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

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

Ivory Tower Quotes (5 quotes)
Ivory Towers Quotes

In 1944 Erwin Schroedinger, stimulated intellectually by Max Delbruck, published a little book called What is life? It was an inspiration to the first of the molecular biologists, and has been, along with Delbruck himself, credited for directing the research during the next decade that solved the mystery of how 'like begat like.' Max was awarded this Prize in 1969, and rejoicing in it, he also lamented that the work for which he was honored before all the peoples of the world was not something which he felt he could share with more than a handful. Samuel Beckett's contributions to literature, being honored at the same time, seemed to Max somehow universally accessible to anyone. But not his. In his lecture here Max imagined his imprisonment in an ivory tower of science.
'The Polymerase Chain Reaction', Nobel Lecture (8 Dec 1993). In Nobel Lectures: Chemistry 1991-1995 (1997), 103.
Science quotes on:  |  Accessible (27)  |  Award (13)  |  Samuel Beckett (3)  |  Being (1276)  |  Biologist (70)  |  Book (413)  |  Call (781)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Credit (24)  |  Decade (66)  |  Max Ludwig Henning Delbrück (20)  |  First (1302)  |  Handful (14)  |  Himself (461)  |  Honor (57)  |  Honour (58)  |  Imprisonment (2)  |  Inspiration (80)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Lament (11)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Life (1870)  |  Literature (116)  |  Little (717)  |  Molecular Biologist (3)  |  More (2558)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Next (238)  |  Nobel Prize (42)  |  People (1031)  |  Publication (102)  |  Research (753)  |  Erwin Schrödinger (68)  |  Share (82)  |  Simulation (7)  |  Somehow (48)  |  Something (718)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tower (45)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

Scientists are supposed to live in ivory towers. Their darkrooms and their vibration-proof benches are supposed to isolate their activities from the disturbances of common life. What they tell us is supposed to be for the ages, not for the next election. But the reality may be otherwise.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Age (509)  |  Bench (8)  |  Common (447)  |  Disturbance (34)  |  Election (7)  |  Isolate (24)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Next (238)  |  Otherwise (26)  |  Proof (304)  |  Reality (274)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Tell (344)  |  Tower (45)  |  Vibration (26)

They think that differential equations are not reality. Hearing some colleagues speak, it’s as though theoretical physics was just playing house with plastic building blocks. This absurd idea has gained currency, and now people seem to feel that theoretical physicists are little more than dreamers locked away ivory towers. They think our games, our little houses, bear no relation to their everyday worries, their interests, their problems, or their welfare. But I’m going to tell you something, and I want you to take it as a ground rule for this course. From now on I will be filling this board with equations. … And when I'm done, I want you to do the following: look at those numbers, all those little numbers and Greek letters on the board, and repeat to yourselves, “This is reality,” repeat it over and over.
Zig Zag, trans. Lisa Dillman (2008), 63.
Science quotes on:  |  Absurd (60)  |  Bear (162)  |  Board (13)  |  Building (158)  |  Building Block (9)  |  Colleague (51)  |  Course (413)  |  Differential Equation (18)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dreamer (14)  |  Equation (138)  |  Everyday (32)  |  Feel (371)  |  Gain (146)  |  Game (104)  |  Greek (109)  |  Ground (222)  |  Hearing (50)  |  House (143)  |  Idea (881)  |  Interest (416)  |  Letter (117)  |  Little (717)  |  Look (584)  |  More (2558)  |  Number (710)  |  People (1031)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Plastic (30)  |  Playing (42)  |  Problem (731)  |  Reality (274)  |  Repeat (44)  |  Rule (307)  |  Something (718)  |  Speak (240)  |  Tell (344)  |  Theoretical Physicist (21)  |  Theoretical Physics (26)  |  Think (1122)  |  Tower (45)  |  Want (504)  |  Welfare (30)  |  Will (2350)  |  Worry (34)

We look down on our research scientists … if they engage themselves in outside consultation, or if they choose to augment their income from projects of a practical nature. We implicitly promote the ivory tower, the alienation of the persons of insight from those who do things.
In 'Leadership in Science', The Indian Review (Jul-Dec 1966), 65, 293. Also seen condensed to “We look down on our scientists if they engage in outside consultation. We implicitly promote the ivory tower,” as quoted in India Today (Apr 2008), 33, No 16, as cited on webpage of Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology.
Science quotes on:  |  Alienation (2)  |  Consulting (13)  |  Engage (41)  |  Implicit (12)  |  Income (18)  |  Look Down (3)  |  Outside (141)  |  Practical (225)  |  Promote (32)  |  Research (753)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Tower (45)

What is mathematics? What is it for? What are mathematicians doing nowadays? Wasn't it all finished long ago? How many new numbers can you invent anyway? Is today’s mathematics just a matter of huge calculations, with the mathematician as a kind of zookeeper, making sure the precious computers are fed and watered? If it’s not, what is it other than the incomprehensible outpourings of superpowered brainboxes with their heads in the clouds and their feet dangling from the lofty balconies of their ivory towers?
Mathematics is all of these, and none. Mostly, it’s just different. It’s not what you expect it to be, you turn your back for a moment and it's changed. It's certainly not just a fixed body of knowledge, its growth is not confined to inventing new numbers, and its hidden tendrils pervade every aspect of modern life.
Opening paragraphs of 'Preface', From Here to Infinity (1996), vii.
Science quotes on:  |  Aspect (129)  |  Back (395)  |  Balcony (2)  |  Body (557)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Change (639)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Computer (131)  |  Confine (26)  |  Dangle (2)  |  Different (595)  |  Doing (277)  |  Expect (203)  |  Finish (62)  |  Finished (4)  |  Fixed (17)  |  Foot (65)  |  Growth (200)  |  Head (87)  |  Hidden (43)  |  Huge (30)  |  Incomprehensible (31)  |  Invent (57)  |  Kind (564)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lofty (16)  |  Long (778)  |  Long Ago (12)  |  Making (300)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Matter (821)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Life (3)  |  Moment (260)  |  New (1273)  |  Nowadays (6)  |  Number (710)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pervade (10)  |  Precious (43)  |  Today (321)  |  Tower (45)  |  Turn (454)  |  Water (503)  |  Zookeeper (2)


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.