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Sir Isaac Newton
(25 Dec 1642 - 20 Mar 1727)
English physicist and mathematician who made seminal discoveries in several areas of science, and was the leading scientist of his era.
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Sir Isaac Newton Quotes on Experiment (9 quotes)
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>> Click for 109 Science Quotes by Sir Isaac Newton
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As in Mathematicks, so in Natural Philosophy, the Investigation of difficult Things by the Method of Analysis, ought ever to precede the Method of Composition. This Analysis consists in making Experiments and Observations, and in drawing general Conclusions from them by Induction, and admitting of no Objections against the Conclusions, but such as are taken from Experiments, or other certain Truths. For Hypotheses are not to be regarded in experimental Philosophy.
— Sir Isaac Newton
From Opticks, (1704, 2nd ed. 1718), Book 3, Query 31, 380.
For it is not number of Experiments, but weight to be regarded; & where one will do, what need many?
— Sir Isaac Newton
In 'Mr. Newton's Answer to the Precedent Letter, Sent to the Publisher', Philosophical Transactions (1665-1678), Vol. 11 (25 Sep 1676), No. 128, 703.
From this fountain (the free will of God) it is those laws, which we call the laws of nature, have flowed, in which there appear many traces of the most wise contrivance, but not the least shadow of necessity. These therefore we must not seek from uncertain conjectures, but learn them from observations and experimental. He who is presumptuous enough to think that he can find the true principles of physics and the laws of natural things by the force alone of his own mind, and the internal light of his reason, must either suppose the world exists by necessity, and by the same necessity follows the law proposed; or if the order of Nature was established by the will of God, the [man] himself, a miserable reptile, can tell what was fittest to be done.
— Sir Isaac Newton
…...
I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phenomena, and I frame no hypotheses; for whatever is not deduced from the phenomena is to be called a hypothesis, and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy.
— Sir Isaac Newton
Principia. In Isaac Newton, Andrew Motte and N. W. Chittenden, Newton’s Principia (1847), 506-507.
In experimental philosophy, propositions gathered from phenomena by induction should be considered either exactly or very nearly true notwithstanding any contrary hypotheses, until yet other phenomena make such propositions either more exact or liable to exceptions.
— Sir Isaac Newton
The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (1687),3rd edition (1726), trans. I. Bernard Cohen and Anne Whitman (1999), Book 3, Rules of Reasoning in Philosophy, Rule 4, 796.
My Design in this Book is not to explain the Properties of Light by Hypotheses, but to propose and prove them by Reason and Experiments: In order to which, I shall premise the following Definitions and Axioms.
— Sir Isaac Newton
Opticks (1704), Book 1, Part 1, Introduction, 1.
The best and safest way of philosophising seems to be, first to enquire diligently into the properties of things, and to establish those properties by experiences [experiments] and then to proceed slowly to hypotheses for the explanation of them. For hypotheses should be employed only in explaining the properties of things, but not assumed in determining them; unless so far as they may furnish experiments.
— Sir Isaac Newton
Letter to the French Jesuit, Gaston Pardies. Translation from the original Latin, as in Richard S. Westfall, Never at Rest: a Biography of Isaac Newton (1983), 242.
The qualities of bodies, which admit neither intension nor remission of degrees, and which are found to belong to fill bodies within the reach of our experiments, are to be esteemed the universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever.
— Sir Isaac Newton
From Isaac Newton, Rules of Reasoning in Philosophy, Rule 3, as translated by Andrew Motte in The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (1803), Vol. 2, 160.
Those qualities of bodies that cannot be intended and remitted [i.e., qualities that cannot be increased and diminished] and that belong to all bodies on which experiments can be made should be taken as qualities of all bodies universally.
— Sir Isaac Newton
The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (1687), 3rd edition (1726), trans. I. Bernard Cohen and Anne Whitman (1999), Book 3, Rules of Reasoning in Philosophy, Rule 3, 795.
See also:
- 25 Dec - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Newton's birth.
- Isaac Newton - Comments on his “Playing on the Seashore” Quote
- Isaac Newton - “Playing on the Seashore” illustrated quote - Medium 500px.
- Isaac Newton - “Playing on the Seashore” illustrated quote - Large 800px.
- Isaac Newton - context of quote “A change in motion” - Medium image (500 x 250 px)
- Isaac Newton - context of quote “A change in motion” - Large image (800 x 400 px)
- Isaac Newton - context of quote “In experimental philosophy” - Medium image (500 x 250 px)
- Isaac Newton - context of quote “In experimental philosophy” - Large image (800 x 400 px)
- Isaac Newton - context of quote “Standing on the shoulders of giants” - Medium image (500 x 250 px)
- Isaac Newton - context of quote “Standing on the shoulders of giants” - Large image (800 x 400 px)
- Isaac Newton - context of quote “Impressed force is the action” - Medium image (500 x 250 px)
- Isaac Newton - context of quote “Impressed force is the action” - Large image (800 x 400 px)
- Isaac Newton - context of quote “Inherent force of matter is the power of resisting…” - Medium image (500 x 250 px)
- Isaac Newton - context of quote “Inherent force of matter is the power of resisting…” - Large image (800 x 400 px)
- Isaac Newton - context of quote “Plato is my friend” - Medium image (500 x 250 px)
- Isaac Newton - biography from Famous Men of Science (1889)
- Isaac Newton - context of quote “Plato is my friend” - Large image (800 x 400 px)
- Isaac Newton - context of quote “Colours which appear through the Prism ” - Medium image (500 x 250 px)
- Isaac Newton - context of quote “Colours which appear through the Prism ” - Large image (800 x 400 px)
- Isaac Newton - context of quote “Nature does nothing in vain” - Medium image (500 x 250 px)
- Isaac Newton - context of quote “Nature does nothing in vain” - Large image (800 x 400 px)
- Isaac Newton - context of quote “No more causes of natural things should be admitted” - Medium image (500 x 250 px)
- Isaac Newton - context of quote “No more causes of natural things should be admitted” - Large image (800 x 400 px)
- Isaac Newton - context of quote “Truth is ever to be found in simplicity” - Medium image (500 x 250 px)
- Isaac Newton - context of quote “Truth is ever to be found in simplicity” - Large image (800 x 400 px)
- Isaac Newton - context of quote “Every body perseveres in its state of being at rest” - Medium image (500 x 250 px)
- Isaac Newton - context of quote “Every body perseveres in its state of being at rest” - Large image (800 x 400 px)
- Isaac Newton - context of quote “God, in the beginning, formed matter” - Medium image (500 x 250 px)
- Isaac Newton - context of quote “God, in the beginning, formed matter” - Large image (800 x 400 px)
- Isaac Newton - context of quote “The cause of gravity is what I do not pretend to know” - Medium image (500 x 250 px)
- Isaac Newton - context of quote “The cause of gravity is what I do not pretend to know” - Large image (800 x 400 px)
- Sir Isaac Newton’s Apple-Tree - debunking the myth, from Historic Ninepins: A Book of Curiosities by John Timbs (1869)
- Newton and the Dog - debunking the myth about Newton’s dog Diamond.
- Booklist for Isaac Newton.
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) -- 
