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Hudson Maxim
(3 Feb 1853 - 6 May 1927)
American inventor of improved explosives. He made the first smokeless powder in the U.S., which was adopted by the U.S. Army. In 1901, he invented maximite, a high explosive bursting powder.
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Science Quotes by Hudson Maxim (8 quotes)
Any true Sherlock Holmes of science, possest of an adequate knowledge of first principles, may unravel a very tangled web of mystery. The great naturalist requires but a few pieces of bone from any prehistoric monster in order to ascertain whether it was herbivorous or carnivorous, reptile or mammal, or even to construct a counterpart of its entire skeleton.
— Hudson Maxim
In The Science of Poetry and the Philosophy of Language (1910), ix.
Everything is controlled by immutable mathematical laws, from which there is, and can be, no deviation whatsoever. We learn the complex from the simple. We arrive at the abstract by way of the concrete.
— Hudson Maxim
In The Science of Poetry and the Philosophy of Language (1910), xi.
I wrote a booklet on the evil effects of the cigarette, and more than a million copies of it were distributed on the battle-front in France. About the same time, the New York World, was raising money to send hundreds of tons of cigarettes to our soldiers.
— Hudson Maxim
In Hudson Maxim and Clifton Johnson, 'Smoking, Swearing, and Perfumery', Hudson Maxim: Reminiscences and Comments (1924), 234. The quote is as reported by Clifton Johnson, based on interviews with Hudson Maxim.
If all boys could be made to know that with every breath of cigarette smoke they inhale imbecility and exhale manhood … and that the cigarette is a maker of invalids, criminals and fools—not men—it ought to deter them some. The yellow finger stain is an emblem of deeper degradation and enslavement than the ball and chain.
— Hudson Maxim
In Hudson Maxim and Clifton Johnson, 'Smoking, Swearing, and Perfumery', Hudson Maxim: Reminiscences and Comments (1924), 234. The quote is as reported by Clifton Johnson, based on interviews with Hudson Maxim.
Naturally, there is always a great diversity of opinion about a popular subject when it is not well understood. We all know how true this is of social, ethical and religious subjects, upon which no two persons ever really agree. The exact sciences, however, admit of no differences of opinion.
— Hudson Maxim
In The Science of Poetry and the Philosophy of Language (1910), x.
The greater the mind, the greater are the truths self-evident to it, and the greater also is its power to induce complex from simple truths—complex truths of which we may be as certain
as we are of the primary self-evident truths themselves.
— Hudson Maxim
In The Science of Poetry and the Philosophy of Language (1910), x.
The wreath of cigarette smoke which curls about the head of the growing lad holds his brain in an iron grip which prevents it from growing and his mind from developing just as surely as the iron shoe does the foot of the Chinese girl.
— Hudson Maxim
In Hudson Maxim and Clifton Johnson, 'Smoking, Swearing, and Perfumery', Hudson Maxim: Reminiscences and Comments (1924), 234. The quote is as reported by Clifton Johnson, based on interviews with Hudson Maxim.
Whatever the subject of any investigation may be, whether poetry, biology, ethics or torpedo warfare, the same scientific method of procedure must be followed. We must first unravel the complex and heterogeneous back to first principles, and then reason forward from the simple to the complex, from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, from what we know to what we would learn. Such are the methods pursued by all successful inventors, scientific investigators and discoverers.
— Hudson Maxim
In The Science of Poetry and the Philosophy of Language (1910), ix.
See also:
- 3 Feb - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Maxim's birth.
- The Dangers of Smoking: by Hudson Maxim (1924)
- The Rise of an American Inventor: Hudson Maxim’s Life Story, by Hudson Maxim. - 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) -- 
