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Cleveland Abbe
(3 Dec 1838 - 28 Oct 1916)
American meteorologist, inventor and astronomer , who as America’s first professional meteorologist is regarded as the “father of the U.S. Weather Bureau.”
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Science Quotes by Cleveland Abbe (10 quotes)
As a great man’s influence never ends, so also there is no definite finality, no end, to a great survey; it runs along for centuries, ever responsive to the strain of the increasing needs of a growing population and an enlarging domain.
— Cleveland Abbe
In 'Charles Anthony Scott', Biographical Memoirs: Vol. VIII (1919), 87.
I have started that which the country will not willingly let die.
— Cleveland Abbe
In Letter to his father, quoted in W. J. Humphries, 'Cleveland Abbe', part of National Academy of Science: Biographical Memoirs: Vol. VIII (1919), 478. Humphries comments “Professor Abbe’s justifiable enthusiasm over his success in foretelling the coming of storms may be inferred from [this] letter.” The larger context is the goal of establishing a national weather forecasting service with a wide network of reporting stations collecting weather data.
It is inevitable that those to whom is vouchsafed a long life of usefulness should outlive the friends of their youth.
— Cleveland Abbe
In 'Charles Anthony Scott', Biographical Memoirs: Vol. VIII (1919), 87.
My boyhood life in New York City has impressed me with the popular ignorance and also with the great need of something better than local lore and weather proverbs.
— Cleveland Abbe
In 'How the United States Weather Bureau Was Started', Scientific American (20 May 1916), 114, 529.
The atmosphere is much too near for dreams. It forces us to action. It is close to us. We are in it and of it. It rouses us both to study and to do. We must know its moods and also its motive forces.
— Cleveland Abbe
From Address (16 Mar 1909) at Columbia University, printed in 'Meteorology of the Future', Popular Science Monthly (Dec 1910), 78, 22.
The observed phenomena of meteorology and the well-established laws of physics are the two extremes of the science of meteorology between which we trace the connection of cause and effect; in so far as we can do this successfully meteorology becomes an exact deductive science.
— Cleveland Abbe
In 'The Meteorological Work of the U.S. Signal Service, 1870 to 1891', U.S. Department of Agriculture, Weather Bureau, Bulletin No. 11, Report of the International Meteorological Congress, Chicago, Ill., August 21-24, 1893 (1894), 242.
The ultimate aim of those who are devoted to science is to penetrate beyond the phenomena observed on the surface to the ultimate causes, and to reduce the whole … to a simple deductive system of mechanics, in which the phenomena observed shall be shown to flow naturally from the few simple laws that underlie the structure of the universe.
— Cleveland Abbe
In article, 'Meteorolgy', Encyclopaedia Britannica, (11th ed., 1911), Vol. 18, 281
There should be no mystery in our use of the word science; it means knowledge, not theory nor speculation nor hypothesis, but hard facts, and the framework of laws to which they belong.
— Cleveland Abbe
In 'The Meteorological Work of the U.S. Signal Service, 1870 to 1891', U.S. Department of Agriculture, Weather Bureau, Bulletin No. 11, Report of the International Meteorological Congress, Chicago, Ill., August 21-24, 1893 (1894), 242.
True science is never speculative; it employs hypotheses as suggesting points for inquiry, but it never adopts the hypotheses as though they were demonstrated propositions.
— Cleveland Abbe
In 'The Meteorological Work of the U.S. Signal Service, 1870 to 1891', U.S. Department of Agriculture, Weather Bureau, Bulletin No. 11, Report of the International Meteorological Congress, Chicago, Ill., August 21-24, 1893 (1894), 242.
We must conquer [the atmosphere] in our struggle for existence. Now that our aeronauts Orville and Wilbur Wright have learned to fly, we must learn to utilize the air just as the mariners have learned to utilize the winds and avoid the storms.
— Cleveland Abbe
From Address (16 Mar 1909) at Columbia University, printed in 'Meteorology of the Future', Popular Science Monthly (Dec 1910), 78, 22.
See also:
- 3 Dec - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Abbe's birth.
- Abbe Cleveland - How the U.S. Weather Bureau Started - Scientific American (1916)
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) -- 
