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: Experimental

Experimental Quotes (193 quotes)

... an analysis that puts the final link in the chain, for here we see correlations between cytological evidence and genetic results that are so strong and obvious that their validity cannot be denied. This paper has been called a landmark in experimental genetics. It is more than that—it is a cornerstone.
Describing the paper 'A Correlation of Cytological and Genetic Crossings-over in Zea mays' published by Barbara McClintock and her student Harriet Creighton in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (1931), demonstrating that the exchange of genetic information that occurs during the production of sex cells is accompanied by an exchange of chromosomal material.
Classic Papers in Genetics (1959), 156.
Science quotes on:  |  Academy (37)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Call (781)  |  Cornerstone (8)  |  Correlation (19)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Exchange (38)  |  Final (121)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Information (173)  |  Landmark (9)  |  Material (366)  |  Barbara McClintock (15)  |  More (2558)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Occur (151)  |  Paper (192)  |  Proceeding (38)  |  Production (190)  |  Result (700)  |  See (1094)  |  Sex (68)  |  Strong (182)  |  Student (317)  |  Validity (50)

… just as the astronomer, the physicist, the geologist, or other student of objective science looks about in the world of sense, so, not metaphorically speaking but literally, the mind of the mathematician goes forth in the universe of logic in quest of the things that are there; exploring the heights and depths for facts—ideas, classes, relationships, implications, and the rest; observing the minute and elusive with the powerful microscope of his Infinitesimal Analysis; observing the elusive and vast with the limitless telescope of his Calculus of the Infinite; making guesses regarding the order and internal harmony of the data observed and collocated; testing the hypotheses, not merely by the complete induction peculiar to mathematics, but, like his colleagues of the outer world, resorting also to experimental tests and incomplete induction; frequently finding it necessary, in view of unforeseen disclosures, to abandon one hopeful hypothesis or to transform it by retrenchment or by enlargement:—thus, in his own domain, matching, point for point, the processes, methods and experience familiar to the devotee of natural science.
In Lectures on Science, Philosophy and Art (1908), 26
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Class (168)  |  Colleague (51)  |  Complete (209)  |  Data (162)  |  Depth (97)  |  Devotee (7)  |  Disclosure (7)  |  Domain (72)  |  Elusive (8)  |  Enlargement (8)  |  Experience (494)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Familiar (47)  |  Find (1014)  |  Forth (14)  |  Frequently (21)  |  Geologist (82)  |  Guess (67)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Height (33)  |  Hopeful (6)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Idea (881)  |  Implication (25)  |  Incomplete (31)  |  Induction (81)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Infinitesimal (30)  |  Internal (69)  |  Limitless (14)  |  Literally (30)  |  Located (2)  |  Logic (311)  |  Look (584)  |  Making (300)  |  Match (30)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Merely (315)  |  Metaphor (37)  |  Method (531)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Minute (129)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Objective (96)  |  Observe (179)  |  Observed (149)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outer (13)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Point (584)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Process (439)  |  Quest (39)  |  Regard (312)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Resort (8)  |  Rest (287)  |  Sense (785)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Student (317)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Test (221)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Transform (74)  |  Unforeseen (11)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vast (188)  |  View (496)  |  World (1850)

[Experimental Physicist] Phys. I cannot imagine myself perceiving non-Euclidean space!
Math. Look at the reflection of the room in a polished doorknob, and imagine yourself one of the actors in what you see going on there.
In Space, Time and Gravitation: An Outline of the General Relativity Theory (1920, 1921), 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Experimental Physicist (11)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Look (584)  |  Myself (211)  |  Non-Euclidean (7)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Polish (17)  |  Reflection (93)  |  See (1094)  |  Space (523)

[Experimental Physicist] Phys. I know that it is often a help to represent pressure and volume as height and width on paper; and so geometry may have applications to the theory of gases. But is it not going rather far to say that geometry can deal directly with these things and is not necessarily concerned with lengths in space?
[Mathematician] Math. No. Geometry is nowadays largely analytical, so that in form as well as in effect, it deals with variables of an unknown nature. …It is literally true that I do not want to know the significance of the variables x, y, z, t that I am discussing. …
Phys. Yours is a strange subject. You told us at the beginning that you are not concerned as to whether your propositions are true, and now you tell us you do not even care to know what you are talking about.
Math. That is an excellent description of Pure Mathematics, which has already been given by an eminent mathematician [Bertrand Russell].
In Space, Time and Gravitation: An Outline of the General Relativity Theory (1920, 1921), 14.
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Application (257)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Care (203)  |  Concern (239)  |  Deal (192)  |  Do (1905)  |  Effect (414)  |  Experimental Physicist (11)  |  Form (976)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Know (1538)  |  Literally (30)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Paper (192)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Represent (157)  |  Say (989)  |  Significance (114)  |  Space (523)  |  Strange (160)  |  Subject (543)  |  Talking (76)  |  Tell (344)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Variable (37)  |  Want (504)

[John Wheeler] rejuvenated general relativity; he made it an experimental subject and took it away from the mathematicians
Quoted in Dennis Overbye, 'John A. Wheeler, Physicist Who Coined the Term Black Hole, Is Dead at 96', New York Times (14 Apr 2008).
Science quotes on:  |  General (521)  |  General Relativity (10)  |  Relativity (91)  |  Subject (543)  |  John Wheeler (40)

[Technical courage means the] physician-scientist must be brave enough to adopt new methods. It is far too easy to learn one technique and then to repeat the same experiment over and over. In this fashion one can write many papers, receive large research grants, and remain solidly rooted in the middle of a scientific field. But the true innovator has the confidence to drop one set of experimental crutches and leap to another when he or she must move forward.
In Banquet Speech, 'The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1985', on website nobelprize.org. Published in Les Prix Nobel, 1985: Nobel Prizes, Presentations, Biographies and Lectures (1986).
Science quotes on:  |  Adopt (22)  |  Brave (16)  |  Confidence (75)  |  Courage (82)  |  Drop (77)  |  Easy (213)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fashion (34)  |  Forward (104)  |  Grant (76)  |  Innovator (3)  |  Large (398)  |  Leap (57)  |  Learn (672)  |  Method (531)  |  Move (223)  |  New (1273)  |  Paper (192)  |  Physician (284)  |  Receive (117)  |  Remain (355)  |  Repeat (44)  |  Research (753)  |  Same (166)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Set (400)  |  Technical (53)  |  Technique (84)  |  True (239)  |  Write (250)

[The unreactivity of the noble gas elements] belongs to the surest of experimental results.
Angewandte Chemie (1924), 37, 421. Trans. In Hilde Hein and George E. Hein, 'The Chemistry of Noble Gases- A Modern Case Study in Experimental Science', Journal of the History of Ideas (1966), 27, 420.
Science quotes on:  |  Belong (168)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Element (322)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Gas (89)  |  Noble (93)  |  Noble Gas (4)  |  Result (700)  |  Sure (15)

[The] first postulate of the Principle of Uniformity, namely, that the laws of nature are invariant with time, is not peculiar to that principle or to geology, but is a common denominator of all science. In fact, instead of being an assumption or an ad hoc hypothesis, it is simply a succinct summation of the totality of all experimental and observational evidence.
'Critique of the Principle of Uniformity', in C. C. Albritton (ed.), Uniformity and Simplicity (1967), 29.
Science quotes on:  |  Assumption (96)  |  Being (1276)  |  Common (447)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Fact (1257)  |  First (1302)  |  Geology (240)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Invariant (10)  |  Law (913)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observational (15)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Postulate (42)  |  Principle (530)  |  Summation (3)  |  Time (1911)  |  Totality (17)  |  Uniformity (38)

[Probably not a direct quote] Experimental confirmation of a prediction is merely a measurement. An experiment disproving a prediction is a discovery.
Attributed. Found without source, for example, in Jon, Michael and Deborah Fripp, Speaking of Science: Notable Quotes on Science, Engineering, and the Environment. The quote appears to be a rephrasing of: “There are two possible outcomes: If the result confirms the hypothesis, then you’ve made a measurement. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you’ve made a discovery”, as seen elsewhere on this page. Webmaster has been unable to find an original source for a direct quote either wording.
Science quotes on:  |  Confirmation (25)  |  Direct (228)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Disprove (25)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Merely (315)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Quote (46)

A l’aide de ces sciences expérimentales actives, l’homme devient un inventeur de phénomènes, un véritable contremaître de la création; et l'on ne saurait, sous ce rapport, assigner de limites à la puissance qu’il peut acquérir sur la nature, par les progrès futurs des sciences expérimentales
With the aid of these active experimental sciences man becomes an inventor of phenomena, a real foreman of creation; and under this head we cannot set limits to the power that he may gain over nature through future progress of the experimental sciences.
Original French text in Introduction à l'Étude de la Médecine Expérimentale (1898), 32. English version from An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1865), as translated by Henry Copley Greene (1957), 18.
Science quotes on:  |  Active (80)  |  Aid (101)  |  Become (821)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Creation (350)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fragment (58)  |  Future (467)  |  Gain (146)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Limit (294)  |  Man (2252)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Power (771)  |  Progress (492)  |  Rising (44)  |  Seeking (31)  |  Set (400)  |  Through (846)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Universal (198)  |  Wholeness (9)

La théorie est l’hypothèse vérifiée, après qu’elle a été soumise au contrôle du raisonnement et de la critique expérimentale. La meilleure théorie est celle qui a été vérifiée par le plus grand nombre de faits. Mais une théorie, pour rester bonne, doit toujours se modifier avec les progrès de la science et demeurer constamment soumise à la vérification et à la critique des faits nouveaux qui apparaissent.
A theory is a verified hypothesis, after it has been submitted to the control of reason and experimental criticism. The soundest theory is one that has been verified by the greatest number of facts. But to remain valid, a theory must be continually altered to keep pace with the progress of science and must be constantly resubmitted to verification and criticism as new facts appear.
Original work in French, Introduction à l'Étude de la Médecine Expérimentale (1865), 385. English translation by Henry Copley Green in An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1927, 1957), 220.
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Altered (32)  |  Continually (17)  |  Control (182)  |  Criticism (85)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  Pace (18)  |  Plus (43)  |  Progress (492)  |  Progress Of Science (40)  |  Reason (766)  |  Remain (355)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Validity (50)  |  Verification (32)

Primo enim paranda est Historia Naturalis et Experimentalis, suffidens et bona; quod fundamentum rei est: neque enim fingendum, aut excogitandum, sed inveniendum, quid natura faciat aut ferat.
For first of all we must prepare a Natural and Experimental History, sufficient and good; and this is the foundation of all; for we are not to imagine or suppose, but to discover, what nature does or may be made to do.
In Novum Organum, Book 2, Aphorism 10. As translated in Francis Bacon and James Spedding with ‎Robert Leslie Ellis (eds.), 'The New Organon', The Works of Francis Bacon: Translations of the Philosophical Works (1858), Vol. 4, 127. Also seen in epigraphs as a shorter quote, “Non fingendum, aut excogitandum, sed inveniendum, quid natura faciat aut ferat,” which can also be translated as “We have not to imagine or to think out, but to find out what Nature does or produces.”
Science quotes on:  |  Discover (571)  |  Do (1905)  |  Experiment (736)  |  First (1302)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Good (906)  |  History (716)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Prepare (44)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Suppose (158)

Une idée anticipée ou une hypothèse est donc le point de départ nécessaire de tout raisonnement expérimental. Sans cela on ne saurait faire aucune investigation ni s’instruire ; on ne pourrait qu’entasser des observations stériles. Si l’on expérimentait sans idée préconçue, on irait à l’aventure; mais d’un autre côté, ainsi que nous l’avons dit ailleurs, si l’on observait avec des idées préconçues, on ferait de mauvaises observations.
An anticipative idea or an hypothesis is, then, the necessary starting point for all experimental reasoning. Without it, we could not make any investigation at all nor learn anything; we could only pile up sterile observations. If we experimented without a preconceived idea, we should move at random.
[Also seen translated as:] A hypothesis is … the obligatory starting point of all experimental reasoning. Without it no investigation would be possible, and one would learn nothing: one could only pile up barren observations. To experiment without a preconceived idea is to wander aimlessly.
Original work in French, Introduction à l'Étude de la Médecine Expérimentale (1865). English translation by Henry Copley Green in An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1927, 1957), 32. Alternate translation in Peter Medawar, 'Hypothesis and Imagination', collected in The Strange Case of the Spotted Mice and Other Classic Essays on Science (1974), 30.
Science quotes on:  |  Aimless (5)  |  Barren (33)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Idea (881)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Move (223)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Observation (593)  |  Point (584)  |  Possible (560)  |  Random (42)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Start (237)  |  Sterile (24)  |  Wander (44)

A metaphysical conclusion is either a false conclusion or a concealed experimental conclusion.
'On Thought in Medicine' (1877). Trans. E. Atkinson, Popular Lectures on Scientific Subjects (1881), 234.
Science quotes on:  |  Concealed (25)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Metaphysical (38)  |  Theory (1015)

A page from a journal of modern experimental physics will be as mysterious to the uninitiated as a Tibetan mandala. Both are records of enquiries into the nature of the universe.
In The Tao of Physics (1975), 36.
Science quotes on:  |  Both (496)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Journal (31)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Physics (23)  |  Mysterious (83)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Page (35)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Record (161)  |  Tibet (4)  |  Uninitiated (2)  |  Universe (900)  |  Will (2350)

A theoretical physicist can spend his entire lifetime missing the intellectual challenge of experimental work, experiencing none of the thrills and dangers — the overhead crane with its ten-ton load, the flashing skull and crossbones and danger, radioactivity signs. A theorist’s only real hazard is stabbing himself with a pencil while attacking a bug that crawls out of his calculations.
In Leon Lederman and Dick Teresi, The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question (1993), 15.
Science quotes on:  |  Attack (86)  |  Bug (10)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Crawl (9)  |  Crawling (2)  |  Danger (127)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Hazard (21)  |  Himself (461)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Lifetime (40)  |  Missing (21)  |  Pencil (20)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Radioactivity (33)  |  Spend (97)  |  Theoretical Physicist (21)  |  Theorist (44)  |  Thrill (26)  |  Ton (25)  |  Work (1402)

A theory of physics is not an explanation; it is a system of mathematical oppositions deduced from a small number of principles the aim of which is to represent as simply, as completely, and as exactly as possible, a group of experimental laws.
As quoted in Philipp Frank, Modern Science and its Philosophy (1949), 15, which cites Théorie Physique; Son Objet—Son Structure (1906), 24.
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Complete (209)  |  Completely (137)  |  Deduce (27)  |  Exact (75)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Group (83)  |  Law (913)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Number (710)  |  Opposition (49)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Possible (560)  |  Principle (530)  |  Represent (157)  |  Simply (53)  |  Small (489)  |  System (545)  |  Theory (1015)

A theory with mathematical beauty is more likely to be correct than an ugly one that fits some experimental data. God is a mathematician of a very high order, and He used very advanced mathematics in constructing the universe.
In Scientific American (May 1963). As quoted and cited in The Hutchinson Encyclopedia of Science (1998), 468.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Construct (129)  |  Correct (95)  |  Data (162)  |  Fit (139)  |  God (776)  |  High (370)  |  Likely (36)  |  Mathematical Beauty (19)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  More (2558)  |  Order (638)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Ugly (14)  |  Universe (900)

According to my views, aiming at quantitative investigations, that is at establishing relations between measurements of phenomena, should take first place in the experimental practice of physics. By measurement to knowledge [door meten tot weten] I should like to write as a motto above the entrance to every physics laboratory.
'The Significance of Quantitative Research in Physics', Inaugural Address at the University of Leiden (1882). In Hendrik Casimir, Haphazard Reality: Half a Century of Science (1983), 160-1.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Door (94)  |  Entrance (16)  |  First (1302)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Motto (29)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Practice (212)  |  Quantitative (31)  |  View (496)  |  Write (250)

According to the older view, for every single effect of a serum, there was a separate substance, or at least a particular chemical group... A normal serum contained as many different haemagglutinins as it agglutinated different cells. The situation was undoubtedly made much simpler if, to use the Ehrlich terminology... the separate haptophore groups can combine with an extremely large number of receptors in stepwise differing quantities as a stain does with different animal tissues, though not always with the same intensity. A normal serum would therefore visibly affect such a large number of different blood cells... not because it contained countless special substances, but because of the colloids of the serum, and therefore of the agglutinins by reason of their chemical constitution and the electrochemical properties resulting from it. That this manner of representation is a considerable simplification is clear; it also opens the way to direct experimental testing by the methods of structural chemistry.
'Die Theorien der Antikorperbildung ... ', Wiener klinische Wöchenschrift (1909), 22, 1623-1631. Trans. Pauline M. H. Mazumdar.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Animal (651)  |  Blood (144)  |  Cell (146)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Colloid (5)  |  Combine (58)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Countless (39)  |  Different (595)  |  Direct (228)  |  Effect (414)  |  Electrochemical (4)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Immunology (14)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Large (398)  |  Method (531)  |  Number (710)  |  Open (277)  |  Reason (766)  |  Representation (55)  |  Separate (151)  |  Serum (11)  |  Simplification (20)  |  Single (365)  |  Situation (117)  |  Special (188)  |  Structural (29)  |  Structure (365)  |  Substance (253)  |  Terminology (12)  |  Tissue (51)  |  Use (771)  |  View (496)  |  Way (1214)

After … the general experimental knowledge has been acquired, accompanied with just a sufficient amount of theory to connect it together…, it becomes possible to consider the theory by itself, as theory. The experimental facts then go out of sight, in a great measure, not because they are unimportant, but because … they are fundamental, and the foundations are always hidden from view in well-constructed buildings.
In Electromagnetic Theory (1892), Vol. 2, 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquired (77)  |  Amount (153)  |  Become (821)  |  Building (158)  |  Connect (126)  |  Consider (428)  |  Construct (129)  |  Construction (114)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  General (521)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hidden (43)  |  Important (229)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Measure (241)  |  Possible (560)  |  Sight (135)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Together (392)  |  View (496)

All the good experimental physicists I have known have had an intense curiosity that no Keep Out sign could mute.
In Adventures of a Physicist (1987), 14.
Science quotes on:  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental Physicist (11)  |  Good (906)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Keep Out (2)  |  Known (453)  |  Mute (5)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Sign (63)

All the real true knowledge we have of Nature is intirely experimental, insomuch that, how strange soever the assertion seems, we may lay this down as the first fundamental unerring rule in physics, That it is not within the compass of human understanding to assign a purely speculative reason for any one phaenomenon in nature.
In The Procedure, Extent, and Limits of Human Understanding (1728, 1729), 205-206.
Science quotes on:  |  Assertion (35)  |  Compass (37)  |  Down (455)  |  First (1302)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Human (1512)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Purely (111)  |  Real (159)  |  Reason (766)  |  Rule (307)  |  Seem (150)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Strange (160)  |  True (239)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)

Although I am primarily an experimental physicist, theoretical physics is my hobby.
Science quotes on:  |  Biography (254)  |  Experimental Physicist (11)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Theoretical Physics (26)

An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician find themselves in an anecdote, indeed an anecdote quite similar to many that you have no doubt already heard.
After some observations and rough calculations the engineer realizes the situation and starts laughing.
A few minutes later the physicist understands too and chuckles to himself happily, as he now has enough experimental evidence to publish a paper.
This leaves the mathematician somewhat perplexed, as he had observed right away that he was the subject of an anecdote, and deduced quite rapidly the presence of humor from similar anecdotes, but considers this anecdote to be too trivial a corollary to be significant, let alone funny.
Anonymous
In 'Zero Gravity: The Lighter Side of Science' APS News (Jun 2003), 12 No. 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Already (226)  |  Anecdote (21)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Consider (428)  |  Corollary (5)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Enough (341)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Find (1014)  |  Funny (11)  |  Himself (461)  |  Humor (10)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Joke (90)  |  Laugh (50)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Minute (129)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Paper (192)  |  Perplex (6)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Presence (63)  |  Publish (42)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Realize (157)  |  Right (473)  |  Significant (78)  |  Situation (117)  |  Start (237)  |  Subject (543)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Trivial (59)  |  Understand (648)

An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going. But this should not be taken to imply that there are good reasons to believe that it could not have started on the earth by a perfectly reasonable sequence of fairly ordinary chemical reactions. The plain fact is that the time available was too long, the many microenvironments on the earth’s surface too diverse, the various chemical possibilities too numerous and our own knowledge and imagination too feeble to allow us to be able to unravel exactly how it might or might not have happened such a long time ago, especially as we have no experimental evidence from that era to check our ideas against.
In Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature (1981), 88.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Arm (82)  |  Available (80)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemical Reaction (17)  |  Chemical Reactions (13)  |  Condition (362)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Era (51)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Good (906)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Honest (53)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Miracle (85)  |  Moment (260)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Origin (250)  |  Origin Of Life (37)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Reason (766)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Start (237)  |  State (505)  |  Surface (223)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unravel (16)  |  Various (205)

Any chemist reading this book can see, in some detail, how I have spent most of my mature life. They can become familiar with the quality of my mind and imagination. They can make judgements about my research abilities. They can tell how well I have documented my claims of experimental results. Any scientist can redo my experiments to see if they still work—and this has happened! I know of no other field in which contributions to world culture are so clearly on exhibit, so cumulative, and so subject to verification.
From Design to Discovery (1990), 119-20.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Book (413)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Claim (154)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Culture (157)  |  Cumulative (14)  |  Detail (150)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Field (378)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mature (17)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Other (2233)  |  Quality (139)  |  Reading (136)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Scientist (881)  |  See (1094)  |  Spent (85)  |  Still (614)  |  Subject (543)  |  Tell (344)  |  Verification (32)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

Any opinion as to the form in which the energy of gravitation exists in space is of great importance, and whoever can make his opinion probable will have, made an enormous stride in physical speculation. The apparent universality of gravitation, and the equality of its effects on matter of all kinds are most remarkable facts, hitherto without exception; but they are purely experimental facts, liable to be corrected by a single observed exception. We cannot conceive of matter with negative inertia or mass; but we see no way of accounting for the proportionality of gravitation to mass by any legitimate method of demonstration. If we can see the tails of comets fly off in the direction opposed to the sun with an accelerated velocity, and if we believe these tails to be matter and not optical illusions or mere tracks of vibrating disturbance, then we must admit a force in that direction, and we may establish that it is caused by the sun if it always depends upon his position and distance.
Letter to William Huggins (13 Oct 1868). In P. M. Hannan (ed.), The Scientific Letters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (1995), Vol. 2, 1862-1873, 451-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Apparent (85)  |  Comet (65)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Depend (238)  |  Direction (185)  |  Distance (171)  |  Disturbance (34)  |  Effect (414)  |  Energy (373)  |  Equality (34)  |  Exception (74)  |  Exist (458)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fly (153)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Gravitation (72)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Great (1610)  |  Illusion (68)  |  Importance (299)  |  Inertia (17)  |  Kind (564)  |  Legitimate (26)  |  Mass (160)  |  Matter (821)  |  Method (531)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Negative (66)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Optical (11)  |  Physical (518)  |  Position (83)  |  Proportionality (2)  |  Purely (111)  |  See (1094)  |  Single (365)  |  Space (523)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Stride (15)  |  Sun (407)  |  Track (42)  |  Universality (22)  |  Velocity (51)  |  Vibration (26)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whoever (42)  |  Will (2350)

Any work of science, no matter what its point of departure, cannot become fully convincing until it crosses the boundary between the theoretical and the experimental: Experimentation must give way to argument, and argument must have recourse to experimentation.
The New Scientific Spirit (1934), trans. A. Goldhammer (1984), 3-4.
Science quotes on:  |  Argument (145)  |  Become (821)  |  Boundary (55)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Matter (821)  |  Must (1525)  |  Point (584)  |  Proof (304)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)

As a progressive discipline [biochemistry] belongs to the present century. From the experimental physiologists of the last century it obtained a charter, and, from a few pioneers of its own, a promise of success; but for the furtherance of its essential aim that century left it but a small inheritance of facts and methods. By its essential or ultimate aim I myself mean an adequate and acceptable description of molecular dynamics in living cells and tissues.
'Some Chemical Aspects of Life', Address (Sep 1933) in Report on the 103rd Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1933), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Acceptable (14)  |  Adequate (50)  |  Aim (175)  |  Belong (168)  |  Biochemistry (50)  |  Century (319)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Essential (210)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Furtherance (4)  |  Inheritance (35)  |  Last (425)  |  Living (492)  |  Mean (810)  |  Metabolism (15)  |  Method (531)  |  Myself (211)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Physiologist (31)  |  Pioneer (37)  |  Present (630)  |  Promise (72)  |  Small (489)  |  Success (327)  |  Tissue (51)  |  Ultimate (152)

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.
From Opticks, (1704, 2nd ed. 1718), Book 3, Query 31, 380.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Certain (557)  |  Composition (86)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Consist (223)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Experiment (736)  |  General (521)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Induction (81)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Making (300)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Method (531)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosophy (52)  |  Objection (34)  |  Observation (593)  |  Other (2233)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Regard (312)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)

As in the experimental sciences, truth cannot be distinguished from error as long as firm principles have not been established through the rigorous observation of facts.
Ésur la maladie des vers ásoie (1870), 39.
Science quotes on:  |  Distinction (72)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Error (339)  |  Establish (63)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Firm (47)  |  Long (778)  |  Observation (593)  |  Principle (530)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  Rigour (21)  |  Through (846)  |  Truth (1109)

Believing, as I do, in the continuity of nature, I cannot stop abruptly where our microscopes cease to be of use. Here the vision of the mind authoritatively supplements the vision of the eye. By a necessity engendered and justified by science I cross the boundary of the experimental evidence, and discern in that Matter which we, in our ignorance of its latent powers, and notwithstanding our professed reverence for its Creator, have hitherto covered with opprobrium, the promise and potency of all terrestrial Life.
'Address Delivered Before The British Association Assembled at Belfast', (19 Aug 1874). Fragments of Science for Unscientific People: A Series of Detached Essays, Lectures, and Reviews (1892), Vol. 2, 191.
Science quotes on:  |  Abrupt (6)  |  Belief (615)  |  Boundary (55)  |  Cease (81)  |  Cessation (13)  |  Continuity (39)  |  Cover (40)  |  Creator (97)  |  Discern (35)  |  Discerning (16)  |  Do (1905)  |  Engendering (3)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Eye (440)  |  Hitherto (6)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Justification (52)  |  Life (1870)  |  Matter (821)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Notwithstanding (2)  |  Potency (10)  |  Power (771)  |  Profess (21)  |  Professing (2)  |  Promise (72)  |  Reverence (29)  |  Stop (89)  |  Supplement (7)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Use (771)  |  Vision (127)

But, contrary to the lady’s prejudices about the engineering profession, the fact is that quite some time ago the tables were turned between theory and applications in the physical sciences. Since World War II the discoveries that have changed the world are not made so much in lofty halls of theoretical physics as in the less-noticed labs of engineering and experimental physics. The roles of pure and applied science have been reversed; they are no longer what they were in the golden age of physics, in the age of Einstein, Schrödinger, Fermi and Dirac.
'The Age of Computing: a Personal Memoir', Daedalus (1992), 121, 120.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Application (257)  |  Applied (176)  |  Applied Science (36)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Paul A. M. Dirac (45)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Enrico Fermi (20)  |  Golden (47)  |  Golden Age (11)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Physics (564)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Profession (108)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Science (30)  |  Reverse (33)  |  Role (86)  |  Erwin Schrödinger (68)  |  Table (105)  |  Theoretical Physics (26)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)  |  Turn (454)  |  War (233)  |  World (1850)  |  World War II (9)

Can quantum mechanics represent the fact that an electron finds itself approximately in a given place and that it moves approximately with a given velocity, and can we make these approximations so close that they do not cause experimental difficulties?
Physics and Beyond: Encounters and Conversations, trans. Arnold J. Pomerans (1971), 78.
Science quotes on:  |  Approximation (32)  |  Cause (561)  |  Do (1905)  |  Electron (96)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Find (1014)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Move (223)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quantum Mechanics (47)  |  Quantum Physics (19)  |  Represent (157)  |  Velocity (51)

Charles Babbage proposed to make an automaton chess-player which should register mechanically the number of games lost and gained in consequence of every sort of move. Thus, the longer the automaton went on playing game, the more experienced it would become by the accumulation of experimental results. Such a machine precisely represents the acquirement of experience by our nervous organization.
In ‘Experimental Legislation’, Popular Science (Apr 1880), 16, 754-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Accumulation (51)  |  Acquisition (46)  |  Artificial Intelligence (12)  |  Automaton (12)  |  Charles Babbage (54)  |  Become (821)  |  Chess (27)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Gain (146)  |  Game (104)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Loss (117)  |  Machine (271)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  More (2558)  |  Move (223)  |  Nerve (82)  |  Number (710)  |  Organization (120)  |  Player (9)  |  Playing (42)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Proposal (21)  |  Register (22)  |  Registration (2)  |  Represent (157)  |  Representation (55)  |  Result (700)

Chemistry and physics are experimental sciences; and those who are engaged in attempting to enlarge the boundaries of science by experiment are generally unwilling to publish speculations; for they have learned, by long experience, that it is unsafe to anticipate events. It is true, they must make certain theories and hypotheses. They must form some kind of mental picture of the relations between the phenomena which they are trying to investigate, else their experiments would be made at random, and without connection.
From 'Radium and Its Products', Harper’s Magazine (Dec 1904), 52.
Science quotes on:  |  Anticipate (20)  |  Boundary (55)  |  Certain (557)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Connection (171)  |  Enlarge (37)  |  Event (222)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Form (976)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Kind (564)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Long (778)  |  Mental (179)  |  Must (1525)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Picture (148)  |  Publish (42)  |  Random (42)  |  Relation (166)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Trying (144)  |  Unsafe (5)  |  Unwilling (9)

Chemistry works with an enormous number of substances, but cares only for some few of their properties; it is an extensive science. Physics on the other hand works with rather few substances, such as mercury, water, alcohol, glass, air, but analyses the experimental results very thoroughly; it is an intensive science. Physical chemistry is the child of these two sciences; it has inherited the extensive character from chemistry. Upon this depends its all-embracing feature, which has attracted so great admiration. But on the other hand it has its profound quantitative character from the science of physics.
In Theories of Solutions (1912), xix.
Science quotes on:  |  Admiration (61)  |  Air (366)  |  Alcohol (22)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Care (203)  |  Character (259)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Child (333)  |  Depend (238)  |  Enormous (44)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Extensive (34)  |  Feature (49)  |  Few (15)  |  Glass (94)  |  Great (1610)  |  Inherit (35)  |  Inheritance (35)  |  Inherited (21)  |  Intensive (9)  |  Mercury (54)  |  Number (710)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Chemistry (6)  |  Physics (564)  |  Profound (105)  |  Property (177)  |  Quantitative (31)  |  Result (700)  |  Substance (253)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Through (846)  |  Two (936)  |  Water (503)  |  Work (1402)

Developmental Biology, in capitals, is the wave of the future. The creeping reductionism of biochemistry and molecular biology has taken over the cell and heredity, and looks covetously toward the heights of development and evolution. Recent literature is last year. Ancient literature is a decade ago. The rest is history, doubtfully alive. There is no time and often no opportunity to find and study the work of experimental biologists of 50 or 100 years ago, yet that was a time when the world was fresh.
Developmental biology was a lowercase phrase that graduated about 1950 and had previously lived under the cloak of Experimental Zoology
In obituary by Charles R. Scriver, Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society (Nov 1999), 45, 33.
Science quotes on:  |  Alive (97)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Biochemistry (50)  |  Biologist (70)  |  Biology (232)  |  Capital (16)  |  Cell (146)  |  Cloak (5)  |  Creep (15)  |  Decade (66)  |  Development (441)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Future (467)  |  Graduate (32)  |  Height (33)  |  Heredity (62)  |  History (716)  |  Last (425)  |  Literature (116)  |  Live (650)  |  Look (584)  |  Molecular Biology (27)  |  Often (109)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Previously (12)  |  Recent (78)  |  Reductionism (8)  |  Rest (287)  |  Study (701)  |  Time (1911)  |  Toward (45)  |  Wave (112)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)  |  Zoology (38)

Do experimental work but keep in mind that other investigators in the same field will consider your discoveries as less than one fourth as important as they seem to you.
In Victor Shelford, The Ecology of North America (1963), v.
Science quotes on:  |  Consider (428)  |  Do (1905)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Field (378)  |  Investigator (71)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Other (2233)  |  Research (753)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

Even in the dark times between experimental breakthroughs, there always continues a steady evolution of theoretical ideas, leading almost imperceptibly to changes in previous beliefs.
In Nobel Lecture (8 Dec 1989), 'Conceptual Foundations of the Unified Theory of Weak and Electromagnetic Interactions.'
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Breakthrough (18)  |  Change (639)  |  Continue (179)  |  Dark (145)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imperceptible (8)  |  Previous (17)  |  Steady (45)  |  Theorist (44)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)

Everyone believes in the law of errors, the experimenters because they think it is a mathematical theorem, and the mathematicians because they think it is an experimental fact.
Remark to Henri Poincaré about the Gaussian curve. From the original French, “Les expérimentateurs s’imaginent que c’est un théorème de mathématique, et les mathématiciens d’être un fait expérimental”, in Henri Poincaré, Calcul des Probabilités (1896), 149. Poincaré introduces it as, “me disait un jour M. Lippmann” (Mr. Lippman told me one day). Quote above as translated in F. Downton, 'Review: Nonparametric Methods in Statistics', The Mathematical Gazette (Feb 1959), 43, No. 343, 67.
Science quotes on:  |  Error (339)  |  Experimenter (40)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Law (913)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Normal (29)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Think (1122)

Experimental evidence is strongly in favor of my argument that the chemical purity of the air is of no importance.
Lecturer on Physiology at London Hospital, in 'Impure Air Not Unhealthful If Stirred and Cooled,' in The New York Times, September 22, 1912.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Argument (145)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Favor (69)  |  Importance (299)

Experimental geology has this in common with all other branches of our science, petrology and palaeontology included, that in the long run it withers indoors.
'Experiments in Geology', Transactions of the Geological Society of Glasgow (1958), 23, 25.
Science quotes on:  |  Common (447)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Geology (240)  |  In The Long Run (18)  |  Indoors (2)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paleontologist (19)

Experimental investigation, to borrow a phrase employed by Kepler respecting the testing of hypotheses, is “a very great thief of time.” Sometimes it costs many days to determine a fact that can be stated in a line.
In preface to Scientific Memoirs (1878), xi.
Science quotes on:  |  Borrow (31)  |  Cost (94)  |  Determination (80)  |  Determine (152)  |  Employ (115)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Kepler_Johann (2)  |  Line (100)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Research (753)  |  Statement (148)  |  Test (221)  |  Thief (6)  |  Time (1911)

Experimental observations are only experience carefully planned in advance, and designed to form a secure basis of new knowledge.
In The Design of Experiments (1935, 1970), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Basis (180)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Design (203)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Form (976)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  New (1273)  |  Observation (593)  |  Plan (122)  |  Security (51)

Experimental physicists … walk a narrow path with pitfalls on either side. If we spend all our time developing equipment, we risk the appellation of “plumber,” and if we merely use the tools developed by others, we risk the censure of our peers for being parasitic.
In Nobel Lecture (11 Dec 1968), 'Recent Developments in Particle Physics', collected in Nobel Lectures: Physics 1963-1970 (1972), 241.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Censure (5)  |  Develop (278)  |  Equipment (45)  |  Experimental Physicist (11)  |  Merely (315)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Other (2233)  |  Parasite (33)  |  Path (159)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Pitfall (2)  |  Plumber (10)  |  Risk (68)  |  Side (236)  |  Spend (97)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tool (129)  |  Use (771)  |  Walk (138)

Experimental psychology itself has, it is true, now and again suffered relapse into a metaphysical treatment of its problems.
Science quotes on:  |  Metaphysical (38)  |  Problem (731)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Relapse (5)  |  Treatment (135)

Experimental science can be thought of as an … extension of common sense.
In Science and Common Sense (1951), 32.
Science quotes on:  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Extension (60)  |  Sense (785)  |  Thought (995)

Facts, and facts alone, are the foundation of science... When one devotes oneself to experimental research it is in order to augment the sum of known facts, or to discover their mutual relations.
Precis elementaire de Physiologie (1816), ii. Trans. J. M. D. Olmsted, François Magendie: Pioneer in Experimental Physiology and Scientific Medicine in XIX Century France (1944), 62.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Augment (12)  |  Devotion (37)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Mutual (54)  |  Oneself (33)  |  Order (638)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Research (753)  |  Sum (103)

Finally one should add that in spite of the great complexity of protein synthesis and in spite of the considerable technical difficulties in synthesizing polynucleotides with defined sequences it is not unreasonable to hope that all these points will be clarified in the near future, and that the genetic code will be completely established on a sound experimental basis within a few years.
From Nobel Lecture (11 Dec 1962), 'On the Genetic Code'. Collected in Nobel Lectures: Physiology or Medicine 1942-1962 (1964), 808.
Science quotes on:  |  Basis (180)  |  Code (31)  |  Completely (137)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Considerable (75)  |  DNA (81)  |  Future (467)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hope (321)  |  Molecular Biology (27)  |  Point (584)  |  Protein (56)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Sound (187)  |  Spite (55)  |  Synthesis (58)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

Firm support has been found for the assertion that electricity occurs at thousands of points where we at most conjectured that it was present. Innumerable electrical particles oscillate in every flame and light source. We can in fact assume that every heat source is filled with electrons which will continue to oscillate ceaselessly and indefinitely. All these electrons leave their impression on the emitted rays. We can hope that experimental study of the radiation phenomena, which are exposed to various influences, but in particular to the effect of magnetism, will provide us with useful data concerning a new field, that of atomistic astronomy, as Lodge called it, populated with atoms and electrons instead of planets and worlds.
'Light Radiation in a Magnetic Field', Nobel Lecture, 2 May 1903. In Nobel Lectures: Physics 1901-1921 (1967), 40.
Science quotes on:  |  Assertion (35)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Atom (381)  |  Call (781)  |  Conjecture (51)  |  Continue (179)  |  Data (162)  |  Effect (414)  |  Electrical (57)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Electromagnetic Radiation (2)  |  Electron (96)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Exposed (33)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Field (378)  |  Firm (47)  |  Flame (44)  |  Heat (180)  |  Hope (321)  |  Impression (118)  |  Influence (231)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Light (635)  |  Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge (13)  |  Magnetism (43)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Occur (151)  |  Oscillate (2)  |  Particle (200)  |  Planet (402)  |  Point (584)  |  Present (630)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Ray (115)  |  Research (753)  |  Study (701)  |  Support (151)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Useful (260)  |  Various (205)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

From him [Wilard Bennett] I learned how different a working laboratory is from a student laboratory. The answers are not known!
[While an undergraduate, doing experimental measurements in the laboratory of his professor, at Ohio State University.]
From autobiography on Nobel Prize website.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Different (595)  |  Doing (277)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Known (453)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Professor (133)  |  State (505)  |  Student (317)  |  Undergraduate (17)  |  University (130)

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.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Appear (122)  |  Call (781)  |  Conjecture (51)  |  Contrivance (12)  |  Enough (341)  |  Establish (63)  |  Exist (458)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fit (139)  |  Flow (89)  |  Follow (389)  |  Force (497)  |  Fountain (18)  |  Free (239)  |  Free Will (15)  |  God (776)  |  Himself (461)  |  Internal (69)  |  Law (913)  |  Learn (672)  |  Least (75)  |  Light (635)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Miserable (8)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Observation (593)  |  Order (638)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Presumptuous (3)  |  Principle (530)  |  Propose (24)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reptile (33)  |  Same (166)  |  Seek (218)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Trace (109)  |  True (239)  |  Uncertain (45)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wise (143)  |  World (1850)

Genetics is the first biological science which got in the position in which physics has been in for many years. One can justifiably speak about such a thing as theoretical mathematical genetics, and experimental genetics, just as in physics. There are some mathematical geniuses who work out what to an ordinary person seems a fantastic kind of theory. This fantastic kind of theory nevertheless leads to experimentally verifiable prediction, which an experimental physicist then has to test the validity of. Since the times of Wright, Haldane, and Fisher, evolutionary genetics has been in a similar position.
Oral history memoir. Columbia University, Oral History Research Office, New York, 1962. Quoted in William B. Provine, Sewall Wright and Evolutionary Biology (1989), 277.
Science quotes on:  |  Biological (137)  |  Biology (232)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental Physicist (11)  |  Fantastic (21)  |  First (1302)  |  Fischer_Ronald (2)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Genetics (105)  |  J.B.S. Haldane (50)  |  Kind (564)  |  Lead (391)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Person (366)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Speak (240)  |  Test (221)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Validity (50)  |  Work (1402)  |  Sewall Wright (9)  |  Year (963)

Geometrical axioms are neither synthetic a priori conclusions nor experimental facts. They are conventions: our choice, amongst all possible conventions, is guided by experimental facts; but it remains free, and is only limited by the necessity of avoiding all contradiction. ... In other words, axioms of geometry are only definitions in disguise.
That being so what ought one to think of this question: Is the Euclidean Geometry true?
The question is nonsense. One might as well ask whether the metric system is true and the old measures false; whether Cartesian co-ordinates are true and polar co-ordinates false.
In George Edward Martin, The Foundations of Geometry and the Non-Euclidean Plane (1982), 110.
Science quotes on:  |  A Priori (26)  |  Among (3)  |  Ask (420)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Axiom (65)  |  Being (1276)  |  Cartesian (3)  |  Choice (114)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Convention (16)  |  Definition (238)  |  Disguise (12)  |  Euclidean (3)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  False (105)  |  Free (239)  |  Geometrical (11)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Guide (107)  |  In Other Words (9)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Measure (241)  |  Metric System (6)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Nonsense (48)  |  Old (499)  |  Other (2233)  |  Polar (13)  |  Possible (560)  |  Question (649)  |  Remain (355)  |  Synthetic (27)  |  System (545)  |  Think (1122)  |  True (239)  |  Word (650)

Given any rule, however “fundamental” or “necessary” for science, there are always circumstances when it is advisable not only to ignore the rule, but to adopt its opposite. For example, there are circumstances when it is advisable to introduce, elaborate and defend ad hoc hypotheses, or hypotheses which contradict well-established and generally accepted experimental results, or hypotheses whose content is smaller than the content of the existing and empirically adequate alternative, or self-inconsistent hypotheses, and so on.
Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge (1975, 1993), 14-15.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Adequate (50)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Contradict (42)  |  Elaborate (31)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Ignore (52)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Result (700)  |  Rule (307)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Self (268)  |  Well-Established (6)

Gravity. Surely this force must be capable of an experimental relation to electricity, magnetism, and the other forces, so as to bind it up with them in reciprocal action and equivalent effect.
Notebook entry (19 Mar 1849). In Bence Jones (ed.), The Life and Letters of Faraday (1870), Vol. 2, 252.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Capable (174)  |  Effect (414)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Equivalent (46)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Force (497)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Magnetism (43)  |  Must (1525)  |  Other (2233)  |  Reciprocal (7)  |  Relation (166)  |  Surely (101)

He that could teach mathematics well, would not be a bad teacher in any of [physics, chemistry, biology or psychology] unless by the accident of total inaptitude for experimental illustration; while the mere experimentalist is likely to fall into the error of missing the essential condition of science as reasoned truth; not to speak of the danger of making the instruction an affair of sensation, glitter, or pyrotechnic show.
In Education as a Science (1879), 298.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Aptitude (19)  |  Bad (185)  |  Biology (232)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Condition (362)  |  Danger (127)  |  Error (339)  |  Essential (210)  |  Experimentalist (20)  |  Fall (243)  |  Glitter (10)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Making (300)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Missing (21)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Pyrotechnic (2)  |  Reason (766)  |  Sensation (60)  |  Sensational (2)  |  Show (353)  |  Speak (240)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)  |  Total (95)  |  Truth (1109)

Hence, even in the domain of natural science the aid of the experimental method becomes indispensable whenever the problem set is the analysis of transient and impermanent phenomena, and not merely the observation of persistent and relatively constant objects.
Science quotes on:  |  Aid (101)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Become (821)  |  Constant (148)  |  Domain (72)  |  Merely (315)  |  Method (531)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Object (438)  |  Observation (593)  |  Persistent (18)  |  Problem (731)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Set (400)  |  Transient (13)  |  Whenever (81)

I always rejoice to hear of your being still employed in experimental researches into nature, and of the success you meet with. The rapid progress true science now makes, occasions my regretting sometimes that I was born so soon: it is impossible to imagine the height to which may be carried, in a thousand years, the power of man over matter; we may perhaps learn to deprive large masses of their gravity, and give them absolute levity for the sake of easy transport. Agriculture may diminish its labour and double its produce; all diseases may by sure means be prevented or cured (not excepting even that of old age), and our lives lengthened at pleasure even beyond the antediluvian standard. Oh! that moral science were in as fair a way of improvement; that men would cease to be wolves to one another; and that human beings would at length learn what they now improperly call humanity!
Letter to Dr Priestley, 8 Feb 1780. In Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin (1845), Vol. 2, 152.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Age (509)  |  Agriculture (78)  |  Antediluvian (5)  |  Being (1276)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Call (781)  |  Cease (81)  |  Disease (340)  |  Easy (213)  |  Employ (115)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Hear (144)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Labor (200)  |  Large (398)  |  Learn (672)  |  Live (650)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Moral (203)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Power (771)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Progress (492)  |  Sake (61)  |  Soon (187)  |  Still (614)  |  Success (327)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Transport (31)  |  True Science (25)  |  Way (1214)  |  Year (963)

I am now convinced that we have recently become possessed of experimental evidence of the discrete or grained nature of matter, which the atomic hypothesis sought in vain for hundreds and thousands of years. The isolation and counting of gaseous ions, on the one hand, which have crowned with success the long and brilliant researches of J.J. Thomson, and, on the other, agreement of the Brownian movement with the requirements of the kinetic hypothesis, established by many investigators and most conclusively by J. Perrin, justify the most cautious scientist in now speaking of the experimental proof of the atomic nature of matter, The atomic hypothesis is thus raised to the position of a scientifically well-founded theory, and can claim a place in a text-book intended for use as an introduction to the present state of our knowledge of General Chemistry.
In Grundriss der allgemeinen Chemie (4th ed., 1909), Preface, as cited by Erwin N. Hiebert and Hans-Gunther Korber in article on Ostwald in Charles Coulston Gillespie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography Supplement 1, Vol 15-16, 464.
Science quotes on:  |  Agreement (55)  |  Atom (381)  |  Become (821)  |  Book (413)  |  Brilliant (57)  |  Robert Brown (2)  |  Caution (24)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Claim (154)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Counting (26)  |  Crown (39)  |  Discrete (11)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Gas (89)  |  General (521)  |  Grain (50)  |  Granular (4)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Introduction (37)  |  Investigator (71)  |  Ion (21)  |  Isolation (32)  |  Kinetic (12)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Long (778)  |  Matter (821)  |  Most (1728)  |  Movement (162)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Jean Perrin (2)  |  Possess (157)  |  Possession (68)  |  Present (630)  |  Proof (304)  |  Recent (78)  |  Requirement (66)  |  Research (753)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Seeking (31)  |  Speaking (118)  |  State (505)  |  Success (327)  |  Text-Book (5)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Sir J.J. Thomson (18)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Use (771)  |  Vain (86)  |  Year (963)

I am very sorry, Pyrophilus, that to the many (elsewhere enumerated) difficulties which you may meet with, and must therefore surmount, in the serious and effectual prosecution of experimental philosophy I must add one discouragement more, which will perhaps is much surprise as dishearten you; and it is, that besides that you will find (as we elsewhere mention) many of the experiments published by authors, or related to you by the persons you converse with, false and unsuccessful (besides this, I say), you will meet with several observations and experiments which, though communicated for true by candid authors or undistrusted eye-witnesses, or perhaps recommended by your own experience, may, upon further trial, disappoint your expectation, either not at all succeeding constantly, or at least varying much from what you expected.
Opening paragraph of The First Essay Concerning the Unsuccessfulness of Experiments (1673), collected in The Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle in Six Volumes to Which is Prefixed the Life of the Author (1772), Vol. 1, 318-319.
Science quotes on:  |  Author (175)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Disappoint (14)  |  Disappointment (18)  |  Discouragement (10)  |  Disheartening (2)  |  Expect (203)  |  Expectation (67)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Eye (440)  |  False (105)  |  Find (1014)  |  Mention (84)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Observation (593)  |  Person (366)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Recommend (27)  |  Say (989)  |  Serious (98)  |  Sorry (31)  |  Succeeding (14)  |  Success (327)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Trial (59)  |  Unsuccessful (4)  |  Will (2350)

I argued that it was important not to place too much reliance on any single piece of experimental evidence. It might turn out to be misleading, as the 5.1 Å reflection undoubtedly was. Jim was a little more brash, stating that no good model ever accounted for all the facts, since some data was bound to be misleading if not plain wrong. A theory that did fit all the data would have been “carpentered” to do so and would thus be open to suspicion.
In What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View of Scientific Discovery (1988), 59-60.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Bound (120)  |  Carpenter (2)  |  Data (162)  |  Do (1905)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fit (139)  |  Good (906)  |  Important (229)  |  Little (717)  |  Misleading (21)  |  Model (106)  |  More (2558)  |  Open (277)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Reliance (11)  |  Single (365)  |  Suspicion (36)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Turn (454)  |  James Watson (33)  |  Wrong (246)

I do not … reject the use of statistics in medicine, but I condemn not trying to get beyond them and believing in statistics as the foundation of medical science. … Statistics … apply only to cases in which the cause of the facts observed is still [uncertain or] indeterminate. … There will always be some indeterminism … in all the sciences, and more in medicine than in any other. But man’s intellectual conquest consists in lessening and driving back indeterminism in proportion as he gains ground for determinism by the help of the experimental method..
From An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1865), as translated by Henry Copley Greene (1957), 138-140.
Science quotes on:  |  Apply (170)  |  Back (395)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Cause (561)  |  Condemn (44)  |  Condemnation (16)  |  Conquest (31)  |  Consist (223)  |  Determinism (12)  |  Do (1905)  |  Driving (28)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Gain (146)  |  Ground (222)  |  Indeterminate (4)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Lessening (3)  |  Man (2252)  |  Medical Science (19)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Other (2233)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Reject (67)  |  Rejection (36)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Still (614)  |  Trying (144)  |  Uncertain (45)  |  Use (771)  |  Will (2350)

I do not think the division of the subject into two parts - into applied mathematics and experimental physics a good one, for natural philosophy without experiment is merely mathematical exercise, while experiment without mathematics will neither sufficiently discipline the mind or sufficiently extend our knowledge in a subject like physics.
to Henry Roscoe, Professor of Chemistry at Owens College (2 Jun 1870), B.C.S Archive Quoted in R.H. Kargon, Science in Victorian Manchester (1977), 215.
Science quotes on:  |  Applied (176)  |  Applied Mathematics (15)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Division (67)  |  Do (1905)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Extend (129)  |  Good (906)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Merely (315)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosophy (52)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Subject (543)  |  Think (1122)  |  Two (936)  |  Will (2350)

I have before mentioned mathematics, wherein algebra gives new helps and views to the understanding. If I propose these it is not to make every man a thorough mathematician or deep algebraist; but yet I think the study of them is of infinite use even to grown men; first by experimentally convincing them, that to make anyone reason well, it is not enough to have parts wherewith he is satisfied, and that serve him well enough in his ordinary course. A man in those studies will see, that however good he may think his understanding, yet in many things, and those very visible, it may fail him. This would take off that presumption that most men have of themselves in this part; and they would not be so apt to think their minds wanted no helps to enlarge them, that there could be nothing added to the acuteness and penetration of their understanding.
In The Conduct of the Understanding, Sect. 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Acuteness (3)  |  Add (42)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Anyone (38)  |  Apt (9)  |  Convince (43)  |  Course (413)  |  Deep (241)  |  Enlarge (37)  |  Enough (341)  |  Fail (191)  |  First (1302)  |  Good (906)  |  Grow (247)  |  Help (116)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mention (84)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Part (235)  |  Penetration (18)  |  Presumption (15)  |  Propose (24)  |  Reason (766)  |  Satisfied (23)  |  See (1094)  |  Serve (64)  |  Study (701)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thorough (40)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Use (771)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  View (496)  |  Visible (87)  |  Want (504)  |  Will (2350)

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.
Principia. In Isaac Newton, Andrew Motte and N. W. Chittenden, Newton’s Principia (1847), 506-507.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Cause (561)  |  Discover (571)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Metaphysical (38)  |  Occult (9)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Physical (518)  |  Whatever (234)

I should rejoice to see mathematics taught with that life and animation which the presence and example of her young and buoyant sister [natural and experimental science] could not fail to impart, short roads preferred to long ones.
From Presidential Address (1869) to the British Association, Exeter, Section A, collected in Collected Mathematical Papers of Lames Joseph Sylvester (1908), Vol. 2, 657.
Science quotes on:  |  Animation (6)  |  Buoyant (6)  |  Experimental Science (3)  |  Fail (191)  |  Impart (24)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Prefer (27)  |  Presence (63)  |  Rejoice (11)  |  Road (71)  |  Science And Mathematics (10)  |  See (1094)  |  Short (200)  |  Sister (8)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)  |  Young (253)

I told him that for a modern scientist, practicing experimental research, the least that could be said, is that we do not know. But I felt that such a negative answer was only part of the truth. I told him that in this universe in which we live, unbounded in space, infinite in stored energy and, who knows, unlimited in time, the adequate and positive answer, according to my belief, is that this universe may, also, possess infinite potentialities.
Nobel Lecture, The Coming Age of the Cell, 12 Dec 1974
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Adequate (50)  |  Answer (389)  |  Belief (615)  |  Do (1905)  |  Energy (373)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Know (1538)  |  Live (650)  |  Modern (402)  |  Negative (66)  |  Positive (98)  |  Possess (157)  |  Research (753)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Space (523)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Universe (900)  |  Unlimited (24)

I would trade all my experimental works for the single idea of the benzene theory.
Quoted by B. L. Lepsius in 'Hofmann und die Deutsche Chemische Gesellschaft', Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft (1918), 51, 51.
Science quotes on:  |  Benzene (7)  |  Idea (881)  |  Single (365)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Work (1402)

If in the description of an experimental arrangement the expression 'position of a particle' can be used, then in the description of the same arrangement the expression 'velocity of a particle' can not be used, and vice versa. Experimental arrangements, one of which can be described with the help of the expression 'position of a particle' and the other with the help of the expression 'velocity' or, more exactly, 'momentum', are called complementary arrangements, and the descriptions are referred to as complementary descriptions.
Modern Science and its Philosophy (1949), 163-4.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Call (781)  |  Complementary (15)  |  Expression (181)  |  Momentum (10)  |  More (2558)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particle (200)  |  Physics (564)  |  Velocity (51)  |  Vice (42)

If the aim of physical theories is to explain experimental laws, theoretical physics is not an autonomous science; it is subordinate to metaphysics.
The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory (1906), 2nd edition (1914), trans. Philip P. Wiener (1954), 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Explain (334)  |  Law (913)  |  Metaphysics (53)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physics (564)  |  Theoretical Physics (26)  |  Theory (1015)

If we can possibly avoid wrecking this little planet of ours, we will, But—there must be risks! There must be. In experimental work there always are!
The First Men in the Moon (1901), 39.
Science quotes on:  |  Avoid (123)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Little (717)  |  Must (1525)  |  Planet (402)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Risk (68)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

If we take in our hand any Volume; of Divinity or School Metaphysics, for Instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract Reasoning concerning Quantity or Number? No. Does it contain any experimental Reasoning concerning Matter of Fact and Existence? No. Commit it then to the Flames: For it can contain nothing but Sophistry and Illusion.
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), 256.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Ask (420)  |  Commit (43)  |  Divinity (23)  |  Existence (481)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Flame (44)  |  Illusion (68)  |  Matter (821)  |  Metaphysics (53)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Number (710)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  School (227)  |  Sophistry (3)  |  Volume (25)

In a word, I consider hospitals only as the entrance to scientific medicine; they are the first field of observation which a physician enters; but the true sanctuary of medical science is a laboratory; only there can he seek explanations of life in the normal and pathological states by means of experimental analysis.
From An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1865), as translated by Henry Copley Greene (1957), 146.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Consider (428)  |  Enter (145)  |  Entrance (16)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Field (378)  |  First (1302)  |  Hospital (45)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Medical Science (19)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Observation (593)  |  Pathological (21)  |  Pathology (19)  |  Physician (284)  |  Sanctuary (12)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Seek (218)  |  State (505)  |  Word (650)

In early life I had felt a strong desire to devote myself to the experimental study of nature; and, happening to see a glass containing some camphor, portions of which had been caused to condense in very beautiful crystals on the illuminated side, I was induced to read everything I could obtain respecting the chemical and mechanical influences of light, adhesion, and capillary attraction.
In preface to Scientific Memoirs (1878), xii.
Science quotes on:  |  Adhesion (6)  |  Attraction (61)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Capillary (4)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Condensation (12)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Desire (212)  |  Devotion (37)  |  Early (196)  |  Everything (489)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Glass (94)  |  Happening (59)  |  Illumination (15)  |  Influence (231)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Myself (211)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Portion (86)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  See (1094)  |  Side (236)  |  Strong (182)  |  Study (701)

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.
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.
Science quotes on:  |  Consider (428)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Exception (74)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Gather (76)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Induction (81)  |  Liable (5)  |  More (2558)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Other (2233)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Proposition (126)

In experimental science it’s always a mistake not to doubt when facts do not compel you to affirm.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Affirm (3)  |  Compel (31)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Mistake (180)

In my considered opinion the peer review system, in which proposals rather than proposers are reviewed, is the greatest disaster visited upon the scientific community in this century. No group of peers would have approved my building the 72-inch bubble chamber. Even Ernest Lawrence told me he thought I was making a big mistake. He supported me because he knew my track record was good. I believe that U.S. science could recover from the stultifying effects of decades of misguided peer reviewing if we returned to the tried-and-true method of evaluating experimenters rather than experimental proposals. Many people will say that my ideas are elitist, and I certainly agree. The alternative is the egalitarianism that we now practice and I’ve seen nearly kill basic science in the USSR and in the People's Republic of China.
Alvarez: Adventures of a Physicist (1987), 200-1.
Science quotes on:  |  Basic (144)  |  Bubble (23)  |  Building (158)  |  Century (319)  |  Certainly (185)  |  China (27)  |  Community (111)  |  Consider (428)  |  Decade (66)  |  Disaster (58)  |  Effect (414)  |  Experimenter (40)  |  Good (906)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Idea (881)  |  Kill (100)  |  Ernest Orlando Lawrence (5)  |  Making (300)  |  Method (531)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Peer Review (4)  |  People (1031)  |  Practice (212)  |  Proposal (21)  |  Record (161)  |  Republic (16)  |  Research (753)  |  Return (133)  |  Review (27)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Support (151)  |  System (545)  |  Thought (995)  |  Track (42)  |  Track Record (4)  |  Will (2350)

In my experience most mathematicians are intellectually lazy and especially dislike reading experimental papers. He (René Thom) seemed to have very strong biological intuitions but unfortunately of negative sign.
In What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View of Scientific Discovery (1988), 136.
Science quotes on:  |  Biological (137)  |  Dislike (16)  |  Especially (31)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intuition (82)  |  Lazy (10)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Most (1728)  |  Negative (66)  |  Paper (192)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  Strong (182)  |   René Frédéric Thom, (2)  |  Unfortunate (19)  |  Unfortunately (40)

In order to discover Truth in this manner by observation and reason, it is requisite we should fix on some principles whose certainty and effects are demonstrable to our senses, which may serve to explain the phenomena of natural bodies and account for the accidents that arise in them; such only are those which are purely material in the human body with mechanical and physical experiments … a physician may and ought to furnish himself with, and reason from, such things as are demonstrated to be true in anatomy, chemistry, and mechanics, with natural and experimental philosophy, provided he confines his reasoning within the bounds of truth and simple experiment.
As quoted in selection from the writings of Herman Boerhaave, collected in Oliver Joseph Thatcher (ed.), The Ideas that Have Influenced Civilization, in the Original Documents (1800), Vol. 6, 242.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Account (195)  |  Anatomy (75)  |  Arise (162)  |  Body (557)  |  Bound (120)  |  Bounds (8)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Confine (26)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Discover (571)  |  Effect (414)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Explain (334)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Himself (461)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Body (34)  |  Material (366)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosophy (52)  |  Observation (593)  |  Order (638)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physician (284)  |  Principle (530)  |  Purely (111)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Sense (785)  |  Simple (426)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)

In point of fact, no conclusive disproof of a theory can ever be produced; for it is always possible to say that the experimental results are not reliable or that the discrepancies which are asserted to exist between the experimental results and the theory are only apparent and that they will disappear with the advance of our understanding. If you insist on strict proof (or strict disproof) in the empirical sciences, you will never benefit from experience, and never learn from it how wrong you are.
The Logic of Scientific Discovery: Logik Der Forschung (1959, 2002), 28.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Apparent (85)  |  Assert (69)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Conclusive (11)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Empirical (58)  |  Empirical Science (9)  |  Exist (458)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Learn (672)  |  Never (1089)  |  Point (584)  |  Possible (560)  |  Produced (187)  |  Proof (304)  |  Result (700)  |  Say (989)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wrong (246)

In reality, all Arguments from Experience are founded on the Similarity which we discover among natural Objects, and by which we are induc'd to expect effects similar to those which we have found to follow from such Objects. And tho' none but a Fool or Madman will ever pretend to dispute the Authority of Experience, or to reject that great Guide of human Life, it may surely be allow'd a Philosopher to have so much Curiosity at least as to examine the Principle of human Nature, which gives this mighty Authority to Experience, and makes us draw Advantage from that Similarity which Nature has plac'd among different Objects. From Causes which appear similar we expect similar Effects. This is the Sum of our experimental Conclusions.
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), 63.
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Argument (145)  |  Authority (99)  |  Cause (561)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Different (595)  |  Discover (571)  |  Dispute (36)  |  Draw (140)  |  Effect (414)  |  Examine (84)  |  Expect (203)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Follow (389)  |  Fool (121)  |  Great (1610)  |  Guide (107)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Life (1870)  |  Madman (6)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Object (438)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reality (274)  |  Reject (67)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Sum (103)  |  Surely (101)  |  Will (2350)

In teaching man, experimental science results in lessening his pride more and more by proving to him every day that primary causes, like the objective reality of things, will be hidden from him forever and that he can only know relations.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Cause (561)  |  Forever (111)  |  Hide (70)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lessen (6)  |  Lessening (3)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Objective (96)  |  Pride (84)  |  Primary (82)  |  Prove (261)  |  Reality (274)  |  Relation (166)  |  Result (700)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Will (2350)

In the experimental sciences, the epochs of the most brilliant progress are almost always separated by long intervals of almost absolute repose.
In François Arago, trans. by William Henry Smyth, Baden Powell and Robert Grant, 'Fourier', Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men (1859), Vol. 1, 411.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Brilliant (57)  |  Epoch (46)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Interval (14)  |  Long (778)  |  Most (1728)  |  Progress (492)  |  Repose (9)  |  Separation (60)

In the matter of physics, the first lessons should contain nothing but what is experimental and interesting to see. A pretty experiment is in itself often more valuable than twenty formulae extracted from our minds.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Contain (68)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Extract (40)  |  First (1302)  |  Formula (102)  |  Interest (416)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Lesson (58)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Often (109)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Pretty (21)  |  See (1094)  |  Value (393)

In these researches I followed the principles of the experimental method that we have established, i.e., that, in presence of a well-noted, new fact which contradicts a theory, instead of keeping the theory and abandoning the fact, I should keep and study the fact, and I hastened to give up the theory.
From An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1865), as translated by Henry Copley Greene (1957), 164.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Contradict (42)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Establishment (47)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Follow (389)  |  Following (16)  |  Give Up (10)  |  Hasten (13)  |  Keeping (9)  |  Method (531)  |  New (1273)  |  Presence (63)  |  Principle (530)  |  Research (753)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Study (701)  |  Theory (1015)

Indeed, the most important part of engineering work—and also of other scientific work—is the determination of the method of attacking the problem, whatever it may be, whether an experimental investigation, or a theoretical calculation. … It is by the choice of a suitable method of attack, that intricate problems are reduced to simple phenomena, and then easily solved.
In Engineering Mathematics: A Series of Lectures Delivered at Union College (1911, 1917), Vol. 2, 275.
Science quotes on:  |  Attack (86)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Choice (114)  |  Determination (80)  |  Ease (40)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Intricacy (8)  |  Intricate (29)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Method (531)  |  Most (1728)  |  Other (2233)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Problem (731)  |  Reduction (52)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Solution. (53)  |  Suitability (11)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Work (1402)

Investigators are commonly said to be engaged in a search for the truth. I think they themselves would usually state their aims less pretentiously. What the experimenter is really trying to do is to learn whether facts can be established which will be recognized as facts by others and which will support some theory that in imagination he has projected. But he must be ingenuously honest. He must face facts as they arise in the course of experimental procedure, whether they are favourable to his idea or not. In doing this he must be ready to surrender his theory at any time if the facts are adverse to it.
The Way of an Investigator: A Scientist's Experiences in Medical Research (1945), 34.
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Arise (162)  |  Course (413)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimenter (40)  |  Face (214)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Honest (53)  |  Honesty (29)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Investigator (71)  |  Learn (672)  |  Must (1525)  |  Other (2233)  |  Procedure (48)  |  Project (77)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Search (175)  |  State (505)  |  Support (151)  |  Surrender (21)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Trying (144)  |  Usually (176)  |  Will (2350)

It does appear that on the whole a physicist… tries to reduce his theory at all times to as few parameters as possible and is inclined to feel that a theory is a “respectable” one, though by no means necessarily correct, if in principle it does offer reasonably specific means for its possible refutation. Moreover the physicist will generally arouse the irritation amongst fellow physicists if he is not prepared to abandon his theory when it clashes with subsequent experiments. On the other hand it would appear that the chemist regards theories—or perhaps better his theories (!) —as far less sacrosanct, and perhaps in extreme cases is prepared to modify them continually as each bit of new experimental evidence comes in.
'Discussion: Physics and Chemistry: Comments on Caldin's View of Chemistry', British Journal of the Philosophy of Science, 1960, 11, 222.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Arouse (13)  |  Better (493)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Clash (10)  |  Continually (17)  |  Correct (95)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Feel (371)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Irritation (3)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Modify (15)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  New (1273)  |  Offer (142)  |  Other (2233)  |  Parameter (4)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Possible (560)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Refutation (13)  |  Regard (312)  |  Respectability (2)  |  Sacrosanct (3)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Specific (98)  |  Subsequent (34)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)

It has been said that no science is established on a firm basis unless its generalisations can be expressed in terms of number, and it is the special province of mathematics to assist the investigator in finding numerical relations between phenomena. After experiment, then mathematics. While a science is in the experimental or observational stage, there is little scope for discerning numerical relations. It is only after the different workers have “collected data” that the mathematician is able to deduce the required generalisation. Thus a Maxwell followed Faraday and a Newton completed Kepler.
In Higher Mathematics for Students of Chemistry and Physics (1902), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Assist (9)  |  Basis (180)  |  Collect (19)  |  Complete (209)  |  Completed (30)  |  Data (162)  |  Deduce (27)  |  Different (595)  |  Discern (35)  |  Discerning (16)  |  Establish (63)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Express (192)  |  Michael Faraday (91)  |  Firm (47)  |  Follow (389)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Investigator (71)  |  Johannes Kepler (95)  |  Little (717)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Maxwell (42)  |  James Clerk Maxwell (91)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Number (710)  |  Numerical (39)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observational (15)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Province (37)  |  Relation (166)  |  Required (108)  |  Scope (44)  |  Special (188)  |  Stage (152)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Worker (34)

It is characteristic of experimental science that it opens ever-widening horizons to our vision.
As translated in René J. Dubos, Louis Pasteur, Free Lance of Science (1950, 1986), 329.
Science quotes on:  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Horizon (47)  |  Open (277)  |  Vision (127)

It is not, indeed, strange that the Greeks and Romans should not have carried ... any ... experimental science, so far as it has been carried in our time; for the experimental sciences are generally in a state of progression. They were better understood in the seventeenth century than in the sixteenth, and in the eighteenth century than in the seventeenth. But this constant improvement, this natural growth of knowledge, will not altogether account for the immense superiority of the modern writers. The difference is a difference not in degree, but of kind. It is not merely that new principles have been discovered, but that new faculties seem to be exerted. It is not that at one time the human intellect should have made but small progress, and at another time have advanced far; but that at one time it should have been stationary, and at another time constantly proceeding. In taste and imagination, in the graces of style, in the arts of persuasion, in the magnificence of public works, the ancients were at least our equals. They reasoned as justly as ourselves on subjects which required pure demonstration.
History (May 1828). In Samuel Austin Allibone, Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay (1880), 36.
Science quotes on:  |  16th Century (3)  |  17th Century (20)  |  18th Century (21)  |  Account (195)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Art (680)  |  Better (493)  |  Century (319)  |  Constant (148)  |  Degree (277)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Difference (355)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Exert (40)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Grace (31)  |  Greek (109)  |  Growth (200)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Intellect (32)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Immense (89)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Kind (564)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Magnificence (14)  |  Merely (315)  |  Modern (402)  |  Natural (810)  |  New (1273)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Persuasion (9)  |  Principle (530)  |  Proceeding (38)  |  Progress (492)  |  Progression (23)  |  Pure (299)  |  Reason (766)  |  Required (108)  |  Roman (39)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Small (489)  |  State (505)  |  Stationary (11)  |  Strange (160)  |  Subject (543)  |  Superiority (19)  |  Taste (93)  |  Time (1911)  |  Understood (155)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Writer (90)

It is well known that theoretical physicists cannot handle experimental equipment; it breaks whenever they touch it. Pauli was such a good theoretical physicist that something usually broke in the lab whenever he merely stepped across the threshold. A mysterious event that did not seem at first to be connected with Pauli's presence once occurred in Professor J. Franck's laboratory in Göttingen. Early one afternoon, without apparent cause, a complicated apparatus for the study of atomic phenomena collapsed. Franck wrote humorously about this to Pauli at his Zürich address and, after some delay, received an answer in an envelope with a Danish stamp. Pauli wrote that he had gone to visit Bohr and at the time of the mishap in Franck's laboratory his train was stopped for a few minutes at the Göttingen railroad station. You may believe this anecdote or not, but there are many other observations concerning the reality of the Pauli Effect!
From Thirty Years That Shook Physics: The Story of Quantum Theory (1966), 64. Note the so-called Pauli Effect is merely anecdotal to provide humor about supposed parapsychology phenomena in coincidences involving Pauli; it should not be confused with scientifically significant Pauli Exclusion Principle.
Science quotes on:  |  Anecdote (21)  |  Answer (389)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Apparent (85)  |  Atom (381)  |  Belief (615)  |  Break (109)  |  Cause (561)  |  Collapse (19)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Connect (126)  |  Connection (171)  |  Delay (21)  |  Early (196)  |  Effect (414)  |  Envelope (6)  |  Equipment (45)  |  Event (222)  |  Experiment (736)  |  First (1302)  |  James Franck (2)  |  Good (906)  |  Handle (29)  |  Humor (10)  |  Known (453)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Merely (315)  |  Minute (129)  |  Mishap (2)  |  Mysterious (83)  |  Observation (593)  |  Other (2233)  |  Wolfgang Pauli (16)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Presence (63)  |  Professor (133)  |  Railroad (36)  |  Reality (274)  |  Something (718)  |  Stamp (36)  |  Station (30)  |  Step (234)  |  Stopped (3)  |  Study (701)  |  Theoretical Physicist (21)  |  Threshold (11)  |  Time (1911)  |  Touch (146)  |  Train (118)  |  Usually (176)  |  Visit (27)  |  Whenever (81)

It was my good fortune to be linked with Mme. Curie through twenty years of sublime and unclouded friendship. I came to admire her human grandeur to an ever growing degree. Her strength, her purity of will, her austerity toward herself, her objectivity, her incorruptible judgement—all these were of a kind seldom found joined in a single individual… The greatest scientific deed of her life—proving the existence of radioactive elements and isolating them—owes its accomplishment not merely to bold intuition but to a devotion and tenacity in execution under the most extreme hardships imaginable, such as the history of experimental science has not often witnessed.
Out of My Later Years (1950), 227-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Austerity (3)  |  Bold (22)  |  Marie Curie (37)  |  Deed (34)  |  Degree (277)  |  Devotion (37)  |  Element (322)  |  Execution (25)  |  Existence (481)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Fortune (50)  |  Friendship (18)  |  Good (906)  |  Grandeur (35)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Growing (99)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Individual (420)  |  Intuition (82)  |  Kind (564)  |  Life (1870)  |  Merely (315)  |  Most (1728)  |  Objectivity (17)  |  Owe (71)  |  Radioactive (24)  |  Radioactivity (33)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Single (365)  |  Strength (139)  |  Sublime (50)  |  Tenacity (10)  |  Through (846)  |  Will (2350)  |  Witness (57)  |  Year (963)

It was the method which attracted me [to physics]—the experimental method, which was born with physics, and is now universal in science. It’s asking a question of nature, and listening for the answer from nature … the way in which you’re going about asking the question and detecting the answer. And in my view it’s this kind of method that attracts me.
From 'Asking Nature', collected in Lewis Wolpert and Alison Richards (eds.), Passionate Minds: The Inner World of Scientists (1997), 197.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Asking (74)  |  Attract (25)  |  Detect (45)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Kind (564)  |  Listen (81)  |  Listening (26)  |  Method (531)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Question (649)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Universal (198)  |  View (496)  |  Way (1214)

Just now nuclear physicists are writing a great deal about hypothetical particles called neutrinos supposed to account for certain peculiar facts observed in β-ray disintegration. We can perhaps best describe the neutrinos as little bits of spin-energy that have got detached. I am not much impressed by the neutrino theory. In an ordinary way I might say that I do not believe in neutrinos… But I have to reflect that a physicist may be an artist, and you never know where you are with artists. My old-fashioned kind of disbelief in neutrinos is scarcely enough. Dare I say that experimental physicists will not have sufficient ingenuity to make neutrinos? Whatever I may think, I am not going to be lured into a wager against the skill of experimenters under the impression that it is a wager against the truth of a theory. If they succeed in making neutrinos, perhaps even in developing industrial applications of them, I suppose I shall have to believe—though I may feel that they have not been playing quite fair.
From Tarner Lecture, 'Discovery or Manufacture?' (1938), in The Philosophy of Physical Science (1939, 2012), 112.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Against (332)  |  Application (257)  |  Artist (97)  |  Best (467)  |  Call (781)  |  Certain (557)  |  Dare (55)  |  Deal (192)  |  Describe (132)  |  Disbelief (4)  |  Disintegration (8)  |  Do (1905)  |  Energy (373)  |  Enough (341)  |  Experimental Physicist (11)  |  Experimenter (40)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Feel (371)  |  Great (1610)  |  Impress (66)  |  Impressed (39)  |  Impression (118)  |  Ingenuity (42)  |  Kind (564)  |  Know (1538)  |  Little (717)  |  Making (300)  |  Neutrino (11)  |  Never (1089)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nuclear Physicist (5)  |  Observed (149)  |  Old (499)  |  Old-Fashioned (9)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Particle (200)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Playing (42)  |  Ray (115)  |  Say (989)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Skill (116)  |  Spin (26)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Think (1122)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Will (2350)  |  Writing (192)

Liebig was not a teacher in the ordinary sense of the word. Scientifically productive himself in an unusual degree, and rich in chemical ideas, he imparted the latter to his advanced pupils, to be put by them to experimental proof; he thus brought his pupils gradually to think for themselves, besides showing and explaining to them the methods by which chemical problems might be solved experimentally.
As quoted in G. H. Getman, The Life of Ira Remsen (1980), 18-19.
Science quotes on:  |  Chemical (303)  |  Degree (277)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Himself (461)  |  Idea (881)  |  Impart (24)  |  Justus von Liebig (39)  |  Method (531)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Problem (731)  |  Productive (37)  |  Proof (304)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Sense (785)  |  Student (317)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Unusual (37)  |  Word (650)

Man is naturally metaphysical and arrogant, and is thus capable of believing that the ideal creations of his mind, which express his feelings, are identical with reality. From this it follows that the experimental method is not really natural to him.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrogant (4)  |  Belief (615)  |  Capable (174)  |  Creation (350)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Express (192)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  Follow (389)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Identical (55)  |  Man (2252)  |  Metaphysical (38)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Natural (810)  |  Reality (274)  |  Scientific Method (200)

Mathematical physics is in the first place physics and it could not exist without experimental investigations.
From inaugural lecture at Utrecht on the kinetic theory of matter and its modern development (1913), as quoted in Julio Antonio Gonzalo and Carmen Aragó López (eds.), Great Solid State Physicists of the 20th Century (2003), 157.
Science quotes on:  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  Experiment (736)  |  First (1302)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Mathematical Physics (12)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Place (192)

Mathematics is an experimental science, and definitions do not come first, but later on.
In 'On Operators in Physical Mathematics, part II', Proceedings of the Royal Society of London (15 Jun 1893), 54, 121.
Science quotes on:  |  Definition (238)  |  Do (1905)  |  Experiment (736)  |  First (1302)  |  Later (18)  |  Mathematics (1395)

Measurement has too often been the leitmotif of many investigations rather than the experimental examination of hypotheses. Mounds of data are collected, which are statistically decorous and methodologically unimpeachable, but conclusions are often trivial and rarely useful in decision making. This results from an overly rigorous control of an insignificant variable and a widespread deficiency in the framing of pertinent questions. Investigators seem to have settled for what is measurable instead of measuring what they would really like to know.
'Patient Care—Mystical Research or Researchable Mystique/', Clinical Research (1964), 12, no. 4, 422.
Science quotes on:  |  Collection (68)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Control (182)  |  Data (162)  |  Decision (98)  |  Deficiency (15)  |  Examination (102)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Framing (2)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Insignificance (12)  |  Insignificant (33)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Investigator (71)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Like (23)  |  Making (300)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Methodology (14)  |  Pertinent (4)  |  Question (649)  |  Rare (94)  |  Result (700)  |  Rigor (29)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  Settle (23)  |  Settled (34)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Trivial (59)  |  Useful (260)  |  Usefulness (92)  |  Variable (37)  |  Widespread (23)

Morphological information has provided the greatest single source of data in the formulation and development of the theory of evolution and that even now, when the preponderance of work is experimental, the basis for interpretation in many areas of study remains the form and relationships of structures.
'Morphology, Paleontology, and Evolution', in Sol Tax (ed.), Evolution After Darwin, Vol. 1, The Evolution of Life (1960), 524.
Science quotes on:  |  Basis (180)  |  Data (162)  |  Development (441)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Form (976)  |  Formulation (37)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Information (173)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Morphology (22)  |  Preponderance (2)  |  Provide (79)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Remain (355)  |  Single (365)  |  Source (101)  |  Structure (365)  |  Study (701)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Work (1402)

Most of us who become experimental physicists do so for two reasons; we love the tools of physics because to us they have intrinsic beauty, and we dream of finding new secrets of nature as important and as exciting as those uncovered by our scientific heroes.
In Nobel Lecture (11 Dec 1968), 'Recent Developments in Particle Physics', collected in Nobel Lectures: Physics 1963-1970 (1972), 241.
Science quotes on:  |  Beauty (313)  |  Become (821)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dream (222)  |  Exciting (50)  |  Experimental Physicist (11)  |  Find (1014)  |  Hero (45)  |  Important (229)  |  Intrinsic (18)  |  Love (328)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Parasite (33)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Reason (766)  |  Research (753)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Secret (216)  |  Tool (129)  |  Two (936)  |  Uncover (20)

My colleagues in elementary particle theory in many lands [and I] are driven by the usual insatiable curiosity of the scientist, and our work is a delightful game. I am frequently astonished that it so often results in correct predictions of experimental results. How can it be that writing down a few simple and elegant formulae, like short poems governed by strict rules such as those of the sonnet or the waka, can predict universal regularities of Nature?
Nobel Banquet Speech (10 Dec 1969), in Wilhelm Odelberg (ed.),Les Prix Nobel en 1969 (1970).
Science quotes on:  |  Astonish (39)  |  Astonishment (30)  |  Colleague (51)  |  Correctness (12)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Delight (111)  |  Delightful (18)  |  Down (455)  |  Drive (61)  |  Elegance (40)  |  Elegant (37)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Formula (102)  |  Frequently (21)  |  Game (104)  |  Govern (66)  |  Government (116)  |  Insatiable (7)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Particle (200)  |  Particle Physics (13)  |  Poem (104)  |  Predict (86)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Regularity (40)  |  Result (700)  |  Rule (307)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Short (200)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Sonnet (5)  |  Strict (20)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Universal (198)  |  Universality (22)  |  Work (1402)  |  Writing (192)

My final remark to young women and men going into experimental science is that they should pay little attention to the speculative physics ideas of my generation. After all, if my generation has any really good speculative ideas, we will be carrying these ideas out ourselves.
'Reflections on the Discovery of the Tau Lepton', Nobel Lecture (8 Dec 1995). In Nobel Lectures: Physics 1991-1995 (1997), 193.
Science quotes on:  |  Attention (196)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Final (121)  |  Generation (256)  |  Good (906)  |  Idea (881)  |  Little (717)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Remark (28)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Will (2350)  |  Young (253)

No experimental result can ever kill a theory: any theory can be saved from counterinstances either by some auxiliary hypothesis or by a suitable reinterpretation of its terms.
In 'Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes', in I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave (eds.), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge: Proceedings of the International Colloquium in the Philosophy of Science, London 1965 (1970), Vol. 4, 116.
Science quotes on:  |  Auxiliary (11)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Kill (100)  |  Result (700)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Theory (1015)

No isolated experiment, however significant in itself, can suffice for the experimental demonstration of any natural phenomenon; for the “one chance in a million” will undoubtedly occur, with no less and no more than its appropriate frequency, however surprised we may be that it should occur to us.
The Design of Experiments (1935, 1971), 13-14.
Science quotes on:  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Chance (244)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Frequency (25)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Occur (151)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Significant (78)  |  Will (2350)

No scientist or student of science, need ever read an original work of the past. As a general rule, he does not think of doing so. Rutherford was one of the greatest experimental physicists, but no nuclear scientist today would study his researches of fifty years ago. Their substance has all been infused into the common agreement, the textbooks, the contemporary papers, the living present.
Attempting to distinguish between science and the humanities in which original works like Shakespeare's must be studied verbatim. 'The Case of Leavis and the Serious Case', (1970), reprinted in Public Affairs (1971), 94.
Science quotes on:  |  Agreement (55)  |  Common (447)  |  Contemporary (33)  |  Doing (277)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental Physicist (11)  |  General (521)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Living (492)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Original (61)  |  Paper (192)  |  Past (355)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Present (630)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  Research (753)  |  Rule (307)  |  Sir Ernest Rutherford (55)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Student (317)  |  Study (701)  |  Substance (253)  |  Textbook (39)  |  Think (1122)  |  Today (321)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

Of the nucleosides from deoxyribonucleic acids, all that was known with any certainty [in the 1940s] was that they were 2-deoxy-­D-ribosides of the bases adenine, guanine, thymine and cytosine and it was assumed that they were structurally analogous to the ribonucleosides. The chemistry of the nucleotides—the phosphates of the nucleosides—was in a correspondingly primitive state. It may well be asked why the chemistry of these groups of compounds was not further advanced, particularly since we recognize today that they occupy a central place in the history of the living cell. True, their full significance was for a long time unrecognized and emerged only slowly as biochemical research got into its stride but I think a more important reason is to be found in the physical properties of compounds of the nucleotide group. As water-soluble polar compounds with no proper melting points they were extremely difficult to handle by the classic techniques of organic chemistry, and were accordingly very discouraging substances to early workers. It is surely no accident that the major advances in the field have coincided with the appearance of new experimental techniques such as paper and ion-exchange chromatography, paper electrophoresis, and countercurrent distribution, peculiarly appropriate to the compounds of this group.
In 'Synthesis in the Study of Nucleotides', Nobel Lecture, 11 December 1957. In Nobel Lectures: Chemistry 1942-1962 (1964), 524.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Acid (83)  |  Adenine (6)  |  Advance (298)  |  Analogous (7)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Ask (420)  |  Base (120)  |  Biochemistry (50)  |  Cell (146)  |  Central (81)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Compound (117)  |  Cytosine (6)  |  Deoxyribonucleic Acid (3)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Distribution (51)  |  Early (196)  |  Electrophoresis (2)  |  Exchange (38)  |  Field (378)  |  Guanine (5)  |  Handle (29)  |  History (716)  |  Ion (21)  |  Known (453)  |  Living (492)  |  Long (778)  |  Major (88)  |  Melting Point (3)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Nucleotide (6)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organic Chemistry (41)  |  Paper (192)  |  Phosphate (6)  |  Physical (518)  |  Point (584)  |  Polar (13)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Proper (150)  |  Reason (766)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Research (753)  |  Significance (114)  |  Soluble (5)  |  State (505)  |  Stride (15)  |  Structure (365)  |  Substance (253)  |  Surely (101)  |  Technique (84)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thymine (6)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)  |  Water (503)  |  Why (491)

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)  |  Electrostatic (7)  |  Electrostatics (6)  |  Essence (85)  |  Expect (203)  |  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)

One can't be of an enquiring and experimental nature, and still be very sensible.
Wild Talents (1932, 2004), 308.
Science quotes on:  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Sensible (28)  |  Still (614)

One is almost tempted to say... at last I can almost see a bond. But that will never be, for a bond does not really exist at all: it is a most convenient fiction which, as we have seen, is convenient both to experimental and theoretical chemists.
'What is a Chemical Bond?', Coulson Papers, 25, Bodleian Library, Oxford. In Mary-Jo Nye, From Chemical Philosophy to Theoretical Chemistry (1993), 261.
Science quotes on:  |  Bond (46)  |  Both (496)  |  Chemical Bond (7)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Exist (458)  |  Last (425)  |  Most (1728)  |  Never (1089)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Will (2350)

One of the greatest experimental scientists of the time who was really doing something, William Harvey, said that what Bacon said science was, was the science that a lord-chancellor would do. He [Bacon] spoke of making observations, but omitted the vital factor of judgment about what to observe and what to pay attention to.
From address (1966) at the 14th Annual Convention of the National Science Teachers Association, New York City, printed in 'What is science?', The Physics Teacher (1969), 7, No. 6, 321.
Science quotes on:  |  Attention (196)  |  Sir Francis Bacon (188)  |  Chancellor (8)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Factor (47)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  William Harvey (30)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Lord (97)  |  Making (300)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observe (179)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Something (718)  |  Time (1911)  |  Vital (89)

One way of dealing with errors is to have friends who are willing to spend the time necessary to carry out a critical examination of the experimental design beforehand and the results after the experiments have been completed. An even better way is to have an enemy. An enemy is willing to devote a vast amount of time and brain power to ferreting out errors both large and small, and this without any compensation. The trouble is that really capable enemies are scarce; most of them are only ordinary. Another trouble with enemies is that they sometimes develop into friends and lose a great deal of their zeal. It was in this way the writer lost his three best enemies. Everyone, not just scientists, needs a good few enemies.
Quoted in George A. Olah, A Life of Magic Chemistry (2001), 146.
Science quotes on:  |  Amount (153)  |  Best (467)  |  Better (493)  |  Both (496)  |  Brain (281)  |  Capable (174)  |  Carry (130)  |  Completed (30)  |  Critical (73)  |  Deal (192)  |  Design (203)  |  Develop (278)  |  Enemy (86)  |  Error (339)  |  Examination (102)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Friend (180)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Large (398)  |  Lose (165)  |  Most (1728)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Power (771)  |  Result (700)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Small (489)  |  Spend (97)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Vast (188)  |  Way (1214)  |  Willing (44)  |  Writer (90)

Philosophers of science constantly discuss theories and representation of reality, but say almost nothing about experiment, technology, or the use of knowledge to alter the world. This is odd, because ‘experimental method’ used to be just another name for scientific method.... I hope [to] initiate a Back-to-Bacon movement, in which we attend more seriously to experimental science. Experimentation has a life of its own.
Representing and Intervening, p. 149f (1983). Announcing the author's intention to stress 'intervening' as an essential component of science.
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Attend (67)  |  Back (395)  |  Constantly (27)  |  Discuss (26)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimentation (7)  |  Hope (321)  |  Initiate (13)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  Movement (162)  |  Name (359)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Odd (15)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Reality (274)  |  Representation (55)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Seriously (20)  |  Technology (281)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Use (771)  |  World (1850)

Physical science enjoys the distinction of being the most fundamental of the experimental sciences, and its laws are obeyed universally, so far as is known, not merely by inanimate things, but also by living organisms, in their minutest parts, as single individuals, and also as whole communities. It results from this that, however complicated a series of phenomena may be and however many other sciences may enter into its complete presentation, the purely physical aspect, or the application of the known laws of matter and energy, can always be legitimately separated from the other aspects.
In Matter and Energy (1912), 9-10.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Being (1276)  |  Community (111)  |  Complete (209)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Complication (30)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Energy (373)  |  Enjoyment (37)  |  Enter (145)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Inanimate (18)  |  Individual (420)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Law (913)  |  Legitimacy (5)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Matter (821)  |  Merely (315)  |  Most (1728)  |  Obey (46)  |  Organism (231)  |  Other (2233)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Presentation (24)  |  Purely (111)  |  Result (700)  |  Separation (60)  |  Series (153)  |  Single (365)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Whole (756)

Physicists speak of the particle representation or the wave representation. Bohr's principle of complementarity asserts that there exist complementary properties of the same object of knowledge, one of which if known will exclude knowledge of the other. We may therefore describe an object like an electron in ways which are mutually exclusive—e.g., as wave or particle—without logical contradiction provided we also realize that the experimental arrangements that determine these descriptions are similarly mutually exclusive. Which experiment—and hence which description one chooses—is purely a matter of human choice.
The Cosmic Code: Quantum Physics as the Language of Nature (1982), 94.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Assert (69)  |  Assertion (35)  |  Niels Bohr (55)  |  Choice (114)  |  Choose (116)  |  Complementarity (6)  |  Complementary (15)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Describe (132)  |  Description (89)  |  Determination (80)  |  Determine (152)  |  Electron (96)  |  Exclusion (16)  |  Exclusive (29)  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Human (1512)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mutual (54)  |  Object (438)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particle (200)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Principle (530)  |  Property (177)  |  Purely (111)  |  Realization (44)  |  Realize (157)  |  Representation (55)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Wave (112)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

Physiology is the experimental science par excellence of all sciences; that in which there is least to be learnt by mere observation, and that which affords the greatest field for the exercise of those faculties which characterize the experimental philosopher.
In 'Educational Value of Natural History Sciences', Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews (1870), 90.
Science quotes on:  |  Excellence (40)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Field (378)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Learn (672)  |  Mere (86)  |  Observation (593)  |  Par Excellence (2)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Physiology (101)

Professor Bethe … is a man who has this characteristic: If there’s a good experimental number you’ve got to figure it out from theory. So, he forced the quantum electrodynamics of the day to give him an answer [for the experimentally measured Lamb-shift of hydrogen], … and thus, made the most important discovery in the history of the theory of quantum electrodynamics. He worked this out on the train from Ithaca, New York to Schenectady.
Bethe calculated, what Lamb had experimentally just measured, for the separation of the 2S½ and 2P½ of hydrogen. Both theory and measurement yielded about one thousand megacycles for the Lamb-shift. Feynman was at the time associated with Bethe at Cornell. In Feynman’s Nobel Prize Lecture (11 Dec 1965), 'The Development of the Space-Time View of Quantum Electrodynamics'. Collected in Stig Lundqvist, Nobel Lectures: Physics, 1963-1970 (1998), 170.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Hans Albrecht Bethe (13)  |  Calculate (58)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Electrodynamics (10)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Figure (162)  |  Good (906)  |  History (716)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Man (2252)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  Professor (133)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quantum Electrodynamics (3)  |  Shift (45)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Train (118)  |  Work (1402)

Psychological introspection goes hand in hand with the methods of experimental physiology. If one wants to put the main emphasis on the characteristic of the method, our science, experimental psychology, is to be distinguished from the ordinary mental philosophy [Seelenlehre], based purely on introspection.
In Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie [Principles of Physiological Psychology] (1874), 2-3. Trans. K. Damiger, Constructing the Subject: Historical Origins of Psychological Research (1990), 206.
Science quotes on:  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Introspection (6)  |  Mental (179)  |  Method (531)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Physiology (101)  |  Psychological (42)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Purely (111)  |  Want (504)

Psychology, as the behaviorist views it, is a purely objective, experimental branch of natural science which needs introspection as little as do the sciences of chemistry and physics. It is granted that the behavior of animals can be investigated without appeal to consciousness. Heretofore the viewpoint has been that such data have value only in so far as they can be interpreted by analogy in terms of consciousness. The position is taken here that the behavior of man and the behavior of animals must be considered in the same plane.
In Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It (1913), 176.
Science quotes on:  |  Analogy (76)  |  Animal (651)  |  Behavior (95)  |  Branch (155)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Consider (428)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Data (162)  |  Do (1905)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Grant (76)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Introspection (6)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Need (320)  |  Objective (96)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Plane (22)  |  Position (83)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Purely (111)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Value (393)  |  View (496)  |  Viewpoint (13)

Rudolf Virchow, often referred to as the father of modern pathology, broke sharply with such traditional concepts by proposing that the basis of all disease is injury to the smallest living unit of the body, namely, the cell. More than a century later, both clinical and experimental pathology remain rooted in Virchow’s cellular pathology.
In Emanuel Rubin and John L. Farber (eds.), Pathology (1944), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Basis (180)  |  Body (557)  |  Both (496)  |  Break (109)  |  Cell (146)  |  Century (319)  |  Clinical (18)  |  Concept (242)  |  Disease (340)  |  Father (113)  |  Injury (36)  |  Living (492)  |  Modern (402)  |  More (2558)  |  Pathology (19)  |  Propose (24)  |  Remain (355)  |  Root (121)  |  Traditional (16)  |  Unit (36)  |  Rudolf Virchow (50)

Science can be defined as “the observation, identification, description, experimental investigation and theoretical explanation of natural phenomena.”
In Bernice Zeldin Schacter, Issues and Dilemmas of Biotechnology: A Reference Guide (1999), 1, citing the American Heritage Dictionary, 2nd College Edition.
Science quotes on:  |  Definition (238)  |  Description (89)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Identification (20)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observation (593)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Theoretical (27)

Science does not present itself to man until mind conquers matter in striving to subject the result of experimental investigation to rational combinations.
In Alexander Humboldt and E.C. Otté (trans.), 'Introduction', Cosmos: Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe (1852), Vol. 1, 76. The translator’s preface is dated 1844.
Science quotes on:  |  Combination (150)  |  Conquer (39)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Present (630)  |  Rational (95)  |  Result (700)  |  Strive (53)  |  Subject (543)

Science is a speculative enterprise. The validity of a new idea and the significance of a new experimental finding are to be measured by the consequences—consequences in terms of other ideas and other experiments. Thus conceived, science is not a quest for certainty; it is rather a quest which is successful only to the degree that it is continuous.
In Science and Common Sense (1951), 25-26.
Science quotes on:  |  Certainty (180)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Degree (277)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Enterprise (56)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Idea (881)  |  Measure (241)  |  New (1273)  |  Other (2233)  |  Quest (39)  |  Significance (114)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Success (327)  |  Successful (134)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Validity (50)

Science is a system of statements based on direct experience, and controlled by experimental verification. Verification in science is not, however, of single statements but of the entire system or a sub-system of such statements.
The Unity of Science (1934), trans. Max Black, 42.
Science quotes on:  |  Direct (228)  |  Experience (494)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Single (365)  |  Statement (148)  |  System (545)  |  Verification (32)

Science is organized knowledge; and before knowledge can be organized, some of it must first be possessed. Every study, therefore, should have a purely experimental introduction; and only after an ample fund of observations has been accumulated, should reasoning begin.
In essay 'The Art of Education', The North British Review (May 1854), 137.
Science quotes on:  |  Accumulate (30)  |  Ample (4)  |  Begin (275)  |  First (1302)  |  Fund (19)  |  Introduction (37)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Must (1525)  |  Observation (593)  |  Organized (9)  |  Possess (157)  |  Purely (111)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Study (701)

Some guns were fired to give notice that the departure of the balloon was near. ... Means were used, I am told, to prevent the great balloon's rising so high as might endanger its bursting. Several bags of sand were taken on board before the cord that held it down was cut, and the whole weight being then too much to be lifted, such a quantity was discharged as would permit its rising slowly. Thus it would sooner arrive at that region where it would be in equilibrio with the surrounding air, and by discharging more sand afterwards, it might go higher if desired. Between one and two o’clock, all eyes were gratified with seeing it rise majestically from above the trees, and ascend gradually above the buildings, a most beautiful spectacle. When it was about two hundred feet high, the brave adventurers held out and waved a little white pennant, on both sides of their car, to salute the spectators, who returned loud claps of applause. The wind was very little, so that the object though moving to the northward, continued long in view; and it was a great while before the admiring people began to disperse. The persons embarked were Mr. Charles, professor of experimental philosophy, and a zealous promoter of that science; and one of the Messrs Robert, the very ingenious constructors of the machine.
While U.S. ambassador to France, writing about witnessing, from his carriage outside the garden of Tuileries, Paris, the first manned balloon ascent using hydrogen gas on the afternoon of 1 Dec 1783. A few days earlier, he had watched the first manned ascent in Montgolfier's hot-air balloon, on 21 Nov 1783.
Letter to Sir Charles Banks (1 Dec 1783). In The Writings of Benjamin Franklin: 1783-1788 (1906), Vol. 9, 119-120.
Science quotes on:  |  Aeronautics (15)  |  Air (366)  |  Ascend (30)  |  Balloon (16)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Being (1276)  |  Both (496)  |  Brave (16)  |  Building (158)  |  Car (75)  |  Jacques-Alexandre-César Charles (2)  |  Clock (51)  |  Cut (116)  |  Down (455)  |  Eye (440)  |  First (1302)  |  Garden (64)  |  Gas (89)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Great (1610)  |  High (370)  |  Hot (63)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Ingenious (55)  |  Lift (57)  |  Little (717)  |  Long (778)  |  Machine (271)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Notice (81)  |  Object (438)  |  Outside (141)  |  People (1031)  |  Permit (61)  |  Person (366)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Professor (133)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Return (133)  |  Rise (169)  |  Rising (44)  |  Salute (3)  |  Sand (63)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Side (236)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Tree (269)  |  Two (936)  |  View (496)  |  Watch (118)  |  Weight (140)  |  White (132)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wind (141)  |  Writing (192)

Someday someone will write a pathology of experimental physics and bring to light all those swindles which subvert our reason, beguile our judgement and, what is worse, stand in the way of any practical progress. The phenomena must be freed once and for all from their grim torture chamber of empiricism, mechanism, and dogmatism; they must be brought before the jury of man's common sense.
Jeremy Naydler (ed.), Goethe On Science: An Anthology of Goethe's Scientific Writings (1996), 31.
Science quotes on:  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Dogmatism (15)  |  Empiricism (21)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Light (635)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  Must (1525)  |  Pathology (19)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Practical (225)  |  Progress (492)  |  Reason (766)  |  Sense (785)  |  Someday (15)  |  Stand (284)  |  Swindle (2)  |  Torture (30)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)  |  Write (250)

Taking him for all and all, I think it will be conceded that Michael Faraday was the greatest experimental philosopher the world has ever seen; and I will add the opinion, that the progress of future research will tend, not to dim or to diminish, but to enhance and glorify the labours of this mighty investigator.
In Faraday as a Discoverer (1868), 147.
Science quotes on:  |  Enhance (17)  |  Michael Faraday (91)  |  Future (467)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Investigator (71)  |  Labor (200)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Progress (492)  |  Research (753)  |  Tend (124)  |  Think (1122)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

That man can interrogate as well as observe nature was a lesson slowly learned in his evolution. Of the two methods by which he can do this, the mathematical and the experimental, both have been equally fruitful—by the one he has gauged the starry heights and harnessed the cosmic forces to his will; by the other he has solved many of the problems of life and lightened many of the burdens of humanity.
In 'The Evolution of the Idea of Experiment in Medicine', in C.G. Roland, Sir William Osler, 1849-1919: A Selection for Medical Students (1982), 103. As cited in William Osler and Mark E. Silverman (ed.), The Quotable Osler (2002), 249
Science quotes on:  |  Both (496)  |  Burden (30)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Do (1905)  |  Equally (129)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Force (497)  |  Fruitful (61)  |  Harness (25)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Interrogation (5)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Lesson (58)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Method (531)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observe (179)  |  Other (2233)  |  Problem (731)  |  Two (936)  |  Will (2350)

The American, by nature, is optimistic. He is experimental, an inventor and a builder who builds best when called upon to build greatly. Arouse his will to believe in himself, give him a great goal to believe in, and he will create the means to reach it.
Given with date 1 Jan 1960 in Brian M. Thomsen, The Dream That Will Not Die: Inspiring Words of John, Robert, and Edward Kennedy (2010), 79. Webmaster has not seen a primary document for this quote. Although it is widely circulated, the origin is usually never cited. If you know the primary source, please contact Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  American (56)  |  Arouse (13)  |  Belief (615)  |  Best (467)  |  Build (211)  |  Builder (16)  |  Call (781)  |  Create (245)  |  Creation (350)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Goal (155)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatly (12)  |  Himself (461)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Optimism (17)  |  Reach (286)  |  Will (2350)

The artist does not illustrate science; … [but] he frequently responds to the same interests that a scientist does, and expresses by a visual synthesis what the scientist converts into analytical formulae or experimental demonstrations.
'The Arts', in Charles Austin Beard, Whither Mankind: a Panorama of Modern Civilization (1928, 1971), 296.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Artist (97)  |  Conversion (17)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Expression (181)  |  Formula (102)  |  Frequently (21)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Interest (416)  |  Response (56)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Synthesis (58)

The book [Future of an Illusion] testifies to the fact that the genius of experimental science is not necessarily joined with the genius of logic or generalizing power.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Book (413)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Future (467)  |  Generalize (19)  |  Genius (301)  |  Illusion (68)  |  Join (32)  |  Logic (311)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Power (771)  |  Testify (7)

The contingency of history (both for life in general and for the cultures of Homo sapiens) and human free will (in the factual rather than theological sense) are conjoined concepts, and no better evidence can be produced than the ‘experimental’ production of markedly different solutions in identical environments.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Both (496)  |  Concept (242)  |  Conjoin (2)  |  Contingency (11)  |  Culture (157)  |  Different (595)  |  Environment (239)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Factual (8)  |  Free (239)  |  Free Will (15)  |  General (521)  |  History (716)  |  Homo Sapiens (23)  |  Human (1512)  |  Identical (55)  |  Life (1870)  |  Markedly (2)  |  Produce (117)  |  Produced (187)  |  Production (190)  |  Sense (785)  |  Solution (282)  |  Solution. (53)  |  Theological (3)  |  Will (2350)

The end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century were remarkable for the small amount of scientific movement going on in this country, especially in its more exact departments. ... Mathematics were at the last gasp, and Astronomy nearly so—I mean in those members of its frame which depend upon precise measurement and systematic calculation. The chilling torpor of routine had begun to spread itself over all those branches of Science which wanted the excitement of experimental research.
Quoted in Sophia Elizabeth De Morgan, Memoir of Augustus De Morgan (1882), 41
Science quotes on:  |  18th Century (21)  |  19th Century (41)  |  Amount (153)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Century (319)  |  Chill (10)  |  Country (269)  |  Department (93)  |  Depend (238)  |  End (603)  |  Exact (75)  |  Excitement (61)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Gasp (6)  |  Last (425)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Measurement (178)  |  More (2558)  |  Movement (162)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Precise (71)  |  Precision (72)  |  Remarkable (50)  |  Research (753)  |  Routine (26)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Small (489)  |  Spread (86)  |  Systematic (58)  |  Want (504)

The evidence from both approaches, statistical and experimental, does not appear sufficiently significant to me to warrant forsaking the pleasure of smoking. As a matter of fact, if the investigations had been pointed toward some material that I thoroughly dislike, such as parsnips, I still would not feel that evidence of the type presented constituted a reasonable excuse for eliminating the things from my diet. I will still continue to smoke, and if the tobacco companies cease manufacturing their product, I will revert to sweet fern and grape leaves.
Introduction in Eric Northrup, Science Looks at Smoking (1957), 34.
Science quotes on:  |  Approach (112)  |  Both (496)  |  Cease (81)  |  Continuation (20)  |  Continue (179)  |  Diet (56)  |  Dislike (16)  |  Elimination (26)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Excuse (27)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Feel (371)  |  Fern (10)  |  Grape (4)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Manufacturer (10)  |  Manufacturing (29)  |  Material (366)  |  Matter (821)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Point (584)  |  Present (630)  |  Product (166)  |  Revert (4)  |  Significance (114)  |  Significant (78)  |  Smoke (32)  |  Smoking (27)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Still (614)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Sweet (40)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Tobacco (19)  |  Type (171)  |  Warrant (8)  |  Will (2350)

The experimental investigation by which Ampere established the law of the mechanical action between electric currents is one of the most brilliant achievements in science. The whole theory and experiment, seems as if it had leaped, full grown and full armed, from the brain of the 'Newton of Electricity'. It is perfect in form, and unassailable in accuracy, and it is summed up in a formula from which all the phenomena may be deduced, and which must always remain the cardinal formula of electro-dynamics.
A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism (1873), Vol. 2, 162.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Achievement (187)  |  Action (342)  |  André-Marie Ampère (11)  |  Arm (82)  |  Brain (281)  |  Brilliant (57)  |  Cardinal (9)  |  Current (122)  |  Deduction (90)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Electrodynamics (10)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Form (976)  |  Formula (102)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Law (913)  |  Leap (57)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Remain (355)  |  Summary (11)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Whole (756)

The experimental investigation by which Ampère established the law of the mechanical action between electric currents is one of the most brilliant achievements in science. The whole, theory and experiment, seems as if it had leaped, full grown and full armed, from the brain of the “Newton of Electricity”. It is perfect in form, and unassailable in accuracy, and it is summed up in a formula from which all the phenomena may be deduced, and which must always remain the cardinal formula of electro-dynamics.
In James Clerk Maxwell, Electricity and Magnetism (1881), Vol. 2, 163
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Achievement (187)  |  Action (342)  |  André-Marie Ampère (11)  |  Arm (82)  |  Brain (281)  |  Brilliant (57)  |  Cardinal (9)  |  Current (122)  |  Deduce (27)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Establish (63)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Form (976)  |  Formula (102)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Law (913)  |  Leap (57)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Remain (355)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Unassailable (3)  |  Whole (756)

The experimental verification of a theory concerning any natural phenomenon generally rests on the result of an integration.
Epigraph in Higher Mathematics for Students of Chemistry and Physics: With Special Reference to Practical Work (1902), Chap 4, 150.
Science quotes on:  |  Concern (239)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Integration (21)  |  Natural (810)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Rest (287)  |  Result (700)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Verification (32)

The experimental verifications are not the basis of the theory, but its culmination.
As quoted in Philipp Frank, Modern Science and its Philosophy (1949), 16, which cites Théorie Physique; Son Objet—Son Structure (1906), 285. [Note: the experimentum crucis is a “crucial experiment” to be a conclusive test to decide between different hypotheses.]
Science quotes on:  |  Basis (180)  |  Culmination (5)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Verification (32)

The formulation of a problem is often more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle requires creative imagination and marks real advances in science.
In Albert Einstein and Léopold Infeld, The Evolution of Physics: The Growth of Ideas from Early Concepts to Relativity and Quanta (1938, 1966), 92.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Creative (144)  |  Creativity (84)  |  Essential (210)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Formulation (37)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Matter (821)  |  Merely (315)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Old (499)  |  Problem (731)  |  Progress (492)  |  Question (649)  |  Regard (312)  |  Require (229)  |  Skill (116)  |  Solution (282)

The foundations of population genetics were laid chiefly by mathematical deduction from basic premises contained in the works of Mendel and Morgan and their followers. Haldane, Wright, and Fisher are the pioneers of population genetics whose main research equipment was paper and ink rather than microscopes, experimental fields, Drosophila bottles, or mouse cages. Theirs is theoretical biology at its best, and it has provided a guiding light for rigorous quantitative experimentation and observation.
'A Review of Some Fundamental Concepts and Problems of Population Genetics', Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology, 1955, 20, 13-14.
Science quotes on:  |  Basic (144)  |  Best (467)  |  Biology (232)  |  Cage (12)  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Deduction (90)  |  Drosophila (10)  |  Drosphilia (4)  |  Equipment (45)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Field (378)  |  Fischer_Ronald (2)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Genetics (105)  |  J.B.S. Haldane (50)  |  Light (635)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Gregor Mendel (22)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Thomas Hunt Morgan (14)  |  Mouse (33)  |  Observation (593)  |  Paper (192)  |  Pioneer (37)  |  Population (115)  |  Premise (40)  |  Quantitative (31)  |  Research (753)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  Work (1402)  |  Sewall Wright (9)

The great art consists in devising décisive experiments, leaving no place to the imagination of the observer. Imagination is needed to give wings to thought at the beginning of experimental investigations on any given subject. When, however, the time has come to conclude, and to interpret the facts derived from observations, imagination must submit to the factual results of the experiments.
Speech (8 Jul 1876), to the French Academy of Medicine. As translated in René J. Dubos, Louis Pasteur, Free Lance of Science (1950, 1986), 376. Date of speech identified in Maurice B. Strauss, Familiar Medical Quotations (1968), 502.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Consist (223)  |  Decisive (25)  |  Derived (5)  |  Devise (16)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Great (1610)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Interpret (25)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Must (1525)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observer (48)  |  Result (700)  |  Subject (543)  |  Submit (21)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Time Has Come (8)  |  Wing (79)

The great experimental principle, then, is doubt, that philosophic doubt which leaves to the mind its freedom and initiative, and from which the virtues most valuable to investigators in physiology and medicine are derived.
From An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1865), as translated by Henry Copley Greene (1957), 37.
Science quotes on:  |  Doubt (314)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Great (1610)  |  Initiative (17)  |  Investigator (71)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Physiology (101)  |  Principle (530)  |  Virtue (117)

The great problem of today is, how to subject all physical phenomena to dynamical laws. With all the experimental devices, and all the mathematical appliances of this generation, the human mind has been baffled in its attempts to construct a universal science of physics.
'President's Address', Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1874), 23, 34-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Appliance (9)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Construct (129)  |  Device (71)  |  Dynamical (15)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Generation (256)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Law (913)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physics (564)  |  Problem (731)  |  Subject (543)  |  Today (321)  |  Universal (198)

The history of penicillin is one of the disgraces of medical research. Fleming published his classic paper in the British Journal of Experimental Pathology for June, 1929, but it was not until 1939 that Florey followed up the clue. An antiseptic which is almost ideal, inasmuch as it has no toxic effects, was allowed to slumber for ten years. Had it not been for the exigencies of the present war it might be slumbering still.
In book review, 'The Story of a Neglected Miracle', New York Times (25 Mar 1945), BR3. (The book being reviewed was J.D. Ratcliff, Yellow Magic: The Story of Penicillin.)
Science quotes on:  |  Allow (51)  |  Antiseptic (8)  |  British (42)  |  Classic (13)  |  Clue (20)  |  Disgrace (12)  |  Effect (414)  |  Exigency (3)  |  Sir Alexander Fleming (19)  |  Sir Howard Walter Florey (3)  |  Follow (389)  |  History (716)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Journal (31)  |  Medical (31)  |  Paper (192)  |  Pathology (19)  |  Penicillin (18)  |  Present (630)  |  Publish (42)  |  Research (753)  |  Slumber (6)  |  Still (614)  |  Toxic (3)  |  War (233)  |  Year (963)

The inducing substance, on the basis of its chemical and physical properties, appears to be a highly polymerized and viscous form of sodium desoxyribonucleate. On the other hand, the Type m capsular substance, the synthesis of which is evoked by this transforming agent, consists chiefly of a non-nitrogenous polysaccharide constituted of glucose-glucuronic acid units linked in glycosidic union. The presence of the newly formed capsule containing this type-specific polysaccharide confers on the transformed cells all the distinguishing characteristics of Pneumococcus Type III. Thus, it is evident that the inducing substance and the substance produced in turn are chemically distinct and biologically specific in their action and that both are requisite in determining the type of specificity of the cell of which they form a part. The experimental data presented in this paper strongly suggest that nucleic acids, at least those of the desoxyribose type, possess different specificities as evidenced by the selective action of the transforming principle.
Oswald T. Avery (1877-1955), Colin Macleod (1909-72) and Maclyn McCarty (1911-2005), ‘Studies in the Chemical Nature of the Substance Inducing Transformation of Pneumococcal Types', Journal of Experimental Medicine 1944, 79, 152.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Action (342)  |  Agent (73)  |  Basis (180)  |  Both (496)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Consist (223)  |  Data (162)  |  Different (595)  |  Distinct (98)  |  DNA (81)  |  Evident (92)  |  Form (976)  |  Glucose (2)  |  Nucleic Acid (23)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paper (192)  |  Physical (518)  |  Possess (157)  |  Presence (63)  |  Present (630)  |  Principle (530)  |  Produced (187)  |  Selective (21)  |  Sodium (15)  |  Specific (98)  |  Substance (253)  |  Synthesis (58)  |  Transform (74)  |  Turn (454)  |  Type (171)  |  Union (52)

The laboratory was an unattractive half basement and low ceilinged room with an inner dark room for the galvanometer and experimental animals. It was dark, crowded with equipment and uninviting. Into it came patients for electrocardiography, dogs for experiments, trays with coffee and buns for lunch. It was hot and dusty in summer and cold in winter. True a large fire burnt brightly in the winter but anyone who found time to warm his backside at it was not beloved by [Sir Thomas] Lewis. It was no good to try and look out of the window for relaxation, for it was glazed with opaque glass. The scientific peaks were our only scenery, and it was our job to try and find the pathways to the top.
'Tribute to Sir Thomas Lewis', University College Hospital Magazine (1955), 40, 71.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Basement (4)  |  Coffee (21)  |  Cold (115)  |  Dark (145)  |  Dog (70)  |  Equipment (45)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fire (203)  |  Galvanometer (4)  |  Glass (94)  |  Good (906)  |  Hot (63)  |  Inner (72)  |  Job (86)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Large (398)  |  Sir Thomas Lewis (2)  |  Look (584)  |  Low (86)  |  Lunch (6)  |  Opaque (7)  |  Pathway (15)  |  Patient (209)  |  Peak (20)  |  Scenery (9)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Summer (56)  |  Time (1911)  |  Top (100)  |  Try (296)  |  Warm (74)  |  Window (59)  |  Winter (46)

The lessons of science should be experimental also. The sight of a planet through a telescope is worth all the course on astronomy; the shock of the electric spark in the elbow outvalues all theories; the taste of the nitrous oxide, the firing of an artificial volcano, are better than volumes of chemistry.
The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870), 552.
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Better (493)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Course (413)  |  Elbow (3)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Lesson (58)  |  Nitrous Oxide (5)  |  Planet (402)  |  Shock (38)  |  Sight (135)  |  Spark (32)  |  Taste (93)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Through (846)  |  Volcano (46)  |  Worth (172)

The love of experiment was very strong in him [Charles Darwin], and I can remember the way he would say, “I shan't be easy till I have tried it,” as if an outside force were driving him. He enjoyed experimenting much more than work which only entailed reasoning, and when he was engaged on one of his books which required argument and the marshalling of facts, he felt experimental work to be a rest or holiday.
In Charles Darwin: His Life Told in an Autobiographical Chapter, and in a Selected Series of his Published Letters (1908), 95.
Science quotes on:  |  Argument (145)  |  Biography (254)  |  Book (413)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Driving (28)  |  Easy (213)  |  Enjoyment (37)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Force (497)  |  Holiday (12)  |  Love (328)  |  More (2558)  |  Outside (141)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Remember (189)  |  Required (108)  |  Rest (287)  |  Say (989)  |  Strong (182)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)

The physicist can never subject an isolated hypothesis to experimental test, but only a whole group of hypotheses.
The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory (1906), 2nd edition (1914), trans. Philip P. Wiener (1954), 187.
Science quotes on:  |  Experiment (736)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Never (1089)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Subject (543)  |  Test (221)  |  Whole (756)

The prediction of nuclear winter is drawn not, of course, from any direct experience with the consequences of global nuclear war, but rather from an investigation of the governing physics. (The problem does not lend itself to full experimental verification—at least not more than once.)[co-author with American atmospheric chemist Richard P. Turco (1943- )]
A Path Where No Man Thought: Nuclear Winter and the End of the Arms Race (1990), 26.
Science quotes on:  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Author (175)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Course (413)  |  Direct (228)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Global (39)  |  Governing (20)  |  Investigation (250)  |  More (2558)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nuclear Winter (3)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Problem (731)  |  Verification (32)  |  War (233)  |  Winter (46)

The process of mutation is the only known source of the raw materials of genetic variability, and hence of evolution. It is subject to experimental study, and considerable progress has been accomplished in this study in recent years. An apparent paradox has been disclosed. Although the living matter becomes adapted to its environment through formation of superior genetic patterns from mutational components, the process of mutation itself is not adaptive. On the contrary, the mutants which arise are, with rare exceptions, deleterious to their carriers, at least in the environments which the species normally encounters. Some of them are deleterious apparently in all environments. Therefore, the mutation process alone, not corrected and guided by natural selection, would result in degeneration and extinction rather than in improved adaptedness.
'On Methods of Evolutionary Biology and Anthropology', American Scientist, 1957, 45, 385.
Science quotes on:  |  Adapt (70)  |  Alone (324)  |  Apparent (85)  |  Arise (162)  |  Become (821)  |  Component (51)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Degeneration (11)  |  Environment (239)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exception (74)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Formation (100)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Known (453)  |  Living (492)  |  Material (366)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mutation (40)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Paradox (54)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Process (439)  |  Progress (492)  |  Rare (94)  |  Raw (28)  |  Recent (78)  |  Result (700)  |  Selection (130)  |  Species (435)  |  Study (701)  |  Subject (543)  |  Superior (88)  |  Through (846)  |  Year (963)

The progression of physical science is much more connected with your prosperity than is usually imagined. You owe to experimental philosophy some of the most important and peculiar of your advantages. It is not by foreign conquests chiefly that you are become great, but by a conquest of nature in your own country.
From an introductory lecture to a course on electro-chemical science in 1809, quoted in 'Extracts' in J. Davy (ed.), The Collected Works of Sir Humphry Davy (1839-40), Vol. 8, 358.
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Become (821)  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Connect (126)  |  Conquest (31)  |  Country (269)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Foreign (45)  |  Great (1610)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Owe (71)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Progression (23)  |  Prosperity (31)  |  Usually (176)

The rigid electron is in my view a monster in relation to Maxwell's equations, whose innermost harmony is the principle of relativity... the rigid electron is no working hypothesis, but a working hindrance. Approaching Maxwell's equations with the concept of the rigid electron seems to me the same thing as going to a concert with your ears stopped up with cotton wool. We must admire the courage and the power of the school of the rigid electron which leaps across the widest mathematical hurdles with fabulous hypotheses, with the hope to land safely over there on experimental-physical ground.
In Arthur I. Miller, Albert Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity (1981), 350.
Science quotes on:  |  Concept (242)  |  Concert (7)  |  Courage (82)  |  Ear (69)  |  Electron (96)  |  Equation (138)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Ground (222)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Hindrance (9)  |  Hope (321)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Leap (57)  |  Maxwell (42)  |  James Clerk Maxwell (91)  |  Monster (33)  |  Must (1525)  |  Physical (518)  |  Power (771)  |  Principle (530)  |  Relativity (91)  |  Rigid (24)  |  Safe (61)  |  School (227)  |  Thing (1914)  |  View (496)

The role of hypothesis in research can be discussed more effectively if we consider first some examples of discoveries which originated from hypotheses. One of the best illustrations of such a discovery is provided by the story of Christopher Columbus’ voyage; it has many of the features of a classic discovery in science. (a) He was obsessed with an idea—that since the world is round he could reach the Orient by sailing West, (b) the idea was by no means original, but evidently he had obtained some additional evidence from a sailor blown off his course who claimed to have reached land in the west and returned, (c) he met great difficulties in getting someone to provide the money to enable him to test his idea as well as in the actual carrying out of the experimental voyage, (d) when finally he succeeded he did not find the expected new route, but instead found a whole new world, (e) despite all evidence to the contrary he clung to the bitter end to his hypothesis and believed that he had found the route to the Orient, (f) he got little credit or reward during his lifetime and neither he nor others realised the full implications of his discovery, (g) since his time evidence has been brought forward showing that he was by no means the first European to reach America.
The Art of Scientific Investigation (1950), 41.
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  America (143)  |  Best (467)  |  Bitter (30)  |  Carrying Out (13)  |  Claim (154)  |  Christopher Columbus (16)  |  Consider (428)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Course (413)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Enable (122)  |  End (603)  |  Error (339)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Evidently (26)  |  Expect (203)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Forward (104)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Idea (881)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Little (717)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Money (178)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Other (2233)  |  Reach (286)  |  Research (753)  |  Return (133)  |  Reward (72)  |  Role (86)  |  Sailing (14)  |  Sailor (21)  |  Story (122)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Test (221)  |  Time (1911)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

The science of constructing a commonwealth, or renovating it, or reforming it, is, like every other experimental science, not to be taught a priori. Nor is it a short experience that can instruct us in that practical science, because the real effects of moral causes are not always immediate.
Reflections on the Revolution in France, p. 53, ed. Pocock (1790).
Science quotes on:  |  A Priori (26)  |  Cause (561)  |  Commonwealth (5)  |  Construct (129)  |  Effect (414)  |  Experience (494)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Moral (203)  |  Other (2233)  |  Practical (225)  |  Real (159)  |  Reform (22)  |  Renovate (3)  |  Short (200)  |  Teach (299)

The shell model, although proposed by theoreticians, really corresponds to the experimentalist’s approach. It was born from a thorough study of the experimental data, plotting them in different ways, and looking for interconnections.
The Shell Model, Nobel Lecture.
Science quotes on:  |  Approach (112)  |  Data (162)  |  Different (595)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimentalist (20)  |  Interconnection (12)  |  Looking (191)  |  Model (106)  |  Shell (69)  |  Study (701)  |  Thorough (40)  |  Way (1214)

The strongest arguments prove nothing so long as the conclusions are not verified by experience. Experimental science is the queen of sciences and the goal of all speculation.
Opus Tertium. Translation as stated in Popular Science (Aug 1901), 337.
Science quotes on:  |  Argument (145)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Experience (494)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Goal (155)  |  Long (778)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Proof (304)  |  Prove (261)  |  Queen (14)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Strongest (38)  |  Verify (24)

The study of the radio-active substances and of the discharge of electricity through gases has supplied very strong experimental evidence in support of the fundamental ideas of the existing atomic theory. It has also indicated that the atom itself is not the smallest unit of matter, but is a complicated structure made up of a number of smaller bodies.
In Radio-activity (1905), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Active (80)  |  Atom (381)  |  Atomic Theory (16)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Discharge (21)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Gas (89)  |  Idea (881)  |  Matter (821)  |  Number (710)  |  Radio (60)  |  Radioactivity (33)  |  Strong (182)  |  Structure (365)  |  Study (701)  |  Substance (253)  |  Support (151)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Through (846)  |  Unit (36)

The study of the theory of a physical science should be preceded by some general experimental acquaintance therewith, in order to secure the inimitable advantage of a personal acquaintance with something real and living.
Opening sentence of Electromagnetic Theory (1892), Vol. 2, 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquaintance (38)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Experiment (736)  |  General (521)  |  Inimitable (6)  |  Living (492)  |  Order (638)  |  Personal (75)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Precede (23)  |  Real (159)  |  Something (718)  |  Study (701)  |  Theory (1015)

The University of Cambridge, in accordance with that law of its evolution, by which, while maintaining the strictest continuity between the successive phases of its history, it adapts itself with more or less promptness to the requirements of the times, has lately instituted a course of Experimental Physics.
'Introductory Lecture on Experimental Physics', (1871). In W. D. Niven (ed.), The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (1890), Vol. 2, 241.Course;Experiment;Cambridge;History;Promptness;Adapt;Requirement
Science quotes on:  |  Adapt (70)  |  Continuity (39)  |  Course (413)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Feature (49)  |  History (716)  |  Law (913)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Phase (37)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Primary (82)  |  Promptness (2)  |  Quality (139)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Requirement (66)  |  Strict (20)  |  Successive (73)  |  Time (1911)  |  University (130)

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)  |  Electrostatic (7)  |  Experiment (736)  |  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 views of space and time which I wish to lay before you have sprung from the soil of experimental physics, and therein lies their strength. They are radical. Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality.
'Space And Time', a translation of an address delivered at the 80th Assembly of German Natural Scientists and Physicians, at Cologne, 21 Sep 1908. In H.A. Lorentz, H. Weyl, H. Minkowski, et al., The Principle of Relativity: A Collection of Original Memoirs on the Special and General Theory of Relativity (1952), 74. Also seen translated as, “From henceforth, space by itself, and time by itself, have vanished into the merest shadows and only a kind of blend of the two exists in its own right.”
Science quotes on:  |  Doom (34)  |  Kind (564)  |  Lie (370)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Radical (28)  |  Reality (274)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Soil (98)  |  Space (523)  |  Space And Time (38)  |  Space-Time (20)  |  Strength (139)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Union (52)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)

Theoretical and experimental physicists are now studying nothing at all—the vacuum. But that nothingness contains all of being.
The Cosmic Code: Quantum Physics as the Language of Nature (1982), 279.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Content (75)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimental Physicist (11)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Nothingness (12)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Study (701)  |  Studying (70)  |  Theoretical Physicist (21)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Vacuum (41)

There are now three types of scientists: experimental, theoretical, and computational.
Quoted by Victor F. Weisskopf, 'One Hundred Years of the Physical Review', in H. Henry Stroke, Physical Review: The First Hundred Years: a Selection of Seminal Papers and Commentaries, Vol. 1, 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Computation (28)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Type (171)

There are other sources of psychological knowledge, which become accessible at the very point where the experimental method fails us.
Principles of Physiological Psychology (1904)
Science quotes on:  |  Accessible (27)  |  Become (821)  |  Fail (191)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Method (531)  |  Other (2233)  |  Point (584)  |  Psychological (42)  |  Psychology (166)

There are, at present, fundamental problems in theoretical physics … the solution of which … will presumably require a more drastic revision of our fundmental concepts than any that have gone before. Quite likely, these changes will be so great that it will be beyond the power of human intelligence to get the necessary new ideas by direct attempts to formulate the experimental data in mathematical terms. The theoretical worker in the future will, therefore, have to proceed in a more direct way. The most powerful method of advance that can be suggested at present is to employ all the resources of pure mathematics in attempts to perfect and generalize the mathematical formalism that forms the existing basis of theoretical physics, and after each success in this direction, to try to interpret the new mathematical features in terms of physical entities.
At age 28.
Proceedings of the Royal Society (1931), A133, 60. In A. Pais, 'Playing With Equations, the Dirac Way'. Behram N. Kursunoglu (Ed.) and Eugene Paul Wigner (Ed.), Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac: Reminiscences about a Great Physicist (1990), 109.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Age (509)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Basis (180)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Change (639)  |  Concept (242)  |  Data (162)  |  Direct (228)  |  Direction (185)  |  Employ (115)  |  Form (976)  |  Formalism (7)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Future (467)  |  Generalize (19)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Idea (881)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Necessary (370)  |  New (1273)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physics (564)  |  Power (771)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Present (630)  |  Problem (731)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Require (229)  |  Revision (7)  |  Solution (282)  |  Success (327)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Theoretical Physics (26)  |  Try (296)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

There is no existing ‘standard of protein intake’ that is based on the sure ground of experimental evidence. ... Between the two extremes of a very high and a very low protein intake it is difficult to prove that one level of intake is preferable to another. ... Physiologists, in drawing up dietary standards, are largely influenced by the dietary habits of their time and country.
Nutrition and Public Health', League of Nations Health Organization Quarterly Bulletin (1935) 4, 323–474. In Kenneth J. Carpenter, 'The Work of Wallace Aykroyd: International Nutritionist and Author', The Journal of Nutrition (2007), 137, 873-878.
Science quotes on:  |  Country (269)  |  Diet (56)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Ground (222)  |  Habit (174)  |  High (370)  |  Low (86)  |  Nutrition (25)  |  Physiologist (31)  |  Physiology (101)  |  Protein (56)  |  Prove (261)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)

There was a golden period that I look back upon with great regret, in which the cheapest of experimental animals were medical students. Graduate students were even better. In the old days, if you offered a graduate student a thiamine-deficient diet, he gladly went on it, for that was the only way he could eat. Science is getting to be more and more difficult.
In talk, 'Origin of Death' (1970).
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Back (395)  |  Better (493)  |  Diet (56)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Eat (108)  |  Eating (46)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Golden (47)  |  Graduate (32)  |  Graduate Student (13)  |  Great (1610)  |  Look (584)  |  More (2558)  |  Offer (142)  |  Old (499)  |  Period (200)  |  Regret (31)  |  Student (317)  |  Way (1214)

There was, I think, a feeling that the best science was that done in the simplest way. In experimental work, as in mathematics, there was “style” and a result obtained with simple equipment was more elegant than one obtained with complicated apparatus, just as a mathematical proof derived neatly was better than one involving laborious calculations. Rutherford's first disintegration experiment, and Chadwick's discovery of the neutron had a “style” that is different from that of experiments made with giant accelerators.
From 'Physics in a University Laboratory Before and After World War II', Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series A, (1975), 342, 463. As cited in Alan McComas, Galvani's Spark: The Story of the Nerve Impulse (2011), 107.
Science quotes on:  |  Accelerator (11)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Best (467)  |  Better (493)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Sir James Chadwick (9)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Derivation (15)  |  Different (595)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Disintegration (8)  |  Elegance (40)  |  Elegant (37)  |  Equipment (45)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Feeling (259)  |  First (1302)  |  Giant (73)  |  Labor (200)  |  Laborious (17)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  More (2558)  |  Neatness (6)  |  Neutron (23)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Obtaining (5)  |  Proof (304)  |  Result (700)  |  Sir Ernest Rutherford (55)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Style (24)  |  Think (1122)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)

These machines [used in the defense of the Syracusans against the Romans under Marcellus] he [Archimedes] had designed and contrived, not as matters of any importance, but as mere amusements in geometry; in compliance with king Hiero’s desire and request, some time before, that he should reduce to practice some part of his admirable speculation in science, and by accommodating the theoretic truth to sensation and ordinary use, bring it more within the appreciation of people in general. Eudoxus and Archytas had been the first originators of this far-famed and highly-prized art of mechanics, which they employed as an elegant illustration of geometrical truths, and as means of sustaining experimentally, to the satisfaction of the senses, conclusions too intricate for proof by words and diagrams. As, for example, to solve the problem, so often required in constructing geometrical figures, given the two extremes, to find the two mean lines of a proportion, both these mathematicians had recourse to the aid of instruments, adapting to their purpose certain curves and sections of lines. But what with Plato’s indignation at it, and his invectives against it as the mere corruption and annihilation of the one good of geometry,—which was thus shamefully turning its back upon the unembodied objects of pure intelligence to recur to sensation, and to ask help (not to be obtained without base supervisions and depravation) from matter; so it was that mechanics came to be separated from geometry, and, repudiated and neglected by philosophers, took its place as a military art.
Plutarch
In John Dryden (trans.), Life of Marcellus.
Science quotes on:  |  Accommodate (17)  |  Adapt (70)  |  Admirable (20)  |  Against (332)  |  Aid (101)  |  Amusement (37)  |  Annihilation (15)  |  Appreciation (37)  |  Archimedes (63)  |  Art (680)  |  Ask (420)  |  Back (395)  |  Base (120)  |  Both (496)  |  Bring (95)  |  Certain (557)  |  Compliance (8)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Construct (129)  |  Contrive (10)  |  Corruption (17)  |  Curve (49)  |  Defense (26)  |  Design (203)  |  Desire (212)  |  Diagram (20)  |  Elegant (37)  |  Embody (18)  |  Employ (115)  |  Example (98)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Figure (162)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  General (521)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Good (906)  |  Help (116)  |  Hiero (2)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Importance (299)  |  Indignation (5)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Intricate (29)  |  Invective (2)  |  King (39)  |  Line (100)  |  Machine (271)  |  Marcellus (2)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Mere (86)  |  Military (45)  |  More (2558)  |  Neglect (63)  |  Neglected (23)  |  Object (438)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Originator (7)  |  Part (235)  |  People (1031)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Place (192)  |  Plato (80)  |  Practice (212)  |  Problem (731)  |  Proof (304)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Pure (299)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Recourse (12)  |  Recur (4)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Repudiate (7)  |  Request (7)  |  Require (229)  |  Required (108)  |  Roman (39)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Section (11)  |  Sensation (60)  |  Sense (785)  |  Separate (151)  |  Shameful (3)  |  Solve (145)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Supervision (4)  |  Sustain (52)  |  Syracuse (5)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Turn (454)  |  Two (936)  |  Use (771)  |  Word (650)

This leads us to ask for the reasons which call for this new theory of transmutation. The beginning of things must needs lie in obscurity, beyond the bounds of proof, though within those of conjecture or of analogical inference. Why not hold fast to the customary view, that all species were directly, instead of indirectly, created after their respective kinds, as we now behold them,--and that in a manner which, passing our comprehension, we intuitively refer to the supernatural? Why this continual striving after “the unattained and dim,”—these anxious endeavors, especially of late years, by naturalists and philosophers of various schools and different tendencies, to penetrate what one of them calls “the mystery of mysteries,” the origin of species? To this, in general, sufficient answer may be found in the activity of the human intellect, “the delirious yet divine desire to know,” stimulated as it has been by its own success in unveiling the laws and processes of inorganic Nature,—in the fact that the principal triumphs of our age in physical science have consisted in tracing connections where none were known before, in reducing heterogeneous phenomena to a common cause or origin, in a manner quite analogous to that of the reduction of supposed independently originated species to a common ultimate origin,—thus, and in various other ways, largely and legitimately extending the domain of secondary causes. Surely the scientific mind of an age which contemplates the solar system as evolved from a common, revolving, fluid mass,— which, through experimental research, has come to regard light, heat, electricity, magnetism, chemical affinity, and mechanical power as varieties or derivative and convertible forms of one force, instead of independent species,—which has brought the so-called elementary kinds of matter, such as the metals, into kindred groups, and raised the question, whether the members of each group may not be mere varieties of one species,—and which speculates steadily in the direction of the ultimate unity of matter, of a sort of prototype or simple element which may be to the ordinary species of matter what the protozoa or component cells of an organism are to the higher sorts of animals and plants,—the mind of such an age cannot be expected to let the old belief about species pass unquestioned.
Asa Gray
'Darwin on the Origin of Species', The Atlantic Monthly (Jul 1860), 112-3. Also in 'Natural Selection Not Inconsistent With Natural Theology', Darwiniana: Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism (1876), 94-95.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Affinity (27)  |  Age (509)  |  Animal (651)  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Belief (615)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Bound (120)  |  Call (781)  |  Cause (561)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Common (447)  |  Component (51)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Conjecture (51)  |  Connection (171)  |  Consist (223)  |  Continual (44)  |  Customary (18)  |  Desire (212)  |  Different (595)  |  Direction (185)  |  Divine (112)  |  Domain (72)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Element (322)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Expect (203)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  General (521)  |  Heat (180)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Intellect (32)  |  Independently (24)  |  Inference (45)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Kind (564)  |  Kindred (12)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Late (119)  |  Law (913)  |  Lead (391)  |  Lie (370)  |  Light (635)  |  Magnetism (43)  |  Mass (160)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Metal (88)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Old (499)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Organism (231)  |  Origin (250)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Passing (76)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Plant (320)  |  Power (771)  |  Principal (69)  |  Proof (304)  |  Prototype (9)  |  Protozoa (6)  |  Question (649)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reduction (52)  |  Regard (312)  |  Research (753)  |  School (227)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Mind (13)  |  Simple (426)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Species (435)  |  Success (327)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Supernatural (26)  |  Surely (101)  |  System (545)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Transmutation (24)  |  Triumph (76)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Unity (81)  |  Unquestioned (7)  |  Various (205)  |  View (496)  |  Way (1214)  |  Why (491)  |  Year (963)

This marvellous experimental method eliminates certain facts, brings forth others, interrogates nature, compels it to reply and stops only when the mind is fully satisfied. The charm of our studies, the enchantment of science, is that, everywhere and always, we can give the justification of our principles and the proof of our discoveries.
As quoted in René Dubos, Louis Pasteur, Free Lance of Science (1960, 1986), 377.
Science quotes on:  |  Certain (557)  |  Charm (54)  |  Compel (31)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Enchantment (9)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Interrogate (4)  |  Justification (52)  |  Marvellous (25)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Principle (530)  |  Proof (304)  |  Reply (58)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Study (701)

This science [experimental science] alone, therefore, knows how to test perfectly what can be done by nature, what by the effort of art, what by trickery, what the incantations, conjurations, invocations, deprecations, sacrifices that belong to magic mean and dream of, and what is in them, so that all falsity may be removed and the truth alone of art and nature may be retained. This science alone teaches us how to view the mad acts of magicians, that they may be not ratified but shunned, just as logic considers sophistical reasoning.
In Opus Majus (1267).
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Alone (324)  |  Art (680)  |  Belong (168)  |  Consider (428)  |  Dream (222)  |  Effort (243)  |  Falsity (16)  |  Incantation (6)  |  Know (1538)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mad (54)  |  Magic (92)  |  Mean (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Retain (57)  |  Sacrifice (58)  |  Test (221)  |  Truth (1109)  |  View (496)

This work [an essay by Thomson, ‘On the method of analysing sulphate of zinc’] belongs to those few productions from which science will derive no advantage whatever. Much of the experimental part, even of the fundamental experiments, appears to have been made at the writing-desk; and the greatest civility which his contemporaries can show its author, is to forget it was ever published. … love of science makes it imperative to detect quackery, and expose it to the judgement of every one as it merits
In Jahresbericht (1827), 6, 77 and 181. Woehler's translation quoted in 'Attack of Berzelius on Dr. Thomson's Attempt to Establish the First Principles of Chemistry by Experiment', Philosophical Magazine (Dec 1828), 4, No. 24, 451. The latter article comments, “It well becomes Berzelius to expose fallacy in argument, or detect error in analysis; but let him not pass beyond the limits of fair criticism: let him not arraign the character of the individual., who may be actuated by motives and principles as pure as his own. Intemperate attacks, such as this, reflect back upon their author, and indicate a mind inflamed by pique, jealousy, or some unworthy passion.”
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Author (175)  |  Belong (168)  |  Derive (70)  |  Detect (45)  |  Essay (27)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Expose (28)  |  Forget (125)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Imperative (16)  |  Love (328)  |  Merit (51)  |  Method (531)  |  Production (190)  |  Show (353)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Writing (192)

Those who have handled sciences have been either men of experiment or men of dogmas. The men of experiment are like the ant; they only collect and use; the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. But the bee takes a middle course; it gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and of the field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own. Not unlike this is the true business of philosophy; for it neither relies solely or chiefly on the powers of the mind, nor does it take the matter which it gathers from natural history and mechanical experiments and lay it up in the memory whole, as it finds it; but lays it up in the understanding altered and digested. Therefore from a closer and purer league between these two faculties, the experimental and the rational (such as has never yet been made), much may be hoped.
From Novum Organum (1620), Book 1, Aphorism 95. 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, 92-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Altered (32)  |  Ant (34)  |  Bee (44)  |  Business (156)  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Closer (43)  |  Cobweb (6)  |  Course (413)  |  Dogma (49)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Field (378)  |  Find (1014)  |  Flower (112)  |  Garden (64)  |  Gather (76)  |  History (716)  |  Material (366)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Memory (144)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Never (1089)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Power (771)  |  Rational (95)  |  Research (753)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Spider (14)  |  Substance (253)  |  Transform (74)  |  Two (936)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Use (771)  |  Whole (756)

To apply an experimental test would be to show ignorance of the difference between human nature and divine.
Plato
In Timaeus and Critias (1971), 95, as translated by H.D.P. (Desmond) Lee.
Science quotes on:  |  Apply (170)  |  Applying (3)  |  Difference (355)  |  Divine (112)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Show (353)  |  Test (221)

To be worthy of the name, an experimenter must be at once theorist and practitioner. While he must completely master the art of establishing experimental facts, which are the materials of science, he must also clearly understand the scientific principles which guide his reasoning through the varied experimental study of natural phenomena. We cannot separate these two things: head and hand. An able hand, without a head to direct it, is a blind tool; the head is powerless without its executive hand.
In Claude Bernard and Henry Copley Greene (trans.), An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1927, 1957), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Blind (98)  |  Completely (137)  |  Direct (228)  |  Directing (5)  |  Establish (63)  |  Executive (3)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Experimenter (40)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Guide (107)  |  Hand (149)  |  Head (87)  |  Master (182)  |  Mastery (36)  |  Material (366)  |  Must (1525)  |  Name (359)  |  Natural (810)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Powerless (7)  |  Practitioner (21)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Separate (151)  |  Separation (60)  |  Study (701)  |  Theorist (44)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Tool (129)  |  Two (936)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Various (205)

Watson and I had been often discussing the problem, the ways you could go wrong solving problems of this sort, the techniques you have to use, and in particular, such rather curious things as you mustn’t pay too much attention to the all the experimental evidence, some of it may be wrong, for example.
From Transcript of BBC TV program, The Prizewinners (1962).
Science quotes on:  |  Attention (196)  |  Curious (95)  |  Discuss (26)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Problem (731)  |  Solve (145)  |  Technique (84)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Use (771)  |  James Watson (33)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wrong (246)

We are told that “Mathematics is that study which knows nothing of observation, nothing of experiment, nothing of induction, nothing of causation.” I think no statement could have been made more opposite to the facts of the case; that mathematical analysis is constantly invoking the aid of new principles, new ideas, and new methods, not capable of being defined by any form of words, but springing direct from the inherent powers and activities of the human mind, and from continually renewed introspection of that inner world of thought of which the phenomena are as varied and require as close attention to discern as those of the outer physical world (to which the inner one in each individual man may, I think, be conceived to stand somewhat in the same relation of correspondence as a shadow to the object from which it is projected, or as the hollow palm of one hand to the closed fist which it grasps of the other), that it is unceasingly calling forth the faculties of observation and comparison, that one of its principal weapons is induction, that it has frequent recourse to experimental trial and verification, and that it affords a boundless scope for the exercise of the highest efforts of the imagination and invention.
In Presidential Address to British Association, Exeter British Association Report (1869), pp. 1-9, in Collected Mathematical Papers, Vol. 2, 654.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Afford (19)  |  Aid (101)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Attention (196)  |  Being (1276)  |  Boundless (28)  |  Call (781)  |  Capable (174)  |  Case (102)  |  Causation (14)  |  Close (77)  |  Closed (38)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Constantly (27)  |  Continually (17)  |  Correspondence (24)  |  Define (53)  |  Direct (228)  |  Discern (35)  |  Effort (243)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Fist (3)  |  Form (976)  |  Forth (14)  |  Frequent (26)  |  Grasp (65)  |  Hand (149)  |  High (370)  |  Hollow (6)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Individual (420)  |  Induction (81)  |  Inherent (43)  |  Inner (72)  |  Introspection (6)  |  Invention (400)  |  Invoke (7)  |  Know (1538)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematical Analysis (23)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  New (1273)  |  New Ideas (17)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Object (438)  |  Observation (593)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outer (13)  |  Palm (5)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical World (30)  |  Power (771)  |  Principal (69)  |  Principle (530)  |  Project (77)  |  Recourse (12)  |  Relation (166)  |  Renew (20)  |  Require (229)  |  Same (166)  |  Scope (44)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Spring (140)  |  Stand (284)  |  Statement (148)  |  Study (701)  |  Tell (344)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Trial (59)  |  Unceasingly (2)  |  Vary (27)  |  Verification (32)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Weapons (57)  |  Word (650)  |  World (1850)

We know the laws of trial and error, of large numbers and probabilities. We know that these laws are part of the mathematical and mechanical fabric of the universe, and that they are also at play in biological processes. But, in the name of the experimental method and out of our poor knowledge, are we really entitled to claim that everything happens by chance, to the exclusion of all other possibilities?
From Nobel Prize Lecture (Dec 1974), 'The Coming Age of the Cell'. Collected in Jan Lindsten (ed.) Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine 1971-1980 (1992).
Science quotes on:  |  Biological (137)  |  Biology (232)  |  Chance (244)  |  Claim (154)  |  Error (339)  |  Everything (489)  |  Exclusion (16)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fabric (27)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happening (59)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Large (398)  |  Law (913)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Method (531)  |  Name (359)  |  Number (710)  |  Other (2233)  |  Poor (139)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Probability (135)  |  Process (439)  |  Trial (59)  |  Trial And Error (5)  |  Universe (900)

We may summarize … the fundamental characteristics and limitations of mathematics as follows: mathematics is ultimately an experimental science, for freedom from contradiction cannot be proved, but only postulated and checked by observation, and similarly existence can only be postulated and checked by observation. Furthermore, mathematics requires the fundamental device of all thought, of analyzing experience into static bits with static meanings.
In The Nature of Physical Theory (1936), 58.
Science quotes on:  |  Analyze (12)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Check (26)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Device (71)  |  Existence (481)  |  Experience (494)  |  Follow (389)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Limitation (52)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Observation (593)  |  Postulate (42)  |  Prove (261)  |  Require (229)  |  Static (9)  |  Summarize (10)  |  Thought (995)  |  Ultimately (56)

We see, then, that the elements of the scientific method are interrelated. Facts are necessary materials; but their working up by experimental reasoning, i.e., by theory, is what establishes and really builds up science. Ideas, given form by facts, embody science. A scientific hypothesis is merely a scientific idea, preconceived or previsioned. A theory is merely a scientific idea controlled by experiment. Reasoning merely gives a form to our ideas, so that everything, first and last, leads back to an idea. The idea is what establishes, as we shall see, the starting point or the primum movens of all scientific reasoning, and it is also the goal in the mind's aspiration toward the unknown.
From An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1865), as translated by Henry Copley Greene (1957), 26.
Science quotes on:  |  Aspiration (35)  |  Back (395)  |  Build (211)  |  Element (322)  |  Everything (489)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Goal (155)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Idea (881)  |  Last (425)  |  Lead (391)  |  Material (366)  |  Merely (315)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Point (584)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  See (1094)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Unknown (195)

What chemists took from Dalton was not new experimental laws but a new way of practicing chemistry (he himself called it the “new system of chemical philosophy”), and this proved so rapidly fruitful that only a few of the older chemists in France and Britain were able to resist it.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), 133.
Science quotes on:  |  Britain (26)  |  Call (781)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  John Dalton (25)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fruitful (61)  |  Himself (461)  |  Law (913)  |  New (1273)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  System (545)  |  Way (1214)

What has been learned in physics stays learned. People talk about scientific revolutions. The social and political connotations of revolution evoke a picture of a body of doctrine being rejected, to be replaced by another equally vulnerable to refutation. It is not like that at all. The history of physics has seen profound changes indeed in the way that physicists have thought about fundamental questions. But each change was a widening of vision, an accession of insight and understanding. The introduction, one might say the recognition, by man (led by Einstein) of relativity in the first decade of this century and the formulation of quantum mechanics in the third decade are such landmarks. The only intellectual casualty attending the discovery of quantum mechanics was the unmourned demise of the patchwork quantum theory with which certain experimental facts had been stubbornly refusing to agree. As a scientist, or as any thinking person with curiosity about the basic workings of nature, the reaction to quantum mechanics would have to be: “Ah! So that’s the way it really is!” There is no good analogy to the advent of quantum mechanics, but if a political-social analogy is to be made, it is not a revolution but the discovery of the New World.
From Physics Survey Committee, U.S. National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council, 'The Nature of Physics', in report Physics in Perspective (1973), 61-62. As cited in I. Bernard Cohen, Revolution in Science (1985), 554-555.
Science quotes on:  |  Analogy (76)  |  Basic (144)  |  Being (1276)  |  Body (557)  |  Century (319)  |  Certain (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Decade (66)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Equally (129)  |  Evoke (13)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  First (1302)  |  Formulation (37)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Good (906)  |  History (716)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Insight (107)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Introduction (37)  |  Landmark (9)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  New World (6)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Picture (148)  |  Political (124)  |  Profound (105)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quantum Mechanics (47)  |  Quantum Theory (67)  |  Question (649)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Reject (67)  |  Rejected (26)  |  Relativity (91)  |  Replace (32)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Revolution (13)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Social (261)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Vision (127)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)

When experimental results are found to be in conflict with those of an earlier investigator, the matter is often taken too easily and disposed of for an instance by pointing out a possible source of error in the experiments of the predessessor, but without enquiring whether the error, if present, would be quantitatively sufficient to explain the discrepancy. I think that disagreement with former results should never be taken easily, but every effort should be made to find a true explanation. This can be done in many more cases than it actually is; and as a result, it can be done more easily by the man “on the spot” who is already familiar with the essential details. But it may require a great deal of imagination, and very often it will require supplementary experiments.
From 'August Krogh' in Festkrift Københavns Universitet 1950 (1950), 18, as cited by E. Snorrason, 'Krogh, Schack August Steenberg', in Charles Coulton Gillispie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1973), Vol 7, 501. The DSB quote is introduced, “All his life Krogh was more interested in physical than in chemiical problems in biology, and he explained his critical attitude thus.”
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Conflict (77)  |  Deal (192)  |  Detail (150)  |  Disagreement (14)  |  Discrepancy (7)  |  Dispose (10)  |  Earlier (9)  |  Ease (40)  |  Effort (243)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Error (339)  |  Essential (210)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Familiarity (21)  |  Find (1014)  |  Former (138)  |  Great (1610)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Investigator (71)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Never (1089)  |  Point (584)  |  Possible (560)  |  Present (630)  |  Quantitative (31)  |  Require (229)  |  Result (700)  |  Source Of Error (2)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Supplementary (4)  |  Think (1122)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Will (2350)

When physicists speak of “beauty” in their theories, they really mean that their theory possesses at least two essential features: 1. A unifying symmetry 2. The ability to explain vast amounts of experimental data with the most economical mathematical expressions.
In 'Quantum Heresy', Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the Tenth Dimension (1995), 127.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Amount (153)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Data (162)  |  Economical (11)  |  Essential (210)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Explain (334)  |  Expression (181)  |  Feature (49)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Most (1728)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Speak (240)  |  Symmetry (44)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Two (936)  |  Vast (188)

When silhouetted against historical background Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory and its remarkable experimental confirmation by Hertz loomed up as large to the physicist of 1895 as the de Broglie-Schrödinger wave theory of matter and its experimental confirmation by Davison and Germer does to the physicist of to-day. [1931]
In 'The Romance of the Next Decimal Place', Science (1 Jan 1932), 75, No. 1931, 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Background (44)  |  Confirmation (25)  |  Clinton Joseph Davisson (2)  |  DeBroglie_Maurice (2)  |  Electromagnetic Theory (5)  |  Electromagnetism (19)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Historical (70)  |  History (716)  |  Large (398)  |  Loom (20)  |  Matter (821)  |  Maxwell (42)  |  James Clerk Maxwell (91)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Remarkable (50)  |  Erwin Schrödinger (68)  |  Silhouette (4)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Wave (112)

Will it be possible to solve these problems? It is certain that nobody has thus far observed the transformation of dead into living matter, and for this reason we cannot form a definite plan for the solution of this problem of transformation. But we see that plants and animals during their growth continually transform dead into living matter, and that the chemical processes in living matter do not differ in principle from those in dead matter. There is, therefore, no reason to predict that abiogenesis is impossible, and I believe that it can only help science if the younger investigators realize that experimental abiogenesis is the goal of biology.
The Dynamics of Living Matter (1906), 223.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Biochemistry (50)  |  Biology (232)  |  Certain (557)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Death (406)  |  Decay (59)  |  Definite (114)  |  Differ (88)  |  Do (1905)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Form (976)  |  Goal (155)  |  Growth (200)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Investigator (71)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Matter (821)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Observed (149)  |  Plan (122)  |  Plant (320)  |  Possible (560)  |  Predict (86)  |  Principle (530)  |  Problem (731)  |  Realize (157)  |  Reason (766)  |  See (1094)  |  Solution (282)  |  Solve (145)  |  Transform (74)  |  Transformation (72)  |  Will (2350)  |  Younger (21)


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.