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 seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, ... finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell ... whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index S > Category: Shock

Shock Quotes (38 quotes)


… (T)he same cause, such as electricity, can simultaneously affect all sensory organs, since they are all sensitive to it; and yet, every sensory nerve reacts to it differently; one nerve perceives it as light, another hears its sound, another one smells it; another tastes the electricity, and another one feels it as pain and shock. One nerve perceives a luminous picture through mechanical irritation, another one hears it as buzzing, another one senses it as pain… He who feels compelled to consider the consequences of these facts cannot but realize that the specific sensibility of nerves for certain impressions is not enough, since all nerves are sensitive to the same cause but react to the same cause in different ways… (S)ensation is not the conduction of a quality or state of external bodies to consciousness, but the conduction of a quality or state of our nerves to consciousness, excited by an external cause.
Law of Specific Nerve Energies.
Handbuch der Physiologie des Menschen für Vorlesungen, 2nd Ed. translation by Edwin Clarke and Charles Donald O'Malley
Science quotes on:  |  Cause (561)  |  Certain (557)  |  Conduction (8)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Consider (428)  |  Different (595)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Enough (341)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Feel (371)  |  Hear (144)  |  Impression (118)  |  Law (913)  |  Light (635)  |  Luminous (19)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Nerve (82)  |  Organ (118)  |  Pain (144)  |  Picture (148)  |  Quality (139)  |  Realize (157)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sensory (16)  |  Smell (29)  |  Sound (187)  |  Specific (98)  |  State (505)  |  Taste (93)  |  Through (846)  |  Way (1214)

“Advance, ye mates! Cross your lances full before me. Well done! Let me touch the axis.” So saying, with extended arm, he grasped the three level, radiating lances at their crossed centre; while so doing, suddenly and nervously twitched them; meanwhile, glancing intently from Starbuck to Stubb; from Stubb to Flask. It seemed as though, by some nameless, interior volition, he would fain have shocked into them the same fiery emotion accumulated within the Leyden jar of his own magnetic life. The three mates quailed before his strong, sustained, and mystic aspect. Stubb and Flask looked sideways from him; the honest eye of Starbuck fell downright.
“In vain!&rsdquo; cried Ahab; “but, maybe, ’tis well. For did ye three but once take the full-forced shock, then mine own electric thing, that had perhaps expired from out me. Perchance, too, it would have dropped ye dead.…”
[Commentary by Henry Schlesinger: Electricity—mysterious and powerful as it seemed at the time—served as a perfect metaphor for Captain Ahab’s primal obsession and madness, which he transmits through the crew as if through an electrical circuit in Moby-Dick.]
Extract from Herman Melville, Moby-Dick and comment by Henry Schlesinger from his The Battery: How Portable Power Sparked a Technological Revolution (2010), 64.
Science quotes on:  |  Accumulation (51)  |  Advance (298)  |  Arm (82)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Captain (16)  |  Circuit (29)  |  Death (406)  |  Doing (277)  |  Dropped (17)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electrical (57)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Extend (129)  |  Eye (440)  |  Honest (53)  |  Interior (35)  |  Leyden Jar (2)  |  Life (1870)  |  Look (584)  |  Madness (33)  |  Magnetic (44)  |  Metaphor (37)  |  Mine (78)  |  Mysterious (83)  |  Mystic (23)  |  Obsession (13)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Quail (2)  |  Strong (182)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Sustain (52)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Touch (146)  |  Vain (86)  |  Volition (3)

[After the flash of the atomic bomb test explosion] Fermi got up and dropped small pieces of paper … a simple experiment to measure the energy liberated by the explosion … [W]hen the front of the shock wave arrived (some seconds after the flash) the pieces of paper were displaced a few centimeters in the direction of propagation of the shock wave. From the distance of the source and from the displacement of the air due to the shock wave, he could calculate the energy of the explosion. This Fermi had done in advance having prepared himself a table of numbers, so that he could tell immediately the energy liberated from this crude but simple measurement. … It is also typical that his answer closely approximated that of the elaborate official measurements. The latter, however, were available only after several days’ study of the records, whereas Fermi had his within seconds.
In Enrico Fermi: Physicist (1970), 147-148.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Air (366)  |  Answer (389)  |  Approximation (32)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Available (80)  |  Calculate (58)  |  Crude (32)  |  Direction (185)  |  Displacement (9)  |  Distance (171)  |  Dropped (17)  |  Dropping (8)  |  Due (143)  |  Elaborate (31)  |  Energy (373)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Explosion (51)  |  Enrico Fermi (20)  |  Flash (49)  |  Himself (461)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Measure (241)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Number (710)  |  Paper (192)  |  Propagation (15)  |  Record (161)  |  Second (66)  |  Shock Wave (3)  |  Simple (426)  |  Small (489)  |  Study (701)  |  Table (105)  |  Tell (344)  |  Test (221)  |  Trinity (9)  |  Wave (112)

[Godfrey H. Hardy] personified the popular idea of the absent-minded professor. But those who formed the idea that he was merely an absent-minded professor would receive a shock in conversation, where he displayed amazing vitality on every subject under the sun. ... He was interested in the game of chess, but was frankly puzzled by something in its nature which seemed to come into conflict with his mathematical principles.
In 'Prof. G. H. Hardy: A Mathematician of Genius,' Obituary The Times.
Science quotes on:  |  Absent-Minded (4)  |  Amazing (35)  |  Chess (27)  |  Conflict (77)  |  Conversation (46)  |  Display (59)  |  Form (976)  |  Game (104)  |  G. H. Hardy (71)  |  Idea (881)  |  Interest (416)  |  Merely (315)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Obituary (11)  |  Principle (530)  |  Professor (133)  |  Receive (117)  |  Something (718)  |  Subject (543)  |  Sun (407)  |  Vitality (24)

[The chemical bond] First, it is related to the disposition of two electrons (remember, no one has ever seen an electron!): next, these electrons have their spins pointing in opposite directions (remember, no one can ever measure the spin of a particular electron!): then, the spatial distribution of these electrons is described analytically with some degree of precision (remember, there is no way of distinguishing experimentally the density distribution of one electron from another!): concepts like hybridization, covalent and ionic structures, resonance, all appear, not one of which corresponds to anything that is directly measurable. These concepts make a chemical bond seem so real, so life-like, that I can almost see it. Then I wake with a shock to the realization that a chemical bond does not exist; it is a figment of the imagination that we have invented, and no more real than the square root of - 1. I will not say that the known is explained in terms of the unknown, for that is to misconstrue the sense of intellectual adventure. There is no explanation: there is form: there is structure: there is symmetry: there is growth: and there is therefore change and life.
Quoted in his obituary, Biographical Memoirs of the Fellows of the Royal Society 1974, 20, 96.
Science quotes on:  |  Adventure (69)  |  Bond (46)  |  Change (639)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemical Bond (7)  |  Concept (242)  |  Covalent (2)  |  Degree (277)  |  Density (25)  |  Direction (185)  |  Disposition (44)  |  Distribution (51)  |  Electron (96)  |  Exist (458)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Growth (200)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Known (453)  |  Life (1870)  |  Measure (241)  |  More (2558)  |  Next (238)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Precision (72)  |  Realization (44)  |  Remember (189)  |  Resonance (7)  |  Root (121)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Spin (26)  |  Square (73)  |  Square Root (12)  |  Structure (365)  |  Symmetry (44)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Two (936)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

[About reading Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, age 14, in the back seat of his parents' sedan. I almost threw up. I got physically ill when I learned that ospreys and peregrine falcons weren't raising chicks because of what people were spraying on bugs at their farms and lawns. This was the first time I learned that humans could impact the environment with chemicals. [That a corporation would create a product that didn't operate as advertised] was shocking in a way we weren't inured to.
As quoted by Eliza Griswold, in 'The Wild Life of “Silent Spring”', New York Times (23 Sep 2012), Magazine 39.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Back (395)  |  Bug (10)  |  Rachel Carson (49)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chick (5)  |  Corporation (6)  |  Create (245)  |  Environment (239)  |  Falcon (2)  |  Farm (28)  |  First (1302)  |  Human (1512)  |  Impact (45)  |  Lawn (5)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Parent (80)  |  People (1031)  |  Product (166)  |  Reading (136)  |  Sick (83)  |  Spring (140)  |  Time (1911)  |  Way (1214)

A linguist would be shocked to learn that if a set is not closed this does not mean that it is open, or again that “E is dense in E” does not mean the same thing as “E is dense in itself”.
Given, without citation, in A Mathematician’s Miscellany (1953), reissued as Béla Bollobás (ed.), Littlewood’s Miscellany (1986), 57.
Science quotes on:  |  Closed (38)  |  Dense (5)  |  Learn (672)  |  Linguist (2)  |  Mean (810)  |  Open (277)  |  Set (400)  |  Thing (1914)

An induction shock results in a contraction or fails to do so according to its strength; if it does so at all, it produces in the muscle at that time the maximal contraction that can result from stimuli of any strength.
Über die Eigentümlichkeiten der Reizbarkeit welche die Muskelfasern des Herzen zeigen', Ber. süchs. Akad. Wiss., Math.-nat Klasse, 1871, 23, 652-689. Trans. Edwin Clarke and C. D. O'Malley, The Human Brain and Spinal Cord (1968), 218.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Contraction (18)  |  Do (1905)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Fail (191)  |  Induction (81)  |  Muscle (47)  |  Result (700)  |  Strength (139)  |  Time (1911)

Anyone who is not shocked by the quantum theory has not understood it. [Attributed.]
Webmaster is not alone in failing to find a primary source. Regardless of how widely quoted, the few citations to be found merely reference other books in which it is stated without a valid citation. For example, this quote is an epigraph in Eric Middleton, The New Flatlanders (2007), 19, with a note (p.151) citing Niels Bohr, Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge (1958), but Webmaster’s search of that text does not find it. If you know the primary source, or an early citation, please contact Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quantum Theory (67)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Understood (155)

As I stood behind the coffin of my little son the other day, with my mind bent on anything but disputation, the officiating minister read, as part of his duty, the words, 'If the dead rise not again, let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.' I cannot tell you how inexpressibly they shocked me. Paul had neither wife nor child, or he must have known that his alternative involved a blasphemy against all that well best and noblest in human nature. I could have laughed with scorn. What! Because I am face to face with irreparable loss, because I have given back to the source from whence it came, the cause of a great happiness, still retaining through all my life the blessings which have sprung and will spring from that cause, I am to renounce my manhood, and, howling, grovel in bestiality? Why, the very apes know better, and if you shoot their young, the poor brutes grieve their grief out and do not immediately seek distraction in a gorge.
Letter to Charles Kingsley (23 Sep 1860). In L. Huxley, The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley (1903), Vol. 1, 318.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Ape (54)  |  Back (395)  |  Behind (139)  |  Best (467)  |  Better (493)  |  Blasphemy (8)  |  Blessing (26)  |  Blessings (17)  |  Brute (30)  |  Cause (561)  |  Child (333)  |  Coffin (7)  |  Death (406)  |  Do (1905)  |  Drink (56)  |  Eat (108)  |  Face (214)  |  Great (1610)  |  Grief (20)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Involved (90)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Laugh (50)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Loss (117)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Poor (139)  |  Read (308)  |  Renounce (6)  |  Rise (169)  |  Scorn (12)  |  Seek (218)  |  Son (25)  |  Spring (140)  |  Still (614)  |  Tell (344)  |  Through (846)  |  Why (491)  |  Wife (41)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)  |  Young (253)

As physicists have arranged an extensive series of effects under the general term of Heat, so they have named another series Light, and a third they have called Electricity. We find ... that all these principles are capable of being produced through the medium of living bodies, for nearly all animals have the power of evolving heat; many insects, moreover, can voluntarily emit light; and the property of producing electricity is well evinced in the terrible shock of the electric eel, as well as in that of some other creatures. We are indeed in the habit of talking of the Electric fluid, or the Galvanic fluid, but this in reality is nothing but a licence of expression suitable to our finite and material notions.
In the Third Edition of Elements of Electro-Metallurgy: or The Art of Working in Metals by the Galvanic Fluid (1851), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Being (1276)  |  Call (781)  |  Capable (174)  |  Creature (242)  |  Effect (414)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Emit (15)  |  Expression (181)  |  Extensive (34)  |  Find (1014)  |  Finding (34)  |  Finite (60)  |  Fluid (54)  |  General (521)  |  Habit (174)  |  Heat (180)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Insect (89)  |  Light (635)  |  Living (492)  |  Living Body (3)  |  Material (366)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Notion (120)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Power (771)  |  Principle (530)  |  Produced (187)  |  Production (190)  |  Property (177)  |  Reality (274)  |  Series (153)  |  Talking (76)  |  Term (357)  |  Terrible (41)  |  Through (846)

Experimenters are the shock troops of science.
'The Meaning and Limits of Exact Science', Science (30 Sep 1949), 110, No. 2857, 325. Advance reprinting of chapter from book Max Planck, Scientific Autobiography (1949), 110.
Science quotes on:  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimenter (40)  |  Research (753)

Gravity, a mere nuisance to Christian, was a terror to Pope, Pagan, and Despair. You can drop a mouse down a thousand-yard mine shaft; and, on arriving at the bottom, it gets a slight shock and walks away, provided that the ground is fairly soft. A rat is killed, a man is broken, a horse splashes.
Essay, 'On Being the Right Size', collected in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays (1927, 1945), 19. (Note: Christian appears in John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress, in which Pope, Pagan and Despair are giants — Webmaster.)
Science quotes on:  |  Bottom (36)  |  Broken (56)  |  John Bunyan (5)  |  Christian (44)  |  Despair (40)  |  Down (455)  |  Drop (77)  |  Giant (73)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Ground (222)  |  Horse (78)  |  Kill (100)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mine (78)  |  Mouse (33)  |  Nuisance (10)  |  Pope (10)  |  Rat (37)  |  Shaft (5)  |  Soft (30)  |  Terror (32)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Walk (138)

However dangerous might be the shock of a comet, it might be so slight, that it would only do damage at the part of the Earth where it actually struck; perhaps even we might cry quits if while one kingdom were devastated, the rest of the Earth were to enjoy the rarities which a body which came from so far might bring it. Perhaps we should be very surprised to find that the debris of these masses that we despised were formed of gold and diamonds; but who would be the most astonished, we, or the comet-dwellers, who would be cast on our Earth? What strange being each would find the other!
From 'Lettre sur la comète', Œuvres de M. Maupertuis (1752), 203. As quoted in Carl Sagan, Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science (1979), 95-96.
Science quotes on:  |  Alien (35)  |  Astonish (39)  |  Being (1276)  |  Body (557)  |  Cast (69)  |  Comet (65)  |  Cry (30)  |  Damage (38)  |  Dangerous (108)  |  Debris (7)  |  Diamond (21)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Find (1014)  |  Form (976)  |  Gold (101)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Most (1728)  |  Other (2233)  |  Rest (287)  |  Strange (160)

I hadn’t been aware that there were doors closed to me until I started knocking on them. I went to an all-girls school. There were 75 chemistry majors in that class, but most were going to teach it … When I got out and they didn't want women in the laboratory, it was a shock … It was the Depression and nobody was getting jobs. But I had taken that to mean nobody was getting jobs … [when I heard] “You're qualified. But we’ve never had a woman in the laboratory before, and we think you’d be a distracting influence.”
As quoted in Sharon Bertsch McGrayne, Nobel Prize Women in Science: Their Lives, Struggles and Momentous Discoveries (1993).
Science quotes on:  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Class (168)  |  Closed (38)  |  Depression (26)  |  Door (94)  |  Girl (38)  |  Influence (231)  |  Job (86)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Major (88)  |  Mean (810)  |  Most (1728)  |  Never (1089)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Qualified (12)  |  School (227)  |  Start (237)  |  Teach (299)  |  Think (1122)  |  Want (504)  |  Woman (160)  |  Women Scientists (18)

I have no doubt that certain learned men, now that the novelty of the hypotheses in this work has been widely reported—for it establishes that the Earth moves, and indeed that the Sun is motionless in the middle of the universe—are extremely shocked, and think that the scholarly disciplines, rightly established once and for all, should not be upset. But if they are willing to judge the matter thoroughly, they will find that the author of this work has committed nothing which deserves censure. For it is proper for an astronomer to establish a record of the motions of the heavens with diligent and skilful observations, and then to think out and construct laws for them, or rather hypotheses, whatever their nature may be, since the true laws cannot be reached by the use of reason; and from those assumptions the motions can be correctly calculated, both for the future and for the past. Our author has shown himself outstandingly skilful in both these respects. Nor is it necessary that these hypotheses should be true, nor indeed even probable, but it is sufficient if they merely produce calculations which agree with the observations. … For it is clear enough that this subject is completely and simply ignorant of the laws which produce apparently irregular motions. And if it does work out any laws—as certainly it does work out very many—it does not do so in any way with the aim of persuading anyone that they are valid, but only to provide a correct basis for calculation. Since different hypotheses are sometimes available to explain one and the same motion (for instance eccentricity or an epicycle for the motion of the Sun) an astronomer will prefer to seize on the one which is easiest to grasp; a philosopher will perhaps look more for probability; but neither will grasp or convey anything certain, unless it has been divinely revealed to him. Let us therefore allow these new hypotheses also to become known beside the older, which are no more probable, especially since they are remarkable and easy; and let them bring with them the vast treasury of highly learned observations. And let no one expect from astronomy, as far as hypotheses are concerned, anything certain, since it cannot produce any such thing, in case if he seizes on things constructed for another other purpose as true, he departs from this discipline more foolish than he came to it.
Although this preface would have been assumed by contemporary readers to be written by Copernicus, it was unsigned. It is now believed to have been written and added at press time by Andreas Osiander (who was then overseeing the printing of the book). It suggests the earth’s motion as described was merely a mathematical device, and not to be taken as absolute reality. Text as given in 'To the Reader on the Hypotheses in this Work', Copernicus: On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (1543), translated by ‎Alistair Matheson Duncan (1976), 22-3. By adding this preface, Osiander wished to stave off criticism by theologians. See also the Andreas Osiander Quotes page of this website.
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Author (175)  |  Available (80)  |  Basis (180)  |  Become (821)  |  Both (496)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Censure (5)  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Completely (137)  |  Concern (239)  |  Construct (129)  |  Deserve (65)  |  Different (595)  |  Diligent (19)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Easy (213)  |  Enough (341)  |  Expect (203)  |  Explain (334)  |  Find (1014)  |  Foolish (41)  |  Future (467)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Himself (461)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Judge (114)  |  Known (453)  |  Law (913)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Look (584)  |  Matter (821)  |  Merely (315)  |  More (2558)  |  Motion (320)  |  Move (223)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Novelty (31)  |  Observation (593)  |  Other (2233)  |  Past (355)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Probability (135)  |  Proper (150)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reason (766)  |  Record (161)  |  Respect (212)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Subject (543)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Sun (407)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Universe (900)  |  Upset (18)  |  Use (771)  |  Vast (188)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Will (2350)  |  Willing (44)  |  Work (1402)

I see no good reason why the views given in this volume should shock the religious feelings of anyone.
In Origin of Species (1860), 417.
Science quotes on:  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Good (906)  |  Reason (766)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religious (134)  |  See (1094)  |  View (496)  |  Why (491)

I see no good reason why the views given this volume [The Origin of Species] should shock the religious feelings of any one. It is satisfactory, as showing how transient such impressions are, to remember that the greatest discovery ever made by man, namely, the law of attraction of gravity, was also attacked by Leibnitz, “as subversive of natural, and inferentially of revealed, religion.”
The Origin of Species (1909), 520.
Science quotes on:  |  Attack (86)  |  Attraction (61)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Good (906)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Impression (118)  |  Law (913)  |  Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (51)  |  Man (2252)  |  Natural (810)  |  Origin (250)  |  Origin Of Species (42)  |  Reason (766)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religious (134)  |  Remember (189)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  See (1094)  |  Species (435)  |  Transient (13)  |  View (496)  |  Why (491)

Meanwhile I flatter myself with so much success, that: students... will not be so easily mistaken in the subjects of the mineral kingdom, as has happened with me and others in following former systems; and I also hope to obtain some protectors against those who are so possessed with the figuromania, and so addicted to the surface of things, that they are shocked at the boldness of calling a marble a limestone, and of placing the Porphyry amongst the Saxa.
An Essay Towards a System of Mineralogy (1770), trans. G. Von Engestrom, xxi.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Boldness (11)  |  Former (138)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Hope (321)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Limestone (6)  |  Marble (21)  |  Mineral (66)  |  Mineralogy (24)  |  Myself (211)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possess (157)  |  Student (317)  |  Subject (543)  |  Success (327)  |  Surface (223)  |  System (545)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Will (2350)

Men of science, osteologists
And surgeons, beat some poets, in respect
For nature,—count nought common or unclean,
Spend raptures upon perfect specimens
Of indurated veins, distorted joints,
Or beautiful new cases of curved spine;
While we, we are shocked at nature’s falling off,
We dare to shrink back from her warts and blains.
From poem, 'Aurora Leigh' (1856), Book 6. In Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Harriet Waters Preston (ed.), The Complete Poetical Works of Mrs. Browning (1900), 344.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Beat (42)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Common (447)  |  Count (107)  |  Dare (55)  |  Distort (22)  |  Health (210)  |  Joint (31)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Rapture (8)  |  Respect (212)  |  Shrink (23)  |  Specimen (32)  |  Spend (97)  |  Spine (9)  |  Surgeon (64)  |  Vein (27)

Nothing shocks me. I’m a scientist.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Scientist (881)

Owing to their [minor planets or asteroids] small size; … The force of gravity on their surfaces must be very small. A man placed on one of them would spring with ease 60 feet high, and sustain no greater shock in his descent than he does on the Earth from leaping a yard. On such planets giants may exist; and those enormous animals which here require the buoyant power of water to counteract their weight, may there inhabit the land.
In Elements of Astronomy (1870), 153. The ellipsis reads “the largest minor planet is but 228 miles in diameter, and many of the smaller ones are less than 50.”
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Asteroid (19)  |  Buoyant (6)  |  Counteract (5)  |  Descent (30)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Ease (40)  |  Enormous (44)  |  Exist (458)  |  Force (497)  |  Giant (73)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Great (1610)  |  High (370)  |  Inhabit (18)  |  Land (131)  |  Leap (57)  |  Power (771)  |  Require (229)  |  Small (489)  |  Spring (140)  |  Surface (223)  |  Sustain (52)  |  Water (503)  |  Weight (140)  |  Yard (10)

Pauling was shocked by the freedom with which the X-ray crystallographers of the time, including particularly Astbury, played with the intimate chemical structure of their models. They seemed to think that if the atoms were arranged in the right order and about the right distance apart, that was all that mattered, that no further restrictions need to be put on them.
Quoted by John Law in 'The Case of X-ray Protein Crystallography', collected in Gerard Lemaine (ed.), Perspectives on the Emergence of Scientific Disciplines, 1976, 140.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrangement (93)  |  William Thomas Astbury (4)  |  Atom (381)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Crystallographer (4)  |  Distance (171)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Intimate (21)  |  Matter (821)  |  Model (106)  |  Order (638)  |  Linus Pauling (60)  |  Play (116)  |  Ray (115)  |  Restriction (14)  |  Right (473)  |  Structure (365)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Time (1911)  |  X-ray (43)  |  X-ray Crystallography (12)

Religious creeds are a great obstacle to any full sympathy between the outlook of the scientist and the outlook which religion is so often supposed to require … The spirit of seeking which animates us refuses to regard any kind of creed as its goal. It would be a shock to come across a university where it was the practice of the students to recite adherence to Newton's laws of motion, to Maxwell's equations and to the electromagnetic theory of light. We should not deplore it the less if our own pet theory happened to be included, or if the list were brought up to date every few years. We should say that the students cannot possibly realise the intention of scientific training if they are taught to look on these results as things to be recited and subscribed to. Science may fall short of its ideal, and although the peril scarcely takes this extreme form, it is not always easy, particularly in popular science, to maintain our stand against creed and dogma.
Swarthmore Lecture (1929), Science and the Unseen World (1929), 54-56.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Creed (28)  |  Dogma (49)  |  Easy (213)  |  Education (423)  |  Electromagnetic Theory (5)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Equation (138)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Fall (243)  |  Form (976)  |  Goal (155)  |  Great (1610)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Intention (46)  |  Kind (564)  |  Law (913)  |  Laws Of Motion (10)  |  Light (635)  |  Look (584)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Maxwell (42)  |  James Clerk Maxwell (91)  |  Motion (320)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Obstacle (42)  |  Outlook (32)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Practice (212)  |  Refuse (45)  |  Regard (312)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religious (134)  |  Require (229)  |  Result (700)  |  Say (989)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Short (200)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Stand (284)  |  Student (317)  |  Sympathy (35)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Training (92)  |  University (130)  |  Year (963)

Science usually advances by a succession of small steps, through a fog in which even the most keen-sighted explorer can seldom see more than a few paces ahead. Occasionally the fog lifts, an eminence is gained, and a wider stretch of territory can be surveyed—sometimes with startling results. A whole science may then seem to undergo a kaleidoscopic rearrangement, fragments of knowledge sometimes being found to fit together in a hitherto unsuspected manner. Sometimes the shock of readjustment may spread to other sciences; sometimes it may divert the whole current of human thought.
Opening paragraph, Physics and Philosophy (1943), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Being (1276)  |  Current (122)  |  Eminence (25)  |  Explorer (30)  |  Fit (139)  |  Fog (10)  |  Fragment (58)  |  Gain (146)  |  Human (1512)  |  Kaleidoscope (5)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lift (57)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pace (18)  |  Progress (492)  |  Rearrangement (5)  |  Result (700)  |  See (1094)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Sight (135)  |  Small (489)  |  Spread (86)  |  Startling (15)  |  Step (234)  |  Stretch (39)  |  Succession (80)  |  Survey (36)  |  Territory (25)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Together (392)  |  Usually (176)  |  Whole (756)

That a shutdown of existing reactors would be catastrophic I believe is self-evident. It is not only the energy that we would lose, it is the $100 billion investment whose write-off would cause a violent shock to our financial institutions.
(1980). As quoted in Isaac Asimov, Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1990), 177.
Science quotes on:  |  Billion (104)  |  Catastrophic (10)  |  Cause (561)  |  Energy (373)  |  Evident (92)  |  Institution (73)  |  Investment (15)  |  Lose (165)  |  Nuclear Power (16)  |  Reactor (3)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Evident (22)  |  Write (250)

That small word “Force,” they make a barber's block,
Ready to put on
Meanings most strange and various, fit to shock
Pupils of Newton....
The phrases of last century in this
Linger to play tricks—
Vis viva and Vis Mortua and Vis Acceleratrix:
Those long-nebbed words that to our text books still
Cling by their titles,
And from them creep, as entozoa will,
Into our vitals.
But see! Tait writes in lucid symbols clear
One small equation;
And Force becomes of Energy a mere
Space-variation.
'Report on Tait's Lecture on Force:— B.A., 1876', reproduced in Bruce Clarke, Energy Forms: Allegory and Science in the Era of Classical Thermodynamics (2001), 19. Maxwell's verse was inspired by a paper delivered at the British Association (B.A.. He was satirizing a “considerable cofusion of nomenclature” at the time, and supported his friend Tait's desire to establish a redefinition of energy on a thermnodynamic basis.
Science quotes on:  |  Barber (5)  |  Become (821)  |  Block (13)  |  Book (413)  |  Century (319)  |  Clarity (49)  |  Clinging (3)  |  Creep (15)  |  Creeping (4)  |  Energy (373)  |  Equation (138)  |  Fit (139)  |  Force (497)  |  Last (425)  |  Linger (14)  |  Lingering (2)  |  Long (778)  |  Lucid (9)  |  Lucidity (7)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Most (1728)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Play (116)  |  Poem (104)  |  Pupil (62)  |  See (1094)  |  Small (489)  |  Space (523)  |  Still (614)  |  Strange (160)  |  Symbol (100)  |  Peter Guthrie Tait (11)  |  Textbook (39)  |  Title (20)  |  Trick (36)  |  Variation (93)  |  Various (205)  |  Vital (89)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)  |  Write (250)

The actions of bad men produce only temporary evil, the actions of good men only temporary good ; and eventually the good and the evil altogether subside, are neutralized by subsequent generations, absorbed by the incessant movements of future ages. But the discoveries of great men never leave us; they are immortal; they contain those eternal truths which survive the shock of empires, outlive the struggles of rival creeds, and witness the decay of successive religions.
In History of Civilization in England (1858), Vol. 1, 206.
Science quotes on:  |  Absorb (54)  |  Action (342)  |  Age (509)  |  Bad (185)  |  Creed (28)  |  Decay (59)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Empire (17)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Eventual (9)  |  Eventually (64)  |  Evil (122)  |  Future (467)  |  Generation (256)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Immortal (35)  |  Incessant (9)  |  Leave (138)  |  Movement (162)  |  Never (1089)  |  Outlive (4)  |  Religion (369)  |  Rival (20)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Subsequent (34)  |  Subside (5)  |  Successive (73)  |  Survival (105)  |  Survive (87)  |  Temporary (24)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Witness (57)

The bomb took forty-five seconds to drop thirty thousand feet to its detonation point, our three parachute gauges drifting down above. For half that time we were diving away in a two-g turn. Before we leveled off and flew directly away, we saw the calibration pulses that indicated our equipment was working well. Suddenly a bright flash lit the compartment, the light from the explosion reflecting off the clouds in front of us and back through the tunnel. The pressure pulse registered its N-shaped wave on our screen, and then a second wave recorded the reflection of the pulse from the ground. A few moments later two sharp shocks slammed the plane.
Alvarez: Adventures of a Physicist (1987), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Bomb (20)  |  Bright (81)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Down (455)  |  Drop (77)  |  Equipment (45)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Explosion (51)  |  Flash (49)  |  Ground (222)  |  Light (635)  |  Moment (260)  |  Point (584)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Pulse (22)  |  Record (161)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Register (22)  |  Saw (160)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tunnel (13)  |  Turn (454)  |  Two (936)  |  Wave (112)

The dog [in Pavlov’s experiments] does not continue to salivate whenever it hears a bell unless sometimes at least an edible offering accompanies the bell. But there are innumerable instances in human life where a single association, never reinforced, results in the establishment of a life-long dynamic system. An experience associated only once with a bereavement, an accident, or a battle, may become the center of a permanent phobia or complex, not in the least dependent on a recurrence of the original shock.
Personality: A Psychological Interpretation(1938), 199.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Association (49)  |  Become (821)  |  Bell (35)  |  Complex (202)  |  Continue (179)  |  Dog (70)  |  Edible (7)  |  Establishment (47)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Hear (144)  |  Human (1512)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Never (1089)  |  Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (18)  |  Permanent (67)  |  Phobia (3)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Result (700)  |  Single (365)  |  System (545)  |  Whenever (81)

The electrical matter consists of particles extremely subtile, since it can permeate common matter, even the densest metals, with such ease and freedom as not to receive any perceptible resistance.
If anyone should doubt whether the electrical matter passes through the substance of bodies, or only over along their surfaces, a shock from an electrified large glass jar, taken through his own body, will probably convince him.
Electrical matter differs from common matter in this, that the parts of the latter mutually attract, those of the former mutually repel each other.
'Opinions and Conjectures, Concerning the Properties and Effects of the Electrical Matter, arising from Experiments and Observations, made at Philadelphia, 1749.' In I. Bernard Cohen (ed.), Benjamin Franklin's Experiments (1941), 213.
Science quotes on:  |  Body (557)  |  Common (447)  |  Consist (223)  |  Convince (43)  |  Differ (88)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Electrical (57)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Former (138)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Glass (94)  |  Large (398)  |  Matter (821)  |  Metal (88)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particle (200)  |  Receive (117)  |  Resistance (41)  |  Substance (253)  |  Surface (223)  |  Through (846)  |  Will (2350)

The lessons of science should be experimental also. The sight of a planet through a telescope is worth all the course on astronomy; the shock of the electric spark in the elbow outvalues all theories; the taste of the nitrous oxide, the firing of an artificial volcano, are better than volumes of chemistry.
The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870), 552.
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Better (493)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Course (413)  |  Elbow (3)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Lesson (58)  |  Nitrous Oxide (5)  |  Planet (402)  |  Sight (135)  |  Spark (32)  |  Taste (93)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Through (846)  |  Volcano (46)  |  Worth (172)

The stupidity of overfishing would have shocked Carson, herself a marine biologist. … Dredgers carve graveyards in seabeds, fertilisers fuel plankton blooms that result in oxygenless dead zones, and climate change threatens much sea life.
In 'Fifty Years On, the Silence of Rachel Carson’s Spring Consumes Us', The Guardian (25 Sep 2012). Griffiths also quotes a professor of marine conservation, Callum Roberts, from his Ocean of Life that “Since the 1950s, when she published her trilogy The Sea, two-thirds of the species we have fished have collapsed, and some species are down 99%.”
Science quotes on:  |  Biologist (70)  |  Bloom (11)  |  Rachel Carson (49)  |  Carve (5)  |  Change (639)  |  Climate (102)  |  Climate Change (76)  |  Fuel (39)  |  Graveyard (3)  |  Life (1870)  |  Overfishing (27)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Plankton (3)  |  Result (700)  |  Sea (326)  |  Sea Life (4)  |  Stupidity (40)  |  Threat (36)  |  Threaten (33)

The world of mathematics and theoretical physics is hierarchical. That was my first exposure to it. There's a limit beyond which one cannot progress. The differences between the limiting abilities of those on successively higher steps of the pyramid are enormous. I have not seen described anywhere the shock a talented man experiences when he finds, late in his academic life, that there are others enormously more talented than he. I have personally seen more tears shed by grown men and women over this discovery than I would have believed possible. Most of those men and women shift to fields where they can compete on more equal terms
Alvarez: Adventures of a Physicist (1987), 20.
Science quotes on:  |  Beyond (316)  |  Difference (355)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Experience (494)  |  Field (378)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Late (119)  |  Life (1870)  |  Limit (294)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Possible (560)  |  Progress (492)  |  Shift (45)  |  Step (234)  |  Talent (99)  |  Tear (48)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Theoretical Physics (26)  |  World (1850)

Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum mechanics cannot possibly have understood it.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Across (32)  |  First (1302)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quantum Mechanics (47)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understood (155)

When I entered the field of space physics in 1956, I recall that I fell in with the crowd believing, for example, that electric fields could not exist in the highly conducting plasma of space. It was three years later that I was shamed by S. Chandrasekhar into investigating Alfvén's work objectively. My degree of shock and surprise in finding Alfvén right and his critics wrong can hardly be described. I learned that a cosmic ray acceleration mechanism basically identical to the famous mechanism suggested by Fermi in 1949 had [previously] been put forth by Alfvén.
Quoted in Anthony L. Peratt, 'Dean of the Plasma Dissidents', Washington Times, supplement: The World and I (May 1988), 195.
Science quotes on:  |  Acceleration (12)  |  Belief (615)  |  Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (8)  |  Confirm (58)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Cosmic Ray (7)  |  Critic (21)  |  Crowd (25)  |  Degree (277)  |  Description (89)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electric Field (3)  |  Electromagnetic Field (2)  |  Enter (145)  |  Exist (458)  |  Enrico Fermi (20)  |  Field (378)  |  Identical (55)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  Objectively (6)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Plasma (8)  |  Ray (115)  |  Recall (11)  |  Right (473)  |  Shame (15)  |  Space (523)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Work (1402)  |  Wrong (246)  |  Year (963)

When living with the Indians in their homes and pursuing my ethnological studies: One day I suddenly realized with a rude shock that, unlike my Indian friends, I was an alien, a stranger in my native land; its fauna and flora had no fond, familiar place amid my mental imagery, nor did any thoughts of human aspiration or love give to its hills and valleys the charm of personal companionship. I was alone, even in my loneliness.
Opening of Preface, Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs (1915), v.
Science quotes on:  |  Alien (35)  |  Alone (324)  |  Aspiration (35)  |  Charm (54)  |  Companionship (4)  |  Ethnology (9)  |  Familiar (47)  |  Fauna (13)  |  Flora (9)  |  Fond (13)  |  Friend (180)  |  Hill (23)  |  Home (184)  |  Human (1512)  |  Imagery (3)  |  Indian (32)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Loneliness (6)  |  Love (328)  |  Mental (179)  |  Native (41)  |  Native Land (3)  |  Personal (75)  |  Pursuing (27)  |  Realize (157)  |  Strange (160)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Thought (995)  |  Unlike (9)  |  Valley (37)

Whenever a new scientific concept comes into prominence, it sends shock waves of surprise to the scholars contributing to that field.
In The Gene: A Critical History (1966), 77.
Science quotes on:  |  Concept (242)  |  Contribute (30)  |  Field (378)  |  New (1273)  |  Prominence (5)  |  Scholar (52)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Shock Wave (3)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Wave (112)  |  Whenever (81)


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.