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Sir George Gabriel Stokes
(13 Aug 1819 - 1 Feb 1903)
British theoretical physicist known for his law of viscosity, and for Stokes' theorem, in vector analysis. Stokes also worked in optics, investigated the nature of fluorescence and was a founder of geodesy with his study of variations in gravity.
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Science Quotes by Sir George Gabriel Stokes (1 quote)
I am almost inclined to coin a word and call the appearance fluorescence, from fluor-spar, as the analogous term opalescence is derived from the name of a mineral.
— Sir George Gabriel Stokes
Footnote in 'On The Change of Refrangibility of Light', Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (1852), 142, 479. From the mineral fluor-spar, Humphry Davy named fluorine. The mineral, now called fluorite (calcium fluorite), was named was by Georg Agricola in 1546. The German flusse, flow, was applied because it melts easily, and is now important as a flux.
Science quotes on: | Word (53)
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) -- 
