  |  Trying (144)  |  Useful (260)  |  Usefulness (92)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Way (1214)

There are three schools of magic. One: State a tautology, then ring the changes on its corollaries; that’s philosophy. Two: Record many facts. Try to find a pattern. Then make a wrong guess at the next fact; that’s science. Three: Be aware that you live in a malevolent Universe controlled by Murphy’s Law, sometimes offset by Brewster’s Factor; that’s engineering.
From the last chapter of The Number of the Beast (1980), 553.
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Corollary (5)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Find (1014)  |  Law (913)  |  Live (650)  |  Magic (92)  |  Malevolent (2)  |  Murphy�s Law (4)  |  Next (238)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Record (161)  |  School (227)  |  State (505)  |  Tautology (4)  |  Try (296)  |  Two (936)  |  Universe (900)  |  Wrong (246)

There is a noble vision of the great Castle of Mathematics, towering somewhere in the Platonic World of Ideas, which we humbly and devotedly discover (rather than invent). The greatest mathematicians manage to grasp outlines of the Grand Design, but even those to whom only a pattern on a small kitchen tile is revealed, can be blissfully happy. … Mathematics is a proto-text whose existence is only postulated but which nevertheless underlies all corrupted and fragmentary copies we are bound to deal with. The identity of the writer of this proto-text (or of the builder of the Castle) is anybody’s guess. …
In 'Mathematical Knowledge: Internal, Social, and Cultural Aspects', Mathematics As Metaphor: Selected Essays (2007), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Anybody (42)  |  Bound (120)  |  Builder (16)  |  Castle (5)  |  Copy (34)  |  Deal (192)  |  Design (203)  |  Devoted (59)  |  Discover (571)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fragmentary (8)  |  Grand (29)  |  Grasp (65)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Happy (108)  |  Humble (54)  |  Humbly (8)  |  Idea (881)  |  Identity (19)  |  Invent (57)  |  Kitchen (14)  |  Manage (26)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Noble (93)  |  Outline (13)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Platonic (4)  |  Postulate (42)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  Small (489)  |  Text (16)  |  Tile (2)  |  Towering (11)  |  Underlie (19)  |  Vision (127)  |  World (1850)  |  Writer (90)

This [the fact that the pursuit of mathematics brings into harmonious action all the faculties of the human mind] accounts for the extraordinary longevity of all the greatest masters of the Analytic art, the Dii Majores of the mathematical Pantheon. Leibnitz lived to the age of 70; Euler to 76; Lagrange to 77; Laplace to 78; Gauss to 78; Plato, the supposed inventor of the conic sections, who made mathematics his study and delight, who called them the handles or aids to philosophy, the medicine of the soul, and is said never to have let a day go by without inventing some new theorems, lived to 82; Newton, the crown and glory of his race, to 85; Archimedes, the nearest akin, probably, to Newton in genius, was 75, and might have lived on to be 100, for aught we can guess to the contrary, when he was slain by the impatient and ill mannered sergeant, sent to bring him before the Roman general, in the full vigour of his faculties, and in the very act of working out a problem; Pythagoras, in whose school, I believe, the word mathematician (used, however, in a somewhat wider than its present sense) originated, the second founder of geometry, the inventor of the matchless theorem which goes by his name, the pre-cognizer of the undoubtedly mis-called Copernican theory, the discoverer of the regular solids and the musical canon who stands at the very apex of this pyramid of fame, (if we may credit the tradition) after spending 22 years studying in Egypt, and 12 in Babylon, opened school when 56 or 57 years old in Magna Græcia, married a young wife when past 60, and died, carrying on his work with energy unspent to the last, at the age of 99. The mathematician lives long and lives young; the wings of his soul do not early drop off, nor do its pores become clogged with the earthy particles blown from the dusty highways of vulgar life.
In Presidential Address to the British Association, Collected Mathematical Papers, Vol. 2 (1908), 658.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Act (278)  |  Action (342)  |  Age (509)  |  Aid (101)  |  Akin (5)  |  Analytic (11)  |  Apex (6)  |  Archimedes (63)  |  Art (680)  |  Aught (6)  |  Babylon (7)  |  Become (821)  |  Belief (615)  |  Blow (45)  |  Bring (95)  |  Call (781)  |  Called (9)  |  Canon (3)  |  Carry (130)  |  Clog (5)  |  Conic Section (8)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Copernican Theory (3)  |  Credit (24)  |  Crown (39)  |  Delight (111)  |  Die (94)  |  Discoverer (43)  |  Do (1905)  |  Drop (77)  |  Dusty (8)  |  Early (196)  |  Egypt (31)  |  Energy (373)  |  Leonhard Euler (35)  |  Extraordinary (83)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Fame (51)  |  Founder (26)  |  Full (68)  |  Carl Friedrich Gauss (79)  |  General (521)  |  Genius (301)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Glory (66)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Handle (29)  |  Harmonious (18)  |  Highway (15)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Impatient (4)  |  Invent (57)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Count Joseph-Louis de Lagrange (26)  |  Pierre-Simon Laplace (63)  |  Last (425)  |  Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (51)  |  Let (64)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Long (778)  |  Longevity (6)  |  Manner (62)  |  Marry (11)  |  Master (182)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Musical (10)  |  Name (359)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Old (499)  |  Open (277)  |  Originate (39)  |  Pantheon (2)  |  Particle (200)  |  Past (355)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Plato (80)  |  Pore (7)  |  Present (630)  |  Probably (50)  |  Problem (731)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Pyramid (9)  |  Pythagoras (38)  |  Race (278)  |  Regular (48)  |  Roman (39)  |  Say (989)  |  School (227)  |  Second (66)  |  Send (23)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sergeant (2)  |  Solid (119)  |  Soul (235)  |  Spend (97)  |  Spending (24)  |  Stand (284)  |  Study (701)  |  Studying (70)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Tradition (76)  |  Undoubtedly (3)  |  Vigour (18)  |  Vulgar (33)  |  Wide (97)  |  Wife (41)  |  Wing (79)  |  Word (650)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)  |  Young (253)

Thus, remarkably, we do not know the true number of species on earth even to the nearest order of magnitude. My own guess, based on the described fauna and flora and many discussions with entomologists and other specialists, is that the absolute number falls somewhere between five and thirty million.
Conservation for the 21st Century
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Base (120)  |  Describe (132)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Entomologist (7)  |  Fall (243)  |  Fauna (13)  |  Five (16)  |  Flora (9)  |  Know (1538)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Million (124)  |  Number (710)  |  Order (638)  |  Order Of Magnitude (5)  |  Other (2233)  |  Remarkably (3)  |  Specialist (33)  |  Species (435)  |  Thirty (6)  |  True (239)

To be a scholar of mathematics you must be born with talent, insight, concentration, taste, luck, drive and the ability to visualize and guess.
In I Want to be a Mathematician: An Automathography (1985), 400.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Born (37)  |  Concentration (29)  |  Drive (61)  |  Insight (107)  |  Luck (44)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Must (1525)  |  Scholar (52)  |  Talent (99)  |  Taste (93)  |  Visualize (8)

To be in a world which is a hell, to be of that world and neither to believe in or guess at anything but that world is not merely hell but the only possible damnation: the act of a man damning himself. It may be—I hope it is—redemption to guess and perhaps perceive that the universe, the hell which we see for all its beauty, vastness, majesty, is only part of a whole which is quite unimaginable.
Lecture (11 Apr 1980), Hamburg, Germany. Collected in 'Belief and Creativity',A Moving Target (1982), 201.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Belief (615)  |  Damn (12)  |  Damnation (4)  |  Hell (32)  |  Himself (461)  |  Hope (321)  |  Majesty (21)  |  Man (2252)  |  Merely (315)  |  Part (235)  |  Perceive (46)  |  Possible (560)  |  Redemption (3)  |  See (1094)  |  Unimaginable (7)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vastness (15)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

We are a spectacular, splendid manifestation of life. We have language… We have affection. We have genes for usefulness, and usefulness is about as close to a “common goal” for all of nature as I can guess at.
In The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974, 1995), 16-17.
Science quotes on:  |  Affection (44)  |  Common (447)  |  Gene (105)  |  Goal (155)  |  Language (308)  |  Life (1870)  |  Manifestation (61)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Spectacular (22)  |  Splendid (23)  |  Useful (260)  |  Usefulness (92)

We are like the inhabitants of an isolated valley in New Guinea who communicate with societies in neighboring valleys (quite different societies, I might add) by runner and by drum. When asked how a very advanced society will communicate, they might guess by an extremely rapid runner or by an improbably large drum. They might not guess a technology beyond their ken. And yet, all the while, a vast international cable and radio traffic passes over them, around them, and through them... We will listen for the interstellar drums, but we will miss the interstellar cables. We are likely to receive our first messages from the drummers of the neighboring galactic valleys - from civilizations only somewhat in our future. The civilizations vastly more advanced than we, will be, for a long time, remote both in distance and in accessibility. At a future time of vigorous interstellar radio traffic, the very advanced civilizations may be, for us, still insubstantial legends.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Accessibility (3)  |  Add (42)  |  Advance (298)  |  Ask (420)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Both (496)  |  Cable (11)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Communicate (39)  |  Different (595)  |  Distance (171)  |  Drum (8)  |  Drummer (3)  |  Extremely (17)  |  First (1302)  |  Future (467)  |  Galactic (6)  |  Improbable (15)  |  Inhabitant (50)  |  International (40)  |  Interstellar (8)  |  Isolate (24)  |  Ken (2)  |  Large (398)  |  Legend (18)  |  Likely (36)  |  Listen (81)  |  Long (778)  |  Message (53)  |  Miss (51)  |  More (2558)  |  Neighboring (5)  |  New (1273)  |  New Guinea (4)  |  Pass (241)  |  Radio (60)  |  Rapid (37)  |  Receive (117)  |  Remote (86)  |  Runner (2)  |  Society (350)  |  Still (614)  |  Technology (281)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Traffic (10)  |  Valley (37)  |  Vast (188)  |  Vastly (8)  |  Vigorous (21)  |  Will (2350)

We can reason out to a certain extent what the men and women of tomorrow will be free to do, but we cannot guess what they will decide to do.
(1939). As quoted in an epigraph in Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette, Science on American Television: A History (2013), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Certain (557)  |  Decide (50)  |  Do (1905)  |  Extent (142)  |  Free (239)  |  Reason (766)  |  Tomorrow (63)  |  Will (2350)

What of the future of this adventure? What will happen ultimately? We are going along guessing the laws; how many laws are we going to have to guess? I do not know. Some of my colleagues say that this fundamental aspect of our science will go on; but I think there will certainly not be perpetual novelty, say for a thousand years. This thing cannot keep on going so that we are always going to discover more and more new laws … It is like the discovery of America—you only discover it once. The age in which we live is the age in which we are discovering the fundamental laws of nature, and that day will never come again. Of course in the future there will be other interests … but there will not be the same things that we are doing now … There will be a degeneration of ideas, just like the degeneration that great explorers feel is occurring when tourists begin moving in on a territory.
In The Character of Physical Law (1965, 1994), 166.
Science quotes on:  |  Adventure (69)  |  Age (509)  |  America (143)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Begin (275)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Colleague (51)  |  Course (413)  |  Degeneration (11)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  Explorer (30)  |  Feel (371)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Future (467)  |  Great (1610)  |  Happen (282)  |  Idea (881)  |  Interest (416)  |  Know (1538)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  Live (650)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Novelty (31)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perpetual (59)  |  Say (989)  |  Territory (25)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Tourist (6)  |  Ultimately (56)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

What the Eye sees, need not to be guessed at.
No. 5518 in Gnomologia: Adagies and Proverbs, Wise Sentences and Witty Sayings (1732), 241.
Science quotes on:  |  Eye (440)  |  Proof (304)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  See (1094)

Wheeler’s First Moral Principle: Never make a calculation until you know the answer. Make an estimate before every calculation, try a simple physical argument (symmetry! invariance! conservation!) before every derivation, guess the answer to every paradox and puzzle. Courage: No one else needs to know what the guess is. Therefore make it quickly, by instinct. A right guess reinforces this instinct. A wrong guess brings the refreshment of surprise. In either case life as a spacetime expert, however long, is more fun!
In E.F. Taylor and J.A. Wheeler, Spacetime Physics (1992), 20.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Argument (145)  |  Bring (95)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Case (102)  |  Conservation (187)  |  Courage (82)  |  Derivation (15)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Expert (67)  |  First (1302)  |  Fun (42)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Invariance (4)  |  Know (1538)  |  Know The Answer (9)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Moral (203)  |  More (2558)  |  Need (320)  |  Never (1089)  |  Paradox (54)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physics (564)  |  Principle (530)  |  Puzzle (46)  |  Quickly (21)  |  Refreshment (3)  |  Reinforce (5)  |  Reinforcement (2)  |  Right (473)  |  Simple (426)  |  Spacetime (4)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Symmetry (44)  |  Try (296)  |  Wrong (246)

When you are called to a sick man, be sure you know what the matter is—if you do not know, nature can do a great deal better than you can guess.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Call (781)  |  Deal (192)  |  Do (1905)  |  Great (1610)  |  Know (1538)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Sick (83)

Why should an hypothesis, suggested by a scientist, be accepted as true until its truth is established? Science should be the last to make such a demand because science to be truly science is classified knowledge; it is the explanation of facts. Tested by this definition, Darwinism is not science at all; it is guesses strung together.
In chapter, 'The Origin of Man', In His Image (1922), 94.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Accepting (22)  |  Classification (102)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Definition (238)  |  Demand (131)  |  Establishing (7)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Last (425)  |  Scientist (881)  |  String (22)  |  Suggestion (49)  |  Test (221)  |  Together (392)  |  Truly (118)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Why (491)

You can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity. When you get it right, it is obvious that it is right—at least if you have any experience—because usually what happens is that more comes out than goes in. … The inexperienced, the crackpots, and people like that, make guesses that are simple, but you can immediately see that they are wrong, so that does not count. Others, the inexperienced students, make guesses that are very complicated, and it sort of looks as if it is all right, but I know it is not true because the truth always turns out to be simpler than you thought.
In The Character of Physical Law (1965), 171.
Science quotes on:  |  Beauty (313)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Count (107)  |  Experience (494)  |  Happen (282)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Inexperienced (2)  |  Know (1538)  |  Look (584)  |  More (2558)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Right (473)  |  See (1094)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Student (317)  |  Thought (995)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Turn (454)  |  Usually (176)  |  Wrong (246)


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.