TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY ®  •  TODAYINSCI ®
Celebrating 24 Years on the Web
Find science on or your birthday

Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: “As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index A > Category: Associate

Associate Quotes (25 quotes)

[To identify ancient sites] The primary requirement is a human skeleton or artifacts that are clearly the work of humans. Next, this evidence must lie in situ within undisturbed geological deposits. The artifacts should be directly associated with stratigraphy. Finally, the minimum age of the site must be determined by a direct link with fossils of known age or with material that has been reliably dated.
As quoted in Sharman Apt Russell, When the Land Was Young: Reflections on American Archaeology (2001), 22.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Artifact (5)  |  Date (14)  |  Deposit (12)  |  Determine (152)  |  Direct (228)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Geology (240)  |  Human (1512)  |  Identify (13)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Lie (370)  |  Link (48)  |  Material (366)  |  Must (1525)  |  Next (238)  |  Primary (82)  |  Reliable (13)  |  Requirement (66)  |  Site (19)  |  Skeleton (25)  |  Stratigraphy (7)  |  Undisturbed (4)  |  Work (1402)

As soon as we touch the complex processes that go on in a living thing, be it plant or animal, we are at once forced to use the methods of this science [chemistry]. No longer will the microscope, the kymograph, the scalpel avail for the complete solution of the problem. For the further analysis of these phenomena which are in flux and flow, the investigator must associate himself with those who have labored in fields where molecules and atoms, rather than multicellular tissues or even unicellular organisms, are the units of study.
'Experimental and Chemical Studies of the Blood with an Appeal for More Extended Chemical Training for the Biological and Medical Investigator', Science (6 Aug 1915), 42, 176.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Animal (651)  |  Atom (381)  |  Biochemistry (50)  |  Biology (232)  |  Cell (146)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Complete (209)  |  Complex (202)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Field (378)  |  Flow (89)  |  Flux (21)  |  Himself (461)  |  Investigator (71)  |  Labor (200)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Method (531)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Multicellular (4)  |  Must (1525)  |  Organism (231)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Plant (320)  |  Problem (731)  |  Process (439)  |  Scalpel (4)  |  Solution (282)  |  Soon (187)  |  Study (701)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Tissue (51)  |  Touch (146)  |  Use (771)  |  Will (2350)

However closely we may associate thought with the physical machinery of the brain, the connection is dropped as irrelevant as soon as we consider the fundamental property of thought—that it may be correct or incorrect. …that involves recognising a domain of the other type of law—laws which ought to be kept, but may be broken.
Swarthmore Lecture (1929) at Friends’ House, London, printed in Science and the Unseen World (1929), 57-58.
Science quotes on:  |  Brain (281)  |  Broken (56)  |  Connection (171)  |  Consider (428)  |  Domain (72)  |  Dropped (17)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Involve (93)  |  Law (913)  |  Machinery (59)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physical (518)  |  Property (177)  |  Soon (187)  |  Thought (995)  |  Type (171)

I was an impostor, the worthy associate of a brigand, &c., &c., and all this for an atom of chlorine put in the place of an atom of hydrogen, for the simple correction of a chemical formula!
Chemical Method (1855), 203.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chlorine (15)  |  Correction (42)  |  Formula (102)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Impostor (4)  |  Simple (426)  |  Substitution (16)

I was the only female in my class. I sat on one side of the room and the guys on the other side of the room. I guess they didn't want to associate with me. But I could hold my own with them, and sometimes did better.
In interview with Laurel M. Sheppard, 'An Interview with Mary Ross: First Native American Woman Engineer Aerospace Pioneer Returns to her Native American Roots', on website of Lash Publications.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Class (168)  |  Female (50)  |  Guess (67)  |  Men (20)  |  Other (2233)  |  Room (42)  |  Side (236)  |  Sit (51)  |  Want (504)

If time is treated in modern physics as a dimension on a par with the dimensions of space, why should we a priori exclude the possibility that we are pulled as well as pushed along its axis? The future has, after all, as much or as little reality as the past, and there is nothing logically inconceivable in introducing, as a working hypothesis, an element of finality, supplementary to the element of causality, into our equations. It betrays a great lack of imagination to believe that the concept of “purpose” must necessarily be associated with some anthropomorphic deity.
In 'Epilogue', The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man’s Changing Vision of the Universe (1959, 1968), 537.
Science quotes on:  |  A Priori (26)  |  Anthropomorphic (4)  |  Belief (615)  |  Causality (11)  |  Concept (242)  |  Deity (22)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Element (322)  |  Equation (138)  |  Finality (8)  |  Future (467)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Inconceivable (13)  |  Lack (127)  |  Little (717)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Physics (23)  |  Must (1525)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Past (355)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Pull (43)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Push (66)  |  Reality (274)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Space (523)  |  Supplementary (4)  |  Time (1911)  |  Why (491)

In mathematics two ends are constantly kept in view: First, stimulation of the inventive faculty, exercise of judgment, development of logical reasoning, and the habit of concise statement; second, the association of the branches of pure mathematics with each other and with applied science, that the pupil may see clearly the true relations of principles and things.
In 'Aim of the Mathematical Instruction', International Commission on Teaching of Mathematics, American Report: United States Bureau of Education: Bulletin 1912, No. 4, 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Applied (176)  |  Applied Science (36)  |  Association (49)  |  Branch (155)  |  Concise (9)  |  Development (441)  |  End (603)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Faculty (76)  |  First (1302)  |  Habit (174)  |  Invention (400)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Other (2233)  |  Principle (530)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Relation (166)  |  See (1094)  |  Statement (148)  |  Stimulation (18)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Two (936)  |  View (496)

Knowledge and wonder are the dyad of our worthy lives as intellectual beings. Voyager did wonders for our knowledge, but performed just as mightily in the service of wonder–and the two elements are complementary, not independent or opposed. The thought fills me with awe–a mechanical contraption that could fit in the back of a pickup truck, traveling through space for twelve years, dodging around four giant bodies and their associated moons, and finally sending exquisite photos across more than four light-hours of space from the farthest planet in our solar system.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Across (32)  |  Awe (43)  |  Back (395)  |  Being (1276)  |  Body (557)  |  Complementary (15)  |  Contraption (3)  |  Dodge (3)  |  Element (322)  |  Exquisite (27)  |  Far (158)  |  Fill (67)  |  Finally (26)  |  Fit (139)  |  Giant (73)  |  Hour (192)  |  Independent (74)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Light (635)  |  Live (650)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mightily (2)  |  Moon (252)  |  More (2558)  |  Oppose (27)  |  Perform (123)  |  Planet (402)  |  Send (23)  |  Service (110)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Space (523)  |  System (545)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Travel (125)  |  Truck (3)  |  Two (936)  |  Voyager (3)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Worthy (35)  |  Year (963)

Mathematics associates new mental images with ... physical abstractions; these images are almost tangible to the trained mind but are far removed from those that are given directly by life and physical experience. For example, a mathematician represents the motion of planets of the solar system by a flow line of an incompressible fluid in a 54-dimensional phase space, whose volume is given by the Liouville measure
Mathematics and Physics (1981), Foreward. Reprinted in Mathematics as Metaphor: Selected Essays of Yuri I. Manin (2007), 90.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstraction (48)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Directly (25)  |  Example (98)  |  Experience (494)  |  Far (158)  |  Flow (89)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Give (208)  |  Image (97)  |  Life (1870)  |  Line (100)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Measure (241)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Motion (320)  |  New (1273)  |  Phase (37)  |  Phase Space (2)  |  Physical (518)  |  Planet (402)  |  Remove (50)  |  Represent (157)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Space (523)  |  System (545)  |  Tangible (15)  |  Train (118)  |  Volume (25)

Now, it may be stretching an analogy to compare epidemics of cholera—caused by a known agent—with that epidemic of violent crime which is destroying our cities. It is unlikely that our social problems can be traced to a single, clearly defined cause in the sense that a bacterial disease is ‘caused’ by a microbe. But, I daresay, social science is about as advanced in the late twentieth century as bacteriological science was in the mid nineteenth century. Our forerunners knew something about cholera; they sensed that its spread was associated with misdirected sewage, filth, and the influx of alien poor into crowded, urban tenements. And we know something about street crime; nowhere has it been reported that a member of the New York Stock Exchange has robbed ... at the point of a gun. Indeed, I am naively confident that an enlightened social scientist of the next century will be able to point out that we had available to us at least some of the clues to the cause of urban crime.
'Cholera at the Harvey,' Woods Hole Cantata: Essays on Science and Society (1985).
Science quotes on:  |  19th Century (41)  |  20th Century (40)  |  Advance (298)  |  Agent (73)  |  Alien (35)  |  Analogy (76)  |  Available (80)  |  Bacteria (50)  |  Cause (561)  |  Century (319)  |  Cholera (7)  |  City (87)  |  Clearly (45)  |  Clue (20)  |  Compare (76)  |  Confident (25)  |  Crime (39)  |  Crowd (25)  |  Define (53)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Disease (340)  |  Enlighten (32)  |  Enlightened (25)  |  Epidemic (8)  |  Exchange (38)  |  Filth (5)  |  Forerunner (4)  |  Gun (10)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Influx (2)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Late (119)  |  Member (42)  |  Microbe (30)  |  Misdirect (2)  |  New (1273)  |  New York (17)  |  Next (238)  |  Nowhere (28)  |  Point (584)  |  Point Out (9)  |  Poor (139)  |  Problem (731)  |  Report (42)  |  Rob (6)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sewage (9)  |  Single (365)  |  Social (261)  |  Social Science (37)  |  Social Scientist (5)  |  Something (718)  |  Spread (86)  |  Stock Exchange (2)  |  Street (25)  |  Stretch (39)  |  Teenager (6)  |  Trace (109)  |  Unlikely (15)  |  Urban (12)  |  Violent (17)  |  Will (2350)

Physical science has taught us to associate Deity with the normal rather than with the abnormal.
In James Wood, Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources (1893), 348.
Science quotes on:  |  Abnormal (6)  |  Deity (22)  |  Normal (29)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Teach (299)

Plasticity is a double-edged sword; the more flexible an organism is the greater the variety of maladaptive, as well as adaptive, behaviors it can develop; the more teachable it is the more fully it can profit from the experiences of its ancestors and associates and the more it risks being exploited by its ancestors and associates.
In Gary William Flake, The Computational Beauty of Nature (2000), 361.
Science quotes on:  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Behavior (95)  |  Behaviour (42)  |  Being (1276)  |  Develop (278)  |  Experience (494)  |  Exploit (19)  |  Flexibility (6)  |  Greater (288)  |  Learning (291)  |  More (2558)  |  Organism (231)  |  Plasticity (7)  |  Profit (56)  |  Risk (68)  |  Teachable (2)  |  Variety (138)

The ‘mad idea’ which will lie at the basis of a future fundamental physical theory will come from a realization that physical meaning has some mathematical form not previously associated with reality. From this point of view the problem of the ‘mad idea’ is the problem of choosing, not of generating, the right idea. One should not understand that too literally. In the 1960s it was said (in a certain connection) that the most important discovery of recent years in physics was the complex numbers. The author [Yuri Manin] has something like that in mind.
Mathematics and Physics (1981), Foreward. Reprinted in Mathematics as Metaphor: Selected Essays of Yuri I. Manin (2007), 90.
Science quotes on:  |  Author (175)  |  Basis (180)  |  Certain (557)  |  Choose (116)  |  Complex (202)  |  Complex Number (3)  |  Complex Numbers (2)  |  Connection (171)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Form (976)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Future (467)  |  Generate (16)  |  Idea (881)  |  Important (229)  |  Lie (370)  |  Literally (30)  |  Mad (54)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Number (710)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physics (564)  |  Point (584)  |  Point Of View (85)  |  Previously (12)  |  Problem (731)  |  Reality (274)  |  Realization (44)  |  Recent (78)  |  Right (473)  |  Say (989)  |  Something (718)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Understand (648)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

The great mathematician, like the great poet or naturalist or great administrator, is born. My contention shall be that where the mathematic endowment is found, there will usually be found associated with it, as essential implications in it, other endowments in generous measure, and that the appeal of the science is to the whole mind, direct no doubt to the central powers of thought, but indirectly through sympathy of all, rousing, enlarging, developing, emancipating all, so that the faculties of will, of intellect and feeling learn to respond, each in its appropriate order and degree, like the parts of an orchestra to the “urge and ardor” of its leader and lord.
In Lectures on Science, Philosophy and Art (1908), 22.
Science quotes on:  |  Administrator (11)  |  Appeal (46)  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Ardor (5)  |  Bear (162)  |  Central (81)  |  Contention (14)  |  Degree (277)  |  Develop (278)  |  Direct (228)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Emancipate (2)  |  Endowment (16)  |  Enlarge (37)  |  Essential (210)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Find (1014)  |  Generous (17)  |  Great (1610)  |  Implication (25)  |  Indirectly (7)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Leader (51)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lord (97)  |  Mathematic (3)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Measure (241)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Orchestra (3)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Part (235)  |  Poet (97)  |  Power (771)  |  Respond (14)  |  Rouse (4)  |  Sympathy (35)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Urge (17)  |  Usually (176)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)

The history of chemistry is properly divided into the mythologic, the obscure, and the certain. The first period exhibits it from its infancy, deformed by fictions, until the destruction of the library of Alexandria by the Arabs. —The second, though freed in some measure from these absurdities, yet is still clothed in numberless enigmas and allegorical expressions.— The third period commences at the middle of the seventeenth century, with the first establishment of societies and academies of science; of which the wise associates, in many places uniting their efforts, determined to pursue the study of Natural Philosophy by observation and experiments, and candidly to publish their attempts in a general account of their transactions.
In Essays, Physical and Chemical (1791), 4, translated from the original Latin.
Science quotes on:  |  17th Century (20)  |  Absurdity (34)  |  Academy (37)  |  Account (195)  |  Alexandria (2)  |  Allegory (8)  |  Arab (5)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Candid (3)  |  Century (319)  |  Certain (557)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Divided (50)  |  Effort (243)  |  Enigma (16)  |  Establishment (47)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Expression (181)  |  Fiction (23)  |  First (1302)  |  General (521)  |  History (716)  |  Library (53)  |  Measure (241)  |  Myth (58)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosophy (52)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Observation (593)  |  Period (200)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Publication (102)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Society (350)  |  Still (614)  |  Study (701)  |  Transaction (13)  |  Wise (143)

The only level of the hierarchy [of biological communities] that is both necessary and sufficient to meet all objectives is the ecosystem or some higher-level approach. The strategy selected should not only ensure the conservation of spotted owls, but all the intricate linkages that are associated with natural populations of spotted owls in naturally functioning ecosystems. Many of these are as yet unknown.
In The Fragmented Forest: Island Biogeography Theory and the Preservation of Biotic Diversity (1984), 107.
Science quotes on:  |  Approach (112)  |  Biological (137)  |  Biology (232)  |  Both (496)  |  Community (111)  |  Conservation (187)  |  Ecosystem (33)  |  Ensure (27)  |  Functioning (4)  |  Hierarchy (17)  |  Intricate (29)  |  Linkage (5)  |  Natural (810)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Objective (96)  |  Owl (3)  |  Population (115)  |  Select (45)  |  Strategy (13)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Unknown (195)

The original Upper Paleolithic people would, if they appeared among us today, be called Caucasoid, in the sense that they lacked the particular traits we associate with Negroid and Mongoloid types.
From The Structure of Personality in its Environment (1979), 341.
Science quotes on:  |  Appeared (4)  |  Call (781)  |  Called (9)  |  Lack (127)  |  Original (61)  |  Paleolithic (2)  |  Particular (80)  |  People (1031)  |  Sense (785)  |  Today (321)  |  Trait (23)  |  Type (171)

The rigid career path of a professor at a modern university is that One Must Build the Big Research Group, recruit doctoral students more vigorously than the head football coach, bombard the federal agencies with grant applications more numerous than the pollen falling from the heavens in spring, and leave the paper writing and the research to the postdocs, research associates, and students who do all the bench work and all the computer programming. A professor is chained to his previous topics by his Big Group, his network of contacts built up laboriously over decades, and the impossibility of large funding except in areas where the grantee has grown the group from a corner of the building to an entire floor. The senior tenure-track faculty at a research university–the “silverbacks” in anthropological jargon–are bound by invisible chains stronger than the strongest steel to a narrow range of what the Prevailing Consensus agrees are Very Important Problems. The aspiring scientist is confronted with the reality that his mentors are all business managers.
In his Foreword to Cornelius Lanczos, Discourse on Fourier Series, ix-x.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Bench (8)  |  Bound (120)  |  Build (211)  |  Building (158)  |  Business (156)  |  Career (86)  |  Coach (5)  |  Computer (131)  |  Consensus (8)  |  Contact (66)  |  Corner (59)  |  Decade (66)  |  Department (93)  |  Do (1905)  |  Football (11)  |  Funding (20)  |  Grant (76)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Jargon (13)  |  Large (398)  |  Manager (6)  |  Mentor (3)  |  Modern (402)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Network (21)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Paper (192)  |  Path (159)  |  Pollen (6)  |  Postgraduate (2)  |  Problem (731)  |  Professor (133)  |  Range (104)  |  Reality (274)  |  Research (753)  |  Rigid (24)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Senior (7)  |  Silverback (2)  |  Spring (140)  |  Steel (23)  |  Stronger (36)  |  Strongest (38)  |  Student (317)  |  Tenure (8)  |  Topic (23)  |  Track (42)  |  University (130)  |  Work (1402)  |  Writing (192)

The works of Lavoisier and his associates operated upon many of us at that time like the Sun's rising after a night of moonshine: but Chemistry is now betrothed to the Mathematics, and is in consequence grown somewhat shy of her former admirers.
In Luke Howard, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and D.F.S. Scott (ed.), Luke Howard (1772-1864): His Correspondence with Goethe and his Continental Journey of 1816(1976), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Admirer (9)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Former (138)  |  Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (41)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Moonshine (5)  |  Night (133)  |  Rising (44)  |  Shy (5)  |  Sun (407)  |  Time (1911)  |  Work (1402)

There are four classes of Idols which beset men’s minds. To these for distinction’s sake I have assigned names,—calling the first class Idols of the Tribe; the second, Idols of the Cave; the third, Idols of the Market Place; the fourth, Idols of the Theatre
The Idols of the Tribe have their foundation in human nature itself, and in the tribe or race of men. For it is a false assertion that the sense of man is the measure of things. On the contrary, all perceptions as well of the sense as of the mind are according to the measure of the individual and not according to the measure of the universe. And the human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolours the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it.
The Idols of the Cave are the idols of the individual man. For every one (besides the errors common to human nature in general) has a cave or den of his own, which refracts and discolours the light of nature; owing either to his own proper and peculiar nature; or to his education and conversation with others; or to the reading of books, and the authority of those whom he esteems and admires; or to the differences of impressions, accordingly as they take place in a mind preoccupied and predisposed or in a mind indifferent and settled; or the like.
There are also Idols formed by the intercourse and association of men with each other, which I call Idols of the Market-place, on account of the commerce and consort of men there. For it is by discourse that men associate; and words are imposed according to the apprehension of the vulgar, and therefore the ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obstructs the understanding. Nor do the definitions or explanations where with in some things learned men are wont to guard and defend themselves, by any means set the matter right. But words plainly force and overrule the understanding, and throw all into confusion, and lead men away into numberless empty controversies and idle fancies.
Lastly, there are Idols which have immigrated into men’s minds from the various dogmas of philosophies, and also from wrong laws of demonstration. These I call Idols of the Theatre; because in my judgment all the received systems are but so many stage-plays, representing worlds of their own creation after an unreal and scenic fashion.
From Novum Organum (1620), Book 1, Aphorisms 39, 41-44. Translated as The New Organon: Aphorisms Concerning the Interpretation of Nature and the Kingdom of Man), collected in James Spedding, Robert Ellis and Douglas Heath (eds.), The Works of Francis Bacon (1857), Vol. 4, 53-55.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Account (195)  |  Apprehension (26)  |  Association (49)  |  Authority (99)  |  Book (413)  |  Call (781)  |  Choice (114)  |  Class (168)  |  Commerce (23)  |  Common (447)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Conversation (46)  |  Creation (350)  |  Definition (238)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Difference (355)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Distort (22)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dogma (49)  |  Education (423)  |  Empty (82)  |  Error (339)  |  Explanation (246)  |  First (1302)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Foundation (177)  |  General (521)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Idle (34)  |  Idol (5)  |  Impression (118)  |  Individual (420)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Law (913)  |  Lead (391)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Light (635)  |  Man (2252)  |  Market (23)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Measure (241)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mirror (43)  |  Name (359)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nature Of Things (30)  |  Other (2233)  |  Owing (39)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Perception (97)  |  Proper (150)  |  Race (278)  |  Ray (115)  |  Reading (136)  |  Right (473)  |  Sake (61)  |  Sense (785)  |  Set (400)  |  Settled (34)  |  Stage (152)  |  System (545)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Tribe (26)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Universe (900)  |  Various (205)  |  Vulgar (33)  |  Word (650)  |  World (1850)  |  Wrong (246)

There is no art so difficult as the art of observation: it requires a skillful, sober spirit and a well-trained experience, which can only be acquired by practice; for he is not an observer who only sees the thing before him with his eyes, but he who sees of what parts the thing consists, and in what connexion the parts stand to the whole. One person overlooks half from inattention; another relates more than he sees while he confounds it with that which he figures to himself; another sees the parts of the whole, but he throws things together that ought to be separated. ... When the observer has ascertained the foundation of a phenomenon, and he is able to associate its conditions, he then proves while he endeavours to produce the phenomena at his will, the correctness of his observations by experiment. To make a series of experiments is often to decompose an opinion into its individual parts, and to prove it by a sensible phenomenon. The naturalist makes experiments in order to exhibit a phenomenon in all its different parts. When he is able to show of a series of phenomena, that they are all operations of the same cause, he arrives at a simple expression of their significance, which, in this case, is called a Law of Nature. We speak of a simple property as a Law of Nature when it serves for the explanation of one or more natural phenomena.
'The Study of the Natural Sciences: An Introductory Lecture to the Course of Experimental Chemistry in the University of Munich, for the Winter Session of 1852-53,' as translated and republished in The Medical Times and Gazette (22 Jan 1853), N.S. Vol. 6, 82.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquired (77)  |  Art (680)  |  Ascertain (41)  |  Call (781)  |  Carelessness (7)  |  Cause (561)  |  Component (51)  |  Condition (362)  |  Confound (21)  |  Confuse (22)  |  Consist (223)  |  Correctness (12)  |  Decompose (10)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Different (595)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Expression (181)  |  Eye (440)  |  Figure (162)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Himself (461)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Inattention (5)  |  Individual (420)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observer (48)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Order (638)  |  Overlook (33)  |  Part (235)  |  Person (366)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Practice (212)  |  Produce (117)  |  Proof (304)  |  Property (177)  |  Prove (261)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Report (42)  |  Require (229)  |  Result (700)  |  See (1094)  |  Sensible (28)  |  Separate (151)  |  Series (153)  |  Show (353)  |  Significance (114)  |  Simple (426)  |  Skillful (17)  |  Sober (10)  |  Speak (240)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Stand (284)  |  Test (221)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Together (392)  |  Train (118)  |  Training (92)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Validity (50)  |  Verify (24)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)

There is no short cut, nor “royal road” to the attainment of medical knowledge. The path which we have to pursue is long, difficult, and unsafe. In our progress, we must frequently take up our abode with death and corruption, we must adopt loathsome diseases for our familiar associates, or we shall never be acquainted with their nature and dispositions ; we must risk, nay, even injure our own health, in order to be able to preserve, or restore that of others.
Hunterian Oration (1819). Quoted in Clement Carlyon, Early Years and Late Reflections (1856), 110-111.
Science quotes on:  |  Attainment (48)  |  Corruption (17)  |  Cut (116)  |  Death (406)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Disease (340)  |  Disposition (44)  |  Education (423)  |  Health (210)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Long (778)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Path (159)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Progress (492)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Risk (68)  |  Royal (56)  |  Short (200)

This brings me to the final point of my remarks, the relation between creativity and aging, a topic with which I have had substantial experience. Scientific research, until it has gone through the grueling and sometimes painful process of publication, is just play, and play is characteristic of young vertebrates, particularly young mammals. In some ways, scientific creativity is related to the exuberant behavior of young mammals. Indeed, creativity seems to be a natural characteristic of young humans. If one is fortunate enough to be associated with a university, even as one ages, teaching allows one to contribute to, and vicariously share, in the creativity of youth.”
In 'Integrative Biology: An Organismic Biologist’s Point of View', Integrative and Comparative Biology (2005), 45, 331.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Aging (9)  |  Allow (51)  |  Behavior (95)  |  Bring (95)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Contribute (30)  |  Creativity (84)  |  Enough (341)  |  Experience (494)  |  Exuberant (2)  |  Final (121)  |  Fortunate (31)  |  Grueling (2)  |  Human (1512)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Mammal (41)  |  Natural (810)  |  Painful (12)  |  Particularly (21)  |  Play (116)  |  Point (584)  |  Process (439)  |  Publication (102)  |  Relate (26)  |  Relation (166)  |  Remark (28)  |  Research (753)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Seem (150)  |  Share (82)  |  Sometimes (46)  |  Substantial (24)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Through (846)  |  Topic (23)  |  University (130)  |  Vertebrate (22)  |  Way (1214)  |  Young (253)  |  Youth (109)

To emphasize this opinion that mathematicians would be unwise to accept practical issues as the sole guide or the chief guide in the current of their investigations, ... let me take one more instance, by choosing a subject in which the purely mathematical interest is deemed supreme, the theory of functions of a complex variable. That at least is a theory in pure mathematics, initiated in that region, and developed in that region; it is built up in scores of papers, and its plan certainly has not been, and is not now, dominated or guided by considerations of applicability to natural phenomena. Yet what has turned out to be its relation to practical issues? The investigations of Lagrange and others upon the construction of maps appear as a portion of the general property of conformal representation; which is merely the general geometrical method of regarding functional relations in that theory. Again, the interesting and important investigations upon discontinuous two-dimensional fluid motion in hydrodynamics, made in the last twenty years, can all be, and now are all, I believe, deduced from similar considerations by interpreting functional relations between complex variables. In the dynamics of a rotating heavy body, the only substantial extension of our knowledge since the time of Lagrange has accrued from associating the general properties of functions with the discussion of the equations of motion. Further, under the title of conjugate functions, the theory has been applied to various questions in electrostatics, particularly in connection with condensers and electrometers. And, lastly, in the domain of physical astronomy, some of the most conspicuous advances made in the last few years have been achieved by introducing into the discussion the ideas, the principles, the methods, and the results of the theory of functions. … the refined and extremely difficult work of Poincare and others in physical astronomy has been possible only by the use of the most elaborate developments of some purely mathematical subjects, developments which were made without a thought of such applications.
In Presidential Address British Association for the Advancement of Science, Section A, (1897), Nature, 56, 377.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Accrue (3)  |  Achieve (75)  |  Advance (298)  |  Appear (122)  |  Applicability (7)  |  Application (257)  |  Applied (176)  |  Apply (170)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Belief (615)  |  Body (557)  |  Build (211)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Chief (99)  |  Choose (116)  |  Complex (202)  |  Condenser (4)  |  Connection (171)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Conspicuous (13)  |  Construction (114)  |  Current (122)  |  Deduce (27)  |  Deem (7)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Discontinuous (6)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Domain (72)  |  Dominate (20)  |  Dynamics (11)  |  Elaborate (31)  |  Electrostatic (7)  |  Electrostatics (6)  |  Emphasize (25)  |  Equation (138)  |  Extension (60)  |  Extremely (17)  |  Far (158)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Fluid Motion (2)  |  Function (235)  |  Functional (10)  |  General (521)  |  Geometrical (11)  |  Guide (107)  |  Heavy (24)  |  Hydrodynamics (5)  |  Idea (881)  |  Important (229)  |  Initiate (13)  |  Instance (33)  |  Interest (416)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Interpret (25)  |  Interpreting (5)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Issue (46)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Count Joseph-Louis de Lagrange (26)  |  Last (425)  |  Least (75)  |  Let (64)  |  Map (50)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Merely (315)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motion (320)  |  Natural (810)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paper (192)  |  Particularly (21)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physical (518)  |  Plan (122)  |  Henri Poincaré (99)  |  Portion (86)  |  Possible (560)  |  Practical (225)  |  Principle (530)  |  Property (177)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Purely (111)  |  Question (649)  |  Refine (8)  |  Regard (312)  |  Region (40)  |  Relation (166)  |  Representation (55)  |  Result (700)  |  Rotate (8)  |  Score (8)  |  Similar (36)  |  Sole (50)  |  Study And Research In Mathematics (61)  |  Subject (543)  |  Substantial (24)  |  Supreme (73)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Title (20)  |  Turn (454)  |  Turned Out (5)  |  Two (936)  |  Unwise (4)  |  Use (771)  |  Variable (37)  |  Various (205)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

We do not associate the idea of antiquity with the ocean, nor wonder how it looked a thousand years ago, as we do of the land, for it was equally wild and unfathomable always.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Antiquity (34)  |  Do (1905)  |  Equally (129)  |  Idea (881)  |  Land (131)  |  Look (584)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Unfathomable (11)  |  Wild (96)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Year (963)


Carl Sagan Thumbnail 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) -- Carl Sagan
Quotations by:Albert EinsteinIsaac NewtonLord KelvinCharles DarwinSrinivasa RamanujanCarl SaganFlorence NightingaleThomas EdisonAristotleMarie CurieBenjamin FranklinWinston ChurchillGalileo GalileiSigmund FreudRobert BunsenLouis PasteurTheodore RooseveltAbraham LincolnRonald ReaganLeonardo DaVinciMichio KakuKarl PopperJohann GoetheRobert OppenheimerCharles Kettering  ... (more people)

Quotations about:Atomic  BombBiologyChemistryDeforestationEngineeringAnatomyAstronomyBacteriaBiochemistryBotanyConservationDinosaurEnvironmentFractalGeneticsGeologyHistory of ScienceInventionJupiterKnowledgeLoveMathematicsMeasurementMedicineNatural ResourceOrganic ChemistryPhysicsPhysicianQuantum TheoryResearchScience and ArtTeacherTechnologyUniverseVolcanoVirusWind PowerWomen ScientistsX-RaysYouthZoology  ... (more topics)
Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages:
Visit our Science and Scientist Quotations index for more Science Quotes from archaeologists, biologists, chemists, geologists, inventors and inventions, mathematicians, physicists, pioneers in medicine, science events and technology.

Names index: | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Categories index: | 1 | 2 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
Thank you for sharing.
- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton


by Ian Ellis
who invites your feedback
Thank you for sharing.
Today in Science History
Sign up for Newsletter
with quiz, quotes and more.