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Richard Hughes
(19 Apr 1900 - 28 Apr 1976)
English novelist, poet and playwright whose novels include The Fox in the Attic (1961) and The Wooden Shepherdess (1973) which were the first two books of an unfinished three-volume series. He also wrote numerous radio scripts, and contributed to literary journals
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Science Quotes by Richard Hughes (2 quotes)
One of the best examples of a scientific parable that got taken literally at first is the wave-theory of light.
— Richard Hughes
Concluding paragraph of chapter, 'Physics, Astronomy, and Mathematics: Or Beyond Common-Sense', contributed to Naomi Mitchison (ed.), An Outline For Boys And Girls And Their Parents (1932), 357.
Science, being human enquiry, can hear no answer except an answer couched somehow in human tones. Primitive man stood in the mountains and shouted against a cliff; the echo brought back his own voice, and he believed in a disembodied spirit. The scientist of today stands counting out loud in the face of the unknown. Numbers come back to him—and he believes in the Great Mathematician.
— Richard Hughes
Concluding paragraph of chapter, 'Physics, Astronomy, and Mathematics: Or Beyond Common-Sense', contributed to Naomi Mitchison (ed.), An Outline For Boys And Girls And Their Parents (1932), 357.
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) -- 
