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: “Nature does nothing in vain when less will serve; for Nature is pleased with simplicity and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index E > Category: Electrostatic

Electrostatic Quotes (7 quotes)

Ere long intelligence—transmitted without wires—will throb through the earth like a pulse through a living organism. The wonder is that, with the present state of knowledge and the experiences gained, no attempt is being made to disturb the electrostatic or magnetic condition of the earth, and transmit, if nothing else, intelligence.
Electrical Engineer (24 Jun 1892), 11, 609.
Science quotes on:  |  Attempt (266)  |  Being (1276)  |  Condition (362)  |  Disturb (31)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Electrical Engineering (12)  |  Experience (494)  |  Gain (146)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Living (492)  |  Long (778)  |  Magnetic (44)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Organism (231)  |  Present (630)  |  Pulse (22)  |  Radio (60)  |  State (505)  |  Throb (6)  |  Through (846)  |  Transmission (34)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wire (36)  |  Wonder (251)

It required unusual inquisitiveness to pursue the development of scientific curiosities such as charged pith balls, the voltaic cell, and the electrostatic machine. Without such endeavors and the evolution of associated instrumentation, initially of purely scientific interest, most of the investigations that lead to the basic equations of electromagnetism would have been missed. … We would have been deprived of electromagnetic machinery as well as knowledge of electromagnetic waves.
From The Science Matrix: The Journey, Travails, Triumphs (1992, 1998), 14.
Science quotes on:  |  Ball (64)  |  Basic (144)  |  Charge (63)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Deprived (2)  |  Development (441)  |  Electromagnetic Wave (2)  |  Electromagnetism (19)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Equation (138)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Inquisitiveness (6)  |  Instrumentation (4)  |  Interest (416)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lead (391)  |  Machine (271)  |  Machinery (59)  |  Miss (51)  |  Missed (2)  |  Most (1728)  |  Purely (111)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Required (108)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Unusual (37)  |  Voltaic (9)  |  Wave (112)

Ohm found that the results could be summed up in such a simple law that he who runs may read it, and a schoolboy now can predict what a Faraday then could only guess at roughly. By Ohm's discovery a large part of the domain of electricity became annexed by Coulomb's discovery of the law of inverse squares, and completely annexed by Green's investigations. Poisson attacked the difficult problem of induced magnetisation, and his results, though differently expressed, are still the theory, as a most important first approximation. Ampere brought a multitude of phenomena into theory by his investigations of the mechanical forces between conductors supporting currents and magnets. Then there were the remarkable researches of Faraday, the prince of experimentalists, on electrostatics and electrodynamics and the induction of currents. These were rather long in being brought from the crude experimental state to a compact system, expressing the real essence. Unfortunately, in my opinion, Faraday was not a mathematician. It can scarely be doubted that had he been one, he would have anticipated much later work. He would, for instance, knowing Ampere's theory, by his own results have readily been led to Neumann’s theory, and the connected work of Helmholtz and Thomson. But it is perhaps too much to expect a man to be both the prince of experimentalists and a competent mathematician.
From article 'Electro-magnetic Theory II', in The Electrician (16 Jan 1891), 26, No. 661, 331.
Science quotes on:  |  André-Marie Ampère (11)  |  Approximation (32)  |  Attack (86)  |  Being (1276)  |  Both (496)  |  Compact (13)  |  Completely (137)  |  Conductor (17)  |  Connect (126)  |  Charles-Augustin Coulomb (3)  |  Crude (32)  |  Current (122)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Domain (72)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Electrodynamics (10)  |  Electromagnetism (19)  |  Electrostatics (6)  |  Essence (85)  |  Expect (203)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Experimentalist (20)  |  Express (192)  |  Michael Faraday (91)  |  First (1302)  |  Force (497)  |  Green (65)  |  Guess (67)  |  Hermann von Helmholtz (32)  |  Induction (81)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Large (398)  |  Law (913)  |  Long (778)  |  Magnet (22)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Most (1728)  |  Multitude (50)  |  Ohm (5)  |  Georg Simon Ohm (3)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Siméon-Denis Poisson (7)  |  Predict (86)  |  Problem (731)  |  Read (308)  |  Result (700)  |  Run (158)  |  Simple (426)  |  Square (73)  |  State (505)  |  Still (614)  |  System (545)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Sir J.J. Thomson (18)  |  Unfortunately (40)  |  Work (1402)

The velocity of light is one of the most important of the fundamental constants of Nature. Its measurement by Foucault and Fizeau gave as the result a speed greater in air than in water, thus deciding in favor of the undulatory and against the corpuscular theory. Again, the comparison of the electrostatic and the electromagnetic units gives as an experimental result a value remarkably close to the velocity of light–a result which justified Maxwell in concluding that light is the propagation of an electromagnetic disturbance. Finally, the principle of relativity gives the velocity of light a still greater importance, since one of its fundamental postulates is the constancy of this velocity under all possible conditions.
Studies in Optics (1927), 120.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Air (366)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Condition (362)  |  Constancy (12)  |  Constant (148)  |  Corpuscle (14)  |  Disturbance (34)  |  Electromagnetic (2)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Favor (69)  |  Jean-Bernard-Léon Foucault (3)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Greater (288)  |  Importance (299)  |  Light (635)  |  Maxwell (42)  |  James Clerk Maxwell (91)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Possible (560)  |  Postulate (42)  |  Principle (530)  |  Propagation (15)  |  Relativity (91)  |  Result (700)  |  Speed (66)  |  Speed Of Light (18)  |  Still (614)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Unit (36)  |  Value (393)  |  Velocity (51)  |  Water (503)  |  Wave (112)

The word “electromagnetic” which is used to characterize the phenomena produced by the conducting wires of the voltaic pile, … were those which M. Oersted discovered, exhibited by an electric current and a magnet. I have determined to use the word electrodynamic in order to unite under a common name all these phenomena, and particularly to designate those which I have observed between two voltaic conductors. It expresses their true character, that of being produced by electricity in motion: while the electric attractions and repulsions, which have been known for a long time, are electrostatic phenomena produced by the unequal distribution of electricity at rest in the bodies in which they are observed.
New terminology introduced in 'Experiments on the New Electrodynamical Phenomena', Annales de Chemie et de Physique (1822), Series 2, Vol. 20, 60. As translated in Dagobert David Runes (ed.), A Treasury of World Science (1962), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Attraction (61)  |  Being (1276)  |  Character (259)  |  Common (447)  |  Conductor (17)  |  Current (122)  |  Discover (571)  |  Distribution (51)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Electrodynamics (10)  |  Electromagnetic (2)  |  Known (453)  |  Long (778)  |  Magnet (22)  |  Motion (320)  |  Name (359)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Observed (149)  |  Hans Christian Oersted (5)  |  Order (638)  |  Produced (187)  |  Repulsion (7)  |  Rest (287)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Unequal (12)  |  Unite (43)  |  Use (771)  |  Voltaic (9)  |  Voltaic Pile (2)  |  Wire (36)  |  Word (650)

This whole theory of electrostatics constitutes a group of abstract ideas and general propositions, formulated in the clear and precise language of geometry and algebra, and connected with one another by the rules of strict logic. This whole fully satisfies the reason of a French physicist and his taste for clarity, simplicity and order. The same does not hold for the Englishman. These abstract notions of material points, force, line of force, and equipotential surface do not satisfy his need to imagine concrete, material, visible, and tangible things. 'So long as we cling to this mode of representation,' says an English physicist, 'we cannot form a mental representation of the phenomena which are really happening.' It is to satisfy the need that he goes and creates a model.
The French or German physicist conceives, in the space separating two conductors, abstract lines of force having no thickness or real existence; the English physicist materializes these lines and thickens them to the dimensions of a tube which he will fill with vulcanised rubber. In place of a family of lines of ideal forces, conceivable only by reason, he will have a bundle of elastic strings, visible and tangible, firmly glued at both ends to the surfaces of the two conductors, and, when stretched, trying both to contact and to expand. When the two conductors approach each other, he sees the elastic strings drawing closer together; then he sees each of them bunch up and grow large. Such is the famous model of electrostatic action imagined by Faraday and admired as a work of genius by Maxwell and the whole English school.
The employment of similar mechanical models, recalling by certain more or less rough analogies the particular features of the theory being expounded, is a regular feature of the English treatises on physics. Here is a book* [by Oliver Lodge] intended to expound the modern theories of electricity and to expound a new theory. In it are nothing but strings which move around pulleys, which roll around drums, which go through pearl beads, which carry weights; and tubes which pump water while others swell and contract; toothed wheels which are geared to one another and engage hooks. We thought we were entering the tranquil and neatly ordered abode of reason, but we find ourselves in a factory.
*Footnote: O. Lodge, Les Théories Modernes (Modern Views on Electricity) (1889), 16.
The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory (1906), 2nd edition (1914), trans. Philip P. Wiener (1954), 70-1.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Action (342)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Approach (112)  |  Being (1276)  |  Book (413)  |  Both (496)  |  Carry (130)  |  Certain (557)  |  Clarity (49)  |  Closer (43)  |  Conceivable (28)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Concrete (55)  |  Conductor (17)  |  Connect (126)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Contact (66)  |  Create (245)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Do (1905)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Drum (8)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Electrostatics (6)  |  Employment (34)  |  End (603)  |  Engage (41)  |  Existence (481)  |  Expand (56)  |  Factory (20)  |  Family (101)  |  Find (1014)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  General (521)  |  Genius (301)  |  Geometry (271)  |  German (37)  |  Grow (247)  |  Happening (59)  |  Idea (881)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Language (308)  |  Large (398)  |  Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge (13)  |  Logic (311)  |  Long (778)  |  Material (366)  |  Materialize (2)  |  Maxwell (42)  |  James Clerk Maxwell (91)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Mental (179)  |  Model (106)  |  Modern (402)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Move (223)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Notion (120)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Point (584)  |  Precise (71)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Reason (766)  |  Regular (48)  |  Representation (55)  |  Roll (41)  |  Rubber (11)  |  Rule (307)  |  Say (989)  |  School (227)  |  See (1094)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Small (489)  |  Space (523)  |  Stretch (39)  |  Surface (223)  |  Tangible (15)  |  Taste (93)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Together (392)  |  Tooth (32)  |  Treatise (46)  |  Trying (144)  |  Two (936)  |  View (496)  |  Visible (87)  |  Water (503)  |  Weight (140)  |  Wheel (51)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

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)  |  Associate (25)  |  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)  |  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)


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.