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 T > Category: Tap

Tap Quotes (10 quotes)

A star is drawing on some vast reservoir of energy by means unknown to us. This reservoir can scarcely be other than the subatomic energy which, it is known exists abundantly in all matter; we sometimes dream that man will one day learn how to release it and use it for his service. The store is well nigh inexhaustible, if only it could be tapped. There is sufficient in the Sun to maintain its output of heat for 15 billion years.
Address to the British Association in Cardiff, (24 Aug 1920), in Observatory (1920), 43 353. Reprinted in Foreward to Arthur S. Eddington, The Internal Constitution of the Stars (1926, 1988), x.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Atomic Power (9)  |  Billion (104)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Dream (222)  |  Energy (373)  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  Heat (180)  |  Inexhaustible (26)  |  Known (453)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Other (2233)  |  Output (12)  |  Release (31)  |  Reservoir (9)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Service (110)  |  Star (460)  |  Store (49)  |  Subatomic (10)  |  Sufficiency (16)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Sun (407)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Use (771)  |  Vast (188)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

Every bird which flies has the thread of the infinite in its claw. Germination includes the hatching of a meteor and the tap of a swallow's bill breaking the egg, and it leads forward the birth of an earth-worm and the advent of Socrates.
Victor Hugo and Charles E. Wilbour (trans.), Les Misérables (1862), 41.
Science quotes on:  |  Bill (14)  |  Bird (163)  |  Birth (154)  |  Break (109)  |  Claw (8)  |  Comet (65)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Earthworm (8)  |  Egg (71)  |  Flight (101)  |  Forward (104)  |  Germination (3)  |  Include (93)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Lead (391)  |  Meteor (19)  |   Socrates, (17)  |  Swallow (32)  |  Thread (36)  |  Worm (47)

Few intellectual tyrannies can be more recalcitrant than the truths that everybody knows and nearly no one can defend with any decent data (for who needs proof of anything so obvious). And few intellectual activities can be more salutary than attempts to find out whether these rocks of ages might crumble at the slightest tap of an informational hammer.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Age (509)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Crumble (5)  |  Data (162)  |  Decent (12)  |  Defend (32)  |  Everybody (72)  |  Find (1014)  |  Find Out (25)  |  Hammer (26)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Know (1538)  |  More (2558)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Need (320)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Proof (304)  |  Rock (176)  |  Salutary (5)  |  Slight (32)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Tyranny (15)

Goethe said that he who cannot draw on 3,000 years of learning is living hand to mouth. It could just as well be said that individuals who do tap deeply into this rich cultural legacy are wealthy indeed. Yet the paradox is that much of this wisdom is buried in a sea of lesser books or like lost treasure beneath an ocean of online ignorance and trivia. That doesn’t mean that with a little bit of diligence you can’t tap into it. Yet many people, perhaps most, never take advantage of all this human experience. They aren’t obtaining knowledge beyond what they need to know for work or to get by. As a result, their view of our amazing world is diminished and their lives greatly circumscribed.
In An Embarrassment of Riches: Tapping Into the World's Greatest Legacy of Wealth (2013), 65.
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Amazing (35)  |  Arent (6)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Bit (21)  |  Book (413)  |  Bury (19)  |  Circumscribe (3)  |  Cultural (26)  |  Deeply (17)  |  Diligence (22)  |  Diminish (17)  |  Do (1905)  |  Draw (140)  |  Experience (494)  |  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (150)  |  Greatly (12)  |  Hand (149)  |  Human (1512)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Individual (420)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Legacy (14)  |  Lesser (6)  |  Little (717)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Lose (165)  |  Mean (810)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Need (320)  |  Never (1089)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Online (4)  |  Paradox (54)  |  People (1031)  |  Result (700)  |  Rich (66)  |  Say (989)  |  Sea (326)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Trivia (2)  |  View (496)  |  Wealthy (5)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

I had a Meccano set with which I “played” endlessly. Meccano which was invented by Frank Hornby around 1900, is called Erector Set in the US. New toys (mainly Lego) have led to the extinction of Meccano and this has been a major disaster as far as the education of our young engineers and scientists is concerned. Lego is a technically trivial plaything and kids love it partly because it is so simple and partly because it is seductively coloured. However it is only a toy, whereas Meccano is a real engineering kit and it teaches one skill which I consider to be the most important that anyone can acquire: This is the sensitive touch needed to thread a nut on a bolt and tighten them with a screwdriver and spanner just enough that they stay locked, but not so tightly that the thread is stripped or they cannot be unscrewed. On those occasions (usually during a party at your house) when the handbasin tap is closed so tightly that you cannot turn it back on, you know the last person to use the washroom never had a Meccano set.
Nobel laureate autobiography in Les Prix Nobel/Nobel Lectures 1996 (1997), 189.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquire (46)  |  Back (395)  |  Bolt (11)  |  Call (781)  |  Closed (38)  |  Color (155)  |  Concern (239)  |  Consider (428)  |  Disaster (58)  |  Education (423)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Enough (341)  |  Extinction (80)  |  House (143)  |  Important (229)  |  Invention (400)  |  Kid (18)  |  Kit (2)  |  Know (1538)  |  Last (425)  |  Lock (14)  |  Love (328)  |  Major (88)  |  Meccano (5)  |  Most (1728)  |  Need (320)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Nut (7)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Party (19)  |  Person (366)  |  Play (116)  |  Plaything (3)  |  Real (159)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Screwdriver (2)  |  Seduction (3)  |  Sensitive (15)  |  Set (400)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Skill (116)  |  Spanner (2)  |  Strip (7)  |  Teach (299)  |  Technical (53)  |  Thread (36)  |  Tight (4)  |  Touch (146)  |  Toy (22)  |  Trivial (59)  |  Turn (454)  |  Use (771)  |  Usually (176)  |  Young (253)

Jesus tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Bob, why are you resisting me?” I said, “I’m not resisting You!” He said, “You gonna follow Me?” I said, “I’ve never thought about that before!” He said, “When you’re not following Me, you’re resisting Me.”
Quoted in Kim Lim (ed.), 1,001 Pearls of Spiritual Wisdom: Words to Enrich, Inspire, and Guide Your Life (2014), 156
Science quotes on:  |  Bob (2)  |  Follow (389)  |  Jesus (9)  |  Never (1089)  |  Resist (15)  |  Say (989)  |  Shoulder (33)  |  Thought (995)  |  Why (491)

One evening at a Joint Summer Research Congerence in the early 1990’s Nicholai Reshetikhin and I [David Yetter] button-holed Flato, and explained at length Shum’s coherence theorem and the role of categories in “quantum knot invariants”. Flato was persistently dismissive of categories as a “mere language”. I retired for the evening, leaving Reshetikhin and Flato to the discussion. At the next morning’s session, Flato tapped me on the shoulder, and, giving a thumbs-up sign, whispered, “Hey! Viva les categories! These new ones, the braided monoidal ones.”
In David N. Yetter, Functorial Knot Theory: Categories of Tangles, Coherence, Categorical Deformations, and Topological Invariants (2001), 8. Yetter writes this personal anecdote is given as a narrative in his own words. Presumable the phrases in quotation marks are based on recollection when written years later.
Science quotes on:  |  Braid (2)  |  Category (19)  |  Coherence (13)  |  David (6)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Early (196)  |  Explain (334)  |  Give (208)  |  Invariant (10)  |  Joint (31)  |  Knot (11)  |  Language (308)  |  Leave (138)  |  Length (24)  |  Mere (86)  |  Morning (98)  |  New (1273)  |  Next (238)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Research (753)  |  Retire (3)  |  Role (86)  |  Session (3)  |  Shoulder (33)  |  Sign (63)  |  Summer (56)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Thumb (18)  |  Whisper (11)

Science can be thought of as a large pool of knowledge, fed by a steady flow from the tap of basic research. Every now and then the water is dipped out and put to use, but one never knows which part of the water will be needed. This confuses the funding situation for basic science, because usually no specific piece of scientific work can be justified in advance; one cannot know which is going to be decisive. Yet history shows that keeping water flowing into the pool is a very worthwhile enterprise.
In 'Technology Development', Science (1983), 220, 576-580. As quoted and cited in H. Charles Romesburg, Best Research Practices (2009), 213.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Basic (144)  |  Basic Research (15)  |  Confuse (22)  |  Decisive (25)  |  Enterprise (56)  |  Flow (89)  |  Fund (19)  |  Funding (20)  |  History (716)  |  Justify (26)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Large (398)  |  Need (320)  |  Never (1089)  |  Piece (39)  |  Research (753)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Show (353)  |  Situation (117)  |  Specific (98)  |  Steady (45)  |  Thought (995)  |  Use (771)  |  Usually (176)  |  Water (503)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Worthwhile (18)

Water at command, by turning a tap and paying a tax, is more convenient than carrying it from a free spring.
In Sinner Sermons: A Selection of the Best Paragraphs of E. W. Howe (1926), 49.
Science quotes on:  |  Carry (130)  |  Civil Engineering (5)  |  Command (60)  |  Convenience (54)  |  Free (239)  |  More (2558)  |  Spring (140)  |  Tax (27)  |  Water (503)

When computers (people) are networked, their power multiplies geometrically. Not only can people share all that information inside their machines, but they can reach out and instantly tap the power of other machines (people), essentially making the entire network their computer.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Computer (131)  |  Entire (50)  |  Essentially (15)  |  Information (173)  |  Inside (30)  |  Instantly (20)  |  Machine (271)  |  Making (300)  |  Multiply (40)  |  Network (21)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Power (771)  |  Reach (286)  |  Share (82)


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.