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: “I have no satisfaction in formulas unless I feel their arithmetical magnitude.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index E > Category: Expected

Expected Quotes (5 quotes)

In the beginning of the year 1800 the illustrious professor [Volta] conceived the idea of forming a long column by piling up, in succession, a disc of copper, a disc of zinc, and a disc of wet cloth, with scrupulous attention to not changing this order. What could be expected beforehand from such a combination? Well, I do not hesitate to say, this apparently inert mass, this bizarre assembly, this pile of so many couples of unequal metals separated by a little liquid is, in the singularity of effect, the most marvellous instrument which men have yet invented, the telescope and the steam engine not excepted.
In François Arago, 'Bloge for Volta' (1831), Oeuvres Completes de François Arago (1854), Vol. 1, 219-20.
Science quotes on:  |  Assembly (13)  |  Attention (196)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Bizarre (6)  |  Changing (7)  |  Cloth (6)  |  Column (15)  |  Combination (150)  |  Conceived (3)  |  Copper (25)  |  Couple (9)  |  Do (1905)  |  Effect (414)  |  Engine (99)  |  Expect (203)  |  Forming (42)  |  Hesitate (24)  |  Idea (881)  |  Illustrious (10)  |  Inert (14)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Invention (400)  |  Liquid (50)  |  Little (717)  |  Long (778)  |  Marvel (37)  |  Marvellous (25)  |  Mass (160)  |  Metal (88)  |  Most (1728)  |  Order (638)  |  Pile (12)  |  Professor (133)  |  Say (989)  |  Scrupulous (7)  |  Separate (151)  |  Singularity (4)  |  Steam (81)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Succession (80)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Unequal (12)  |  Count Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta (5)  |  Wet (6)  |  Year (963)  |  Zinc (3)

My main point today is that usually one gets what one expects, but very rarely in the way one expected it. (1970)
Draft (22 May 1970) of speech he hoped to give upon his retirement. In Susan Hough, Richter's Scale: Measure of an Earthquake, Measure of a Man (2007), 309.
Science quotes on:  |  Expect (203)  |  Get (3)  |  Point (584)  |  Rarely (21)  |  Today (321)  |  Usually (176)  |  Way (1214)

One wonders whether the rare ability to be completely attentive to, and to profit by, Nature’s slightest deviation from the conduct expected of her is not the secret of the best research minds and one that explains why some men turn to most remarkably good advantage seemingly trivial accidents. Behind such attention lies an unremitting sensitivity.
In The Furtherance of Medical Research (1941), 98.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Accident (92)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Attention (196)  |  Attentive (15)  |  Behind (139)  |  Best (467)  |  Completely (137)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Deviation (21)  |  Expect (203)  |  Explain (334)  |  Good (906)  |  Lie (370)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Profit (56)  |  Rare (94)  |  Remarkable (50)  |  Research (753)  |  Secret (216)  |  Seemingly (28)  |  Sensitivity (10)  |  Trivial (59)  |  Turn (454)  |  Why (491)  |  Wonder (251)

William Ramsay quote: Progress is made by trial and failure; the failures are generally a hundred times more numerous
Progress is made by trial and failure; the failures are generally a hundred times more numerous than the successes; yet they are usually left unchronicled. The reason is that the investigator feels that even though he has failed in achieving an expected result, some other more fortunate experimenter may succeed, and it is unwise to discourage his attempts.
From 'Radium and its Products', Harper’s Magazine (Dec 1904), 110, No. 655, 52.
Science quotes on:  |  Achieving (3)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Discourage (14)  |  Expect (203)  |  Experimenter (40)  |  Fail (191)  |  Failed (3)  |  Failure (176)  |  Feel (371)  |  Fortunate (31)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Investigator (71)  |  More (2558)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Other (2233)  |  Progress (492)  |  Reason (766)  |  Result (700)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Success (327)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trial (59)  |  Unwise (4)  |  Usually (176)

What is peculiar and new to the [19th] century, differentiating it from all its predecessors, is its technology. It was not merely the introduction of some great isolated inventions. It is impossible not to feel that something more than that was involved. … The process of change was slow, unconscious, and unexpected. In the nineteeth century, the process became quick, conscious, and expected. … The whole change has arisen from the new scientific information. Science, conceived not so much in its principles as in its results, is an obvious storehouse of ideas for utilisation. … Also, it is a great mistake to think that the bare scientific idea is the required invention, so that it has only to be picked up and used. An intense period of imaginative design lies between. One element in the new method is just the discovery of how to set about bridging the gap between the scientific ideas, and the ultimate product. It is a process of disciplined attack upon one difficulty after another This discipline of knowledge applies beyond technology to pure science, and beyond science to general scholarship. It represents the change from amateurs to professionals. … But the full self-conscious realisation of the power of professionalism in knowledge in all its departments, and of the way to produce the professionals, and of the importance of knowledge to the advance of technology, and of the methods by which abstract knowledge can be connected with technology, and of the boundless possibilities of technological advance,—the realisation of all these things was first completely attained in the nineteeth century.
In Science and the Modern World (1925, 1997), 96.
Science quotes on:  |  19th Century (41)  |  Abstract (141)  |  Advance (298)  |  Amateur (22)  |  Attack (86)  |  Attain (126)  |  Bare (33)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Boundless (28)  |  Century (319)  |  Change (639)  |  Completely (137)  |  Connect (126)  |  Conscious (46)  |  Department (93)  |  Design (203)  |  Differentiate (19)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Element (322)  |  Expect (203)  |  Feel (371)  |  First (1302)  |  Gap (36)  |  General (521)  |  Great (1610)  |  Idea (881)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Importance (299)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Information (173)  |  Introduction (37)  |  Invention (400)  |  Involved (90)  |  Isolated (15)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lie (370)  |  Merely (315)  |  Method (531)  |  Mistake (180)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Period (200)  |  Power (771)  |  Predecessor (29)  |  Principle (530)  |  Process (439)  |  Product (166)  |  Professional (77)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Science (30)  |  Realisation (4)  |  Represent (157)  |  Required (108)  |  Result (700)  |  Scholarship (22)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Self (268)  |  Set (400)  |  Slow (108)  |  Something (718)  |  Storehouse (6)  |  Technological (62)  |  Technology (281)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Unconscious (24)  |  Unexpected (55)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)


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.