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: “I believe that this Nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index I > Category: Imaginary

Imaginary Quotes (16 quotes)

... semantics ... is a sober and modest discipline which has no pretensions of being a universal patent-medicine for all the ills and diseases of mankind, whether imaginary or real. You will not find in semantics any remedy for decayed teeth or illusions of grandeur or class conflict. Nor is semantics a device for establishing that everyone except the speaker and his friends is speaking nonsense
In 'The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics', collected in Leonard Linsky (ed.), Semantics and the Philosophy of Language: A Collection of Readings (1952), 17.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Class (168)  |  Conflict (77)  |  Decay (59)  |  Device (71)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Disease (340)  |  Establishing (7)  |  Everyone (35)  |  Find (1014)  |  Friend (180)  |  Grandeur (35)  |  Ill (12)  |  Illusion (68)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Modest (19)  |  Nonsense (48)  |  Patent (34)  |  Patent Medicine (2)  |  Pretension (6)  |  Real (159)  |  Remedy (63)  |  Semantics (3)  |  Sober (10)  |  Speaker (6)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Teeth (43)  |  Universal (198)  |  Will (2350)

Occult sciences. Those imaginary sciences of the middle ages which related to the influence of supernatural powers, such as alchemy, magic, necromancy, and astrology.
In Noah Webster, Noah Porter (supervising ed.) and Dorsey Gardner (ed.), Webster's Condensed Dictionary: A Condensed Dictionary of the English Language (1884, 1887), 385.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Alchemy (31)  |  Astrology (46)  |  Influence (231)  |  Magic (92)  |  Middle Age (19)  |  Middle Ages (12)  |  Necromancy (3)  |  Occult (9)  |  Power (771)  |  Supernatural (26)

Arithmetic, as we shall see by and by, is overdone, in a certain sense, in our schools; just so far as the teaching is based upon the concrete, so far is it profitable; but when the book-makers begin to make it too abstract, as they very often do, it becomes a torture to both teacher and learners, or, at best, a branch of imaginary knowledge unconnected with real life.
From 'Introduction', Mathematical Teaching and its Modern Methods (1886), 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Base (120)  |  Become (821)  |  Begin (275)  |  Best (467)  |  Book (413)  |  Both (496)  |  Branch (155)  |  Certain (557)  |  Concrete (55)  |  Do (1905)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Learner (10)  |  Life (1870)  |  Maker (34)  |  Overdo (2)  |  Profitable (29)  |  Real Life (8)  |  School (227)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Torture (30)  |  Unconnected (10)

Does the evolutionary doctrine clash with religious faith? It does not. It is a blunder to mistake the Holy Scriptures for elementary textbooks of astronomy, geology, biology, and anthropology. Only if symbols are construed to mean what they are not intended to mean can there arise imaginary, insoluble conflicts. ... the blunder leads to blasphemy: the Creator is accused of systematic deceitfulness.
In 'Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution', The American Biology Teacher (Mar 1973), 125-129.
Science quotes on:  |  Accused (3)  |  Anthropology (61)  |  Arise (162)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Biology (232)  |  Blasphemy (8)  |  Blunder (21)  |  Clash (10)  |  Conflict (77)  |  Construed (2)  |  Creator (97)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Evolutionary (23)  |  Faith (209)  |  Geology (240)  |  Holy (35)  |  Insoluble (15)  |  Intended (3)  |  Lead (391)  |  Mean (810)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Religious (134)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Scripture (14)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Systematic (58)  |  Textbook (39)

I also require much time to ponder over the matters themselves, and particularly the principles of mechanics (as the very words: force, time, space, motion indicate) can occupy one severely enough; likewise, in mathematics, the meaning of imaginary quantities, of the infinitesimally small and infinitely large and similar matters.
In Davis Baird, R.I.G. Hughes and Alfred Nordmann, Heinrich Hertz: Classical Physicist, Modern Philosopher (1998), 159.
Science quotes on:  |  Enough (341)  |  Force (497)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Infinitesimal (30)  |  Large (398)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Matter (821)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Motion (320)  |  Occupation (51)  |  Ponder (15)  |  Principle (530)  |  Require (229)  |  Requirement (66)  |  Small (489)  |  Space (523)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Time (1911)  |  Word (650)

I have presented the periodic table as a kind of travel guide to an imaginary country, of which the elements are the various regions. This kingdom has a geography: the elements lie in particular juxtaposition to one another, and they are used to produce goods, much as a prairie produces wheat and a lake produces fish. It also has a history. Indeed, it has three kinds of history: the elements were discovered much as the lands of the world were discovered; the kingdom was mapped, just as the world was mapped, and the relative positions of the elements came to take on a great significance; and the elements have their own cosmic history, which can be traced back to the stars.
In The Periodic Kingdom: A Journey Into the Land of the Chemical Elements (1995), Preface, viii.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Country (269)  |  Discover (571)  |  Element (322)  |  Fish (130)  |  Geography (39)  |  Good (906)  |  Goods (9)  |  Great (1610)  |  Guide (107)  |  History (716)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Juxtaposition (3)  |  Kind (564)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Lake (36)  |  Land (131)  |  Lie (370)  |  Map (50)  |  Periodic Table (19)  |  Position (83)  |  Prairie (4)  |  Present (630)  |  Produce (117)  |  Region (40)  |  Relative (42)  |  Significance (114)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Table (105)  |  Trace (109)  |  Travel (125)  |  Various (205)  |  Wheat (10)  |  World (1850)

I should rejoice to see … Euclid honourably shelved or buried “deeper than did ever plummet sound” out of the schoolboys’ reach; morphology introduced into the elements of algebra; projection, correlation, and motion accepted as aids to geometry; the mind of the student quickened and elevated and his faith awakened by early initiation into the ruling ideas of polarity, continuity, infinity, and familiarization with the doctrines of the imaginary and inconceivable.
From Presidential Address (1869) to the British Association, Exeter, Section A, collected in Collected Mathematical Papers of Lames Joseph Sylvester (1908), Vol. 2, 657. Also in George Edward Martin, The Foundations of Geometry and the Non-Euclidean Plane (1982), 93. [Note: “plummet sound” refers to ocean depth measurement (sound) from a ship using a line dropped with a weight (plummet). —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Aid (101)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Awaken (17)  |  Bury (19)  |  Continuity (39)  |  Correlation (19)  |  Deep (241)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Early (196)  |  Element (322)  |  Elevate (15)  |  Euclid (60)  |  Faith (209)  |  Familiarization (2)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Idea (881)  |  Inconceivable (13)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Initiation (8)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Morphology (22)  |  Motion (320)  |  Plummet (2)  |  Polarity (5)  |  Projection (5)  |  Quicken (7)  |  Reach (286)  |  Rejoice (11)  |  Rule (307)  |  Schoolboy (9)  |  See (1094)  |  Shelve (2)  |  Sound (187)  |  Student (317)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)

Imaginary numbers are a fine and wonderful refuge of the divine spirit almost an amphibian between being and non-being. (1702)
[Alternate translation:] The Divine Spirit found a sublime outlet in that wonder of analysis, that portent of the ideal world, that amphibian between being and not-being, which we call the imaginary root of negative unity.
Quoted in Félix Klein, Elementary Mathematics From an Advanced Standpoint: Arithmetic, Algebra, Analysis (1924), 56. Alternate translation as quoted in Tobias Dantzig, Number, the Language of Science: a Critical Survey Written for the Cultured Non-Mathematician (1930), 204
Science quotes on:  |  Amphibian (7)  |  Analaysis (2)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Being (1276)  |  Call (781)  |  Divine (112)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Imaginary Number (6)  |  Negative (66)  |  Number (710)  |  Refuge (15)  |  Root (121)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Sublime (50)  |  Translation (21)  |  Unity (81)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  World (1850)

Mathematics, indeed, is the very example of brevity, whether it be in the shorthand rule of the circle, c = πd, or in that fruitful formula of analysis, e = -1, —a formula which fuses together four of the most important concepts of the science,—the logarithmic base, the transcendental ratio π, and the imaginary and negative units.
In 'The Poetry of Mathematics', The Mathematics Teacher (May 1926), 19, No. 5, 293.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Base (120)  |  Brevity (8)  |  Circle (117)  |  Circumference (23)  |  Concept (242)  |  Example (98)  |  Formula (102)  |  Fruitful (61)  |  Fuse (5)  |  Important (229)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Logarithm (12)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Most (1728)  |  Negative (66)  |  Pi (14)  |  Ratio (41)  |  Rule (307)  |  Shorthand (5)  |  Together (392)  |  Transcendental (11)  |  Unit (36)

Most of the arts, as painting, sculpture, and music, have emotional appeal to the general public. This is because these arts can be experienced by some one or more of our senses. Such is not true of the art of mathematics; this art can be appreciated only by mathematicians, and to become a mathematician requires a long period of intensive training. The community of mathematicians is similar to an imaginary community of musical composers whose only satisfaction is obtained by the interchange among themselves of the musical scores they compose.
In Anton Z. Capri, Quips, Quotes and Quanta: An Anecdotal History of Physics (2007), 151. The author described Lanczos invited up on the platform at the Trieste Conference to celebrate Dirac’s 70th birthday, and gave an impromptu quote by Lanczos speaking about Pauli. The author followed that unrelated topic with another beginning, “Here is a comment by Lanczos…” followed by the subject quote above.
Science quotes on:  |  Appeal (46)  |  Appreciate (67)  |  Art (680)  |  Become (821)  |  Community (111)  |  Compose (20)  |  Composer (7)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Experience (494)  |  General (521)  |  General Public (7)  |  Intensive (9)  |  Interchange (4)  |  Long (778)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Music (133)  |  Musical (10)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Painting (46)  |  Period (200)  |  Require (229)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Score (8)  |  Sculpture (12)  |  Sense (785)  |  Similar (36)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Training (92)

Pride is a sense of worth derived from something that is not organically part of us, while self-esteem derives from the potentialities and achievements of the self. We are proud when we identify ourselves with an imaginary self, a leader, a holy cause, a collective body or possessions. There is fear and intolerance in pride; it is sensitive and uncompromising. The less promise and potency in the self, the more imperative is the need for pride. The core of pride is self-rejection.
In The Passionate State of Mind (1955), 23.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Body (557)  |  Cause (561)  |  Collective (24)  |  Core (20)  |  Derive (70)  |  Fear (212)  |  Holy (35)  |  Identify (13)  |  Imperative (16)  |  Intolerance (8)  |  Leader (51)  |  Less (105)  |  More (2558)  |  Need (320)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Part (235)  |  Possession (68)  |  Potency (10)  |  Potentiality (9)  |  Pride (84)  |  Promise (72)  |  Rejection (36)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Esteem (7)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sensitive (15)  |  Something (718)  |  Uncompromising (2)  |  Worth (172)

The cell phone has transformed public places into giant phone-a-thons in which callers exist within narcissistic cocoons of private conversations. Like faxes, computer modems and other modern gadgets that have clogged out lives with phony urgency, cell phones represent the 20th Century’s escalation of imaginary need. We didn’t need cell phones until we had them. Clearly, cell phones cause not only a breakdown of courtesy, but the atrophy of basic skills.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  20th Century (40)  |  Atrophy (8)  |  Basic (144)  |  Breakdown (3)  |  Caller (2)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cell Phone (6)  |  Century (319)  |  Clearly (45)  |  Clog (5)  |  Cocoon (4)  |  Computer (131)  |  Conversation (46)  |  Courtesy (3)  |  Exist (458)  |  Gadget (3)  |  Giant (73)  |  Live (650)  |  Modem (3)  |  Modern (402)  |  Narcissistic (2)  |  Need (320)  |  Other (2233)  |  Phony (3)  |  Place (192)  |  Private (29)  |  Public (100)  |  Represent (157)  |  Skill (116)  |  Transform (74)  |  Urgency (13)

The genuine spirit of Mathesis is devout. No intellectual pursuit more truly leads to profound impressions of the existence and attributes of a Creator, and to a deep sense of our filial relations to him, than the study of these abstract sciences. Who can understand so well how feeble are our conceptions of Almighty Power, as he who has calculated the attraction of the sun and the planets, and weighed in his balance the irresistible force of the lightning? Who can so well understand how confused is our estimate of the Eternal Wisdom, as he who has traced out the secret laws which guide the hosts of heaven, and combine the atoms on earth? Who can so well understand that man is made in the image of his Creator, as he who has sought to frame new laws and conditions to govern imaginary worlds, and found his own thoughts similar to those on which his Creator has acted?
In 'The Imagination in Mathematics', North American Review, 85, 226.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Act (278)  |  Almighty (23)  |  Atom (381)  |  Attraction (61)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Balance (82)  |  Calculate (58)  |  Combine (58)  |  Conception (160)  |  Condition (362)  |  Confused (13)  |  Creator (97)  |  Deep (241)  |  Devout (5)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Existence (481)  |  Feeble (28)  |  Find (1014)  |  Force (497)  |  Frame (26)  |  Genuine (54)  |  Govern (66)  |  Guide (107)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Host (16)  |  Image (97)  |  Impression (118)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Irresistible (17)  |  Law (913)  |  Lead (391)  |  Lightning (49)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  New (1273)  |  Planet (402)  |  Power (771)  |  Profound (105)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Relation (166)  |  Secret (216)  |  Seek (218)  |  Sense (785)  |  Similar (36)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Study (701)  |  Sun (407)  |  Thought (995)  |  Trace (109)  |  Truly (118)  |  Understand (648)  |  Weigh (51)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  World (1850)

The notion, which is really the fundamental one (and I cannot too strongly emphasise the assertion), underlying and pervading the whole of modern analysis and geometry, is that of imaginary magnitude in analysis and of imaginary space in geometry.
In Presidential Address, in Collected Works, Vol. 11, 434.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Assertion (35)  |  Emphasize (25)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Mathematics (50)  |  Notion (120)  |  Pervade (10)  |  Pervading (7)  |  Space (523)  |  Strongly (9)  |  Underlying (33)  |  Whole (756)

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
Essay, 'The Smart Set' (Dec 1921), 29. As cited in A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949, 2012), p. 29 (1949).
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Alarm (19)  |  Clamor (7)  |  Endless (60)  |  Keep (104)  |  Lead (391)  |  Menace (7)  |  Politics (122)  |  Populace (3)  |  Practical (225)  |  Safety (58)  |  Series (153)  |  Whole (756)

Today it is no longer questioned that the principles of the analysts are the more far-reaching. Indeed, the synthesists lack two things in order to engage in a general theory of algebraic configurations: these are on the one hand a definition of imaginary elements, on the other an interpretation of general algebraic concepts. Both of these have subsequently been developed in synthetic form, but to do this the essential principle of synthetic geometry had to be set aside. This principle which manifests itself so brilliantly in the theory of linear forms and the forms of the second degree, is the possibility of immediate proof by means of visualized constructions.
In Riemannsche Flächen (1906), Bd. 1, 234.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Analyst (8)  |  Both (496)  |  Brilliant (57)  |  Concept (242)  |  Configuration (8)  |  Construction (114)  |  Definition (238)  |  Degree (277)  |  Develop (278)  |  Do (1905)  |  Element (322)  |  Engage (41)  |  Essential (210)  |  Far-Reaching (9)  |  Form (976)  |  General (521)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Lack (127)  |  Linear (13)  |  Manifest (21)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  More (2558)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Principle (530)  |  Proof (304)  |  Question (649)  |  Set (400)  |  Set Aside (4)  |  Study And Research In Mathematics (61)  |  Subsequent (34)  |  Synthetic (27)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Today (321)  |  Two (936)  |  Visualize (8)


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.