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Sir Edward Appleton
(6 Sep 1892 - 21 Apr 1965)
English physicist was awarded the 1947 Nobel Prize for Physics for his discovery (1926) of the Appleton layer of the ionosphere, a layer higher than the Heaviside Layer, electrically stronger, and consistently able to reflect short waves round the earth.
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Science Quotes by Sir Edward Appleton (4 quotes)
I am only a physicist with nothing material to show for my labours. I have never even seen the ionosphere, although I have worked on the subject for thirty years. That does show how lucky people can be. If there had been no ionosphere I would not have been standing here this morning.
— Sir Edward Appleton
Response to receiving an honour from the Institute of Mechanical Engineers. As quoted in New Scientist (22 Nov 1956), 33.
No scientific subject has ever aroused quite the same mixture of hopes and fears [as atomic energy].
— Sir Edward Appleton
In Presidential address to the Annual Meeting of the British Association (Sep 1947), as quoted in Brian Austin, Schonland: Scientist and Soldier: From Lightning on the Veld to Nuclear Power at Harwell: The Life of Field Marshal Montgomery's Scientific Adviser (2010), 459.
So I want to admit the assumption which the astronomer—and indeed any scientist—makes about the Universe he investigates. It is this: that the same physical causes give rise to the same physical results anywhere in the Universe, and at any time, past, present, and future. The fuller examination of this basic assumption, and much else besides, belongs to philosophy. The scientist, for his part, makes the assumption I have mentioned as an act of faith; and he feels confirmed in that faith by his increasing ability to build up a consistent and satisfying picture of the universe and its behavior.
— Sir Edward Appleton
From Science and the Nation (1957), 49. Also quoted in Ronald Keast, Dancing in the Dark: The Waltz in Wonder of Quantum Metaphysics (2009), 106.
The history of science has proved that fundamental research is the lifeblood of individual progress and that the ideas that lead to spectacular advances spring from it.
— Sir Edward Appleton
In J. Edwin Holmström, Records and Research in Engineering and Industrial Science (1956), 7.
See also:
- 6 Sep - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Appleton's birth.
- Sir Edward Appleton, by Ronald William Clark. - book suggestion.
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) -- 
