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: “God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index I > Category: Isolation

Isolation Quotes (32 quotes)

[What verdict would a historian of the year 3000 pass upon our age? Let us hope this will be his judgement:]
“The twentieth century was, without question, the most momentous hundred years in the history of Mankind. It opened with the conquest of the air, and before it had run half its course had presented civilisation with its supreme challenge—the control of atomic energy. Yet even these events, each of which changed the world, were soon to be eclipsed. To us a thousand years later, the whole story of Mankind before the twentieth century seems like the prelude to some great drama, played on the narrow strip of stage before the curtain has risen and revealed the scenery. For countless generations of men, that tiny, crowded stage—the planet Earth—was the whole of creation, and they the only actors. Yet towards the close of that fabulous century, the curtain began slowly, inexorably to rise, and Man realised at last that the Earth was only one of many worlds; the Sun only one among many stars. The coming of the rocket brought to an end a million years of isolation. With the landing of the first spaceship on Mars and Venus, the childhood of our race was over and history as we know it began….”
In Chap. 18, 'Concerning Means and Ends', The Exploration of Space (1951), 195. [Clarke wrote this, not knowing there would be a Moon landing just 18 years later, on 20 Jul 1969. In fact, in an earlier chapter, he wrote “On our present knowledge, there is no likelihood of such spaceships for a very long time to come.” —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  20th Century (40)  |  Actor (9)  |  Air (366)  |  Atomic Energy (25)  |  Conquest (31)  |  Curtain (4)  |  Earth (1076)  |  History (716)  |  Landing (3)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mars (47)  |  Million (124)  |  Momentous (7)  |  Rocket (52)  |  Scenery (9)  |  Spaceship (5)  |  Stage (152)  |  Sun (407)  |  Venus (21)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

Eine brennendste Zeitfrage allerdings! Es brennt in allen Ecken und Enden der ethnologischen Welt, brennt hell, lichterloh, in vollster Brunst, es brennt ringsum, Gross Feuer! und Niemand regt eine Hand.
A most burning question of time, though. It burns in every nook and cranny of the ethnological world, burning, bright, brightly, in the fullest blaze, and it burns all around, huge fire! and no one lifts a hand.
[Expressing his desperation over the loss of the cultural memory of ethnic traditions as so many cultures were no longer living in isolation.]
From Das Besẗandige in den Menschenrassen und die Spielweite ihrer Veränderlichkeit (1868), 180, footnote. Approximate translation by Webmaster using Google Translate.
Science quotes on:  |  Blaze (14)  |  Bright (81)  |  Burn (99)  |  Burning (49)  |  Culture (157)  |  Desperation (6)  |  Ethnology (9)  |  Fire (203)  |  Hand (149)  |  Lift (57)  |  Living (492)  |  Loss (117)  |  Memory (144)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nook And Cranny (2)  |  Question (649)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tradition (76)  |  World (1850)

A careful analysis of the process of observation in atomic physics has shown that the subatomic particles have no meaning as isolated entities, but can only be understood as interconnections between the preparation of an experiment and the subsequent measurement.
The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics (1975), 68.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Atomic Physics (7)  |  Care (203)  |  Entity (37)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Interconnection (12)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Observation (593)  |  Particle (200)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Preparation (60)  |  Process (439)  |  Subatomic (10)  |  Subsequent (34)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Understood (155)

A new species develops if a population which has become geographically isolated from its parental species acquires during this period of isolation characters which promote or guarantee reproductive isolation when the external barriers break down.
Systematics and the Origin of Species: From the Viewpoint of a Zoologist (1942), 155.
Science quotes on:  |  Barrier (34)  |  Become (821)  |  Break (109)  |  Character (259)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Down (455)  |  Evolution (635)  |  External (62)  |  Geography (39)  |  Guarantee (30)  |  New (1273)  |  Parent (80)  |  Period (200)  |  Population (115)  |  Promote (32)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Species (435)

A species is a reproductive community of populations (reproductively isolated from others) that occupies a specific niche in nature.
The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution and Inheritance (1982), 273.
Science quotes on:  |  Community (111)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Niche (9)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Occupy (27)  |  Other (2233)  |  Population (115)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Species (435)  |  Specific (98)

As a net is made up of a series of ties, so everything in this world is connected by a series of ties. If anyone thinks that the mesh of a net is an independent, isolated thing, he is mistaken. It is called a net because it is made up of a series of a interconnected meshes, and each mesh has its place and responsibility in relation to other meshes.
In Gary William Flake, The Computational Beauty of Nature (2000), 383.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Connect (126)  |  Connection (171)  |  Everything (489)  |  Independence (37)  |  Mesh (3)  |  Net (12)  |  Other (2233)  |  Responsibility (71)  |  Series (153)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Tie (42)  |  Web Of Life (9)  |  World (1850)

Biology … is the least self-centered, the least narcissistic of the sciences—the one that, by taking us out of ourselves, leads us to re-establish the link with nature and to shake ourselves free from our spiritual isolation.
In 'Victories and Hopes of Biology', Can Man Be Modified? (1959), 31
Science quotes on:  |  Biology (232)  |  Establish (63)  |  Free (239)  |  Lead (391)  |  Link (48)  |  Narcissistic (2)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Self (268)  |  Shake (43)  |  Spiritual (94)

By teaching us how to cultivate each ferment in its purity—in other words, by teaching us how to rear the individual organism apart from all others,—Pasteur has enabled us to avoid all these errors. And where this isolation of a particular organism has been duly effected it grows and multiplies indefinitely, but no change of it into another organism is ever observed. In Pasteur’s researches the Bacterium remained a Bacterium, the Vibrio a Vibrio, the Penicillium a Penicillium, and the Torula a Torula. Sow any of these in a state of purity in an appropriate liquid; you get it, and it alone, in the subsequent crop. In like manner, sow smallpox in the human body, your crop is smallpox. Sow there scarlatina, and your crop is scarlatina. Sow typhoid virus, your crop is typhoid—cholera, your crop is cholera. The disease bears as constant a relation to its contagium as the microscopic organisms just enumerated do to their germs, or indeed as a thistle does to its seed.
In 'Fermentation, and its Bearings on Surgery and Medicine', Essays on the Floating­Matter of the Air in Relation to Putrefaction and Infection (1881), 264.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Bacteria (50)  |  Bear (162)  |  Body (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Cholera (7)  |  Constant (148)  |  Crop (26)  |  Cultivation (36)  |  Disease (340)  |  Do (1905)  |  Effect (414)  |  Enabled (3)  |  Enumerated (3)  |  Error (339)  |  Ferment (6)  |  Germ (54)  |  Grow (247)  |  Growth (200)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Body (34)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Individual (420)  |  Liquid (50)  |  Microscopic (27)  |  Multiply (40)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Organism (231)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particular (80)  |  Louis Pasteur (85)  |  Penicillium (3)  |  Purity (15)  |  Remain (355)  |  Research (753)  |  Scarlet Fever (2)  |  Seed (97)  |  Smallpox (14)  |  State (505)  |  Subsequent (34)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Thistle (5)  |  Typhoid (7)  |  Virus (32)  |  Word (650)

Few men live lives of more devoted self-sacrifice than the family physician, but he may become so completely absorbed in work that leisure is unknown…. More than most men he feels the tragedy of isolation—that inner isolation so well expressed in Matthew Arnold’s line “We mortal millions live alone.”
Address to the Canadian Medical Association, Montreal (17 Sep 1902), 'Chauvinism in Medicine', published in The Montreal Medical Journal (1902), 31, 267. Collected in Aequanimitas, with Other Addresses to Medical Students, Nurses and Practitioners of Medicine (1904), 299.
Science quotes on:  |  Absorb (54)  |  Alone (324)  |  Matthew Arnold (14)  |  Become (821)  |  Completely (137)  |  Devote (45)  |  Devoted (59)  |  Express (192)  |  Family (101)  |  Feel (371)  |  Inner (72)  |  Leisure (25)  |  Live (650)  |  Millions (17)  |  More (2558)  |  Mortal (55)  |  Most (1728)  |  Physician (284)  |  Sacrifice (58)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Sacrifice (5)  |  Tragedy (31)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Work (1402)

Finally in a large population, divided and subdivided into partially isolated local races of small size, there is a continually shifting differentiation among the latter (intensified by local differences in selection but occurring under uniform and static conditions) which inevitably brings about an indefinitely continuing, irreversible, adaptive, and much more rapid evolution of the species. Complete isolation in this case, and more slowly in the preceding, originates new species differing for the most part in nonadaptive parallel orthogenetic lines, in accordance with the conditions. It is suggested, in conclusion, that the differing statistical situations to be expected among natural species are adequate to account for the different sorts of evolutionary processes which have been described, and that, in particular, conditions in nature are often such as to bring about the state of poise among opposing tendencies on which an indefinitely continuing evolutionary process depends.
In 'Evolution In Mendelian Populations', Genetics, (1931), 16, 158.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Adequate (50)  |  Complete (209)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Condition (362)  |  Depend (238)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Differentiation (28)  |  Divided (50)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Expect (203)  |  Irreversible (12)  |  Large (398)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Originate (39)  |  Parallel (46)  |  Partially (8)  |  Population (115)  |  Process (439)  |  Race (278)  |  Selection (130)  |  Situation (117)  |  Small (489)  |  Species (435)  |  State (505)  |  Statistics (170)

Fundamentally, as is readily seen, there exists neither force nor matter. Both are abstractions of things, such as they are, looked at from different standpoints. They complete and presuppose each other. Isolated they are meaningless. … Matter is not a go-cart, to and from which force, like a horse, can be now harnessed, now loosed. A particle of iron is and remains exactly the same thing, whether it shoot through space as a meteoric stone, dash along on the tire of an engine-wheel, or roll in a blood-corpuscle through the veins of a poet. … Its properties are eternal, unchangeable, untransferable.
From the original German text in 'Über die Lebenskraft', Preface to Untersuchungen über tierische Elektrizität (1848), xliii. As translated in Ludwig Büchner, Force and Matter: Or, Principles of the Natural Order of the Universe (1891), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstraction (48)  |  Blood (144)  |  Both (496)  |  Complete (209)  |  Corpuscle (14)  |  Different (595)  |  Engine (99)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  Force (497)  |  Force And Matter (3)  |  Harness (25)  |  Horse (78)  |  Iron (99)  |  Look (584)  |  Matter (821)  |  Meaningless (17)  |  Meteor (19)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particle (200)  |  Poet (97)  |  Presuppose (15)  |  Property (177)  |  Remain (355)  |  Roll (41)  |  Space (523)  |  Standpoint (28)  |  Stone (168)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Unchangeable (11)  |  Vein (27)  |  Wagon (10)  |  Wheel (51)

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)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Gas (89)  |  General (521)  |  Grain (50)  |  Granular (4)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Introduction (37)  |  Investigator (71)  |  Ion (21)  |  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)

If diphtheria is a disease caused by a microorganism, it is essential that three postulates be fulfilled. The fulfilment of these postulates is necessary in order to demonstrate strictly the parasitic nature of a disease:
1) The organism must be shown to be constantly present in characteristic form and arrangement in the diseased tissue.
2) The organism which, from its behaviour appears to be responsible for the disease, must be isolated and grown in pure culture.
3) The pure culture must be shown to induce the disease experimentally.
An early statement of Koch's postulates.
Mittheilungen aus den Kaiserliche Gesundheitsamt (1884) Vol. 2. Trans. T. D. Brock, Robert Koch: A Life in Medicine and Bacteriology (1988), 180.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Behaviour (42)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Culture (157)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Diphtheria (2)  |  Disease (340)  |  Early (196)  |  Essential (210)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Form (976)  |  Induce (24)  |  Microorganism (29)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Order (638)  |  Organism (231)  |  Parasite (33)  |  Postulate (42)  |  Present (630)  |  Pure (299)  |  Statement (148)  |  Tissue (51)

Isolating mechanisms are biological properties of individuals that prevent the interbreeding of populations that are actually or potentially sympatric.
Animal Species and Evolution (1963), 91.
Science quotes on:  |  Biological (137)  |  Breeding (21)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Individual (420)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  Population (115)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Property (177)  |  Sympatric (2)

It need scarcely be pointed out that with such a mechanism complete isolation of portion of a species should result relatively rapidly in specific differentiation, and one that is not necessarily adaptive. The effective inter­group competition leading to adaptive advance may be between species rather than races. Such isolation is doubtless usually geographic in character at the outset but may be clinched by the development of hybrid sterility. The usual difference of the chromosome complements of related species puts the importance of chromosome aberration as an evolutionary process beyond question, but, as I see it, this importance is not in the character differences which they bring (slight in balanced types), but rather in leading to the sterility of hybrids and thus making permanent the isolation of two groups.
How far do the observations of actual species and their subdivisions conform to this picture? This is naturally too large a subject for more than a few suggestions.
That evolution involves non-adaptive differentiation to a large extent at the subspecies and even the species level is indicated by the kinds of differences by which such groups are actually distinguished by systematics. It is only at the subfamily and family levels that clear-cut adaptive differences become the rule. The principal evolutionary mechanism in the origin of species must thus be an essentially nonadaptive one.
In Proceedings of the Sixth International Congress of Genetics: Ithaca, New York, 1932 (1932) Vol. 1, 363-364.
Science quotes on:  |  Aberration (10)  |  Actual (118)  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Advance (298)  |  Become (821)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Character (259)  |  Chromosome (23)  |  Clear-Cut (10)  |  Competition (45)  |  Complement (6)  |  Complete (209)  |  Cut (116)  |  Development (441)  |  Difference (355)  |  Differentiation (28)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Do (1905)  |  Effective (68)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Extent (142)  |  Family (101)  |  Geographic (10)  |  Geography (39)  |  Hybrid (14)  |  Importance (299)  |  Inter (12)  |  Involve (93)  |  Kind (564)  |  Large (398)  |  Making (300)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Observation (593)  |  Origin (250)  |  Permanent (67)  |  Picture (148)  |  Point (584)  |  Portion (86)  |  Principal (69)  |  Process (439)  |  Question (649)  |  Race (278)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Result (700)  |  Rule (307)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  See (1094)  |  Species (435)  |  Specific (98)  |  Sterility (10)  |  Subject (543)  |  Suggestion (49)  |  Systematic (58)  |  Systematics (4)  |  Two (936)  |  Type (171)  |  Usually (176)

Leo Szilard’s Ten Commandments:
1. Recognize the connections of things and the laws of conduct of men, so that you may know what you are doing.
2. Let your acts be directed towards a worthy goal, but do not ask if they will reach it; they are to be models and examples, not means to an end.
3. Speak to all men as you do to yourself, with no concern for the effect you make, so that you do not shut them out from your world; lest in isolation the meaning of life slips out of sight and you lose the belief in the perfection of the creation.
4. Do not destroy what you cannot create.
5. Touch no dish, except that you are hungry.
6. Do not covet what you cannot have.
7. Do not lie without need.
8. Honor children. Listen reverently to their words and speak to them with infinite love.
9. Do your work for six years; but in the seventh, go into solitude or among strangers, so that the memory of your friends does not hinder you from being what you have become.
10. Lead your life with a gentle hand and be ready to leave whenever you are called.
Circulated by Mrs. Szilard in July 1964, in a letter to their friends (translated by Dr. Jacob Bronowski). As printed in Robert J. Levine, Ethics and Regulation of Clinical Research (1988), 431.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Ask (420)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belief (615)  |  Call (781)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Commandment (8)  |  Concern (239)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Connection (171)  |  Create (245)  |  Creation (350)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Direct (228)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  Effect (414)  |  End (603)  |  Example (98)  |  Friend (180)  |  Goal (155)  |  Hinder (12)  |  Honor (57)  |  Hunger (23)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Know (1538)  |  Law (913)  |  Lead (391)  |  Lie (370)  |  Life (1870)  |  Listen (81)  |  Lose (165)  |  Love (328)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Means (587)  |  Memory (144)  |  Model (106)  |  Need (320)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Reach (286)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Shut (41)  |  Sight (135)  |  Solitude (20)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Stranger (16)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Touch (146)  |  Whenever (81)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

Mutations and chromosomal changes arise in every sufficiently studied organism with a certain finite frequency, and thus constantly and unremittingly supply the raw materials for evolution. But evolution involves something more than origin of mutations. Mutations and chromosomal changes are only the first stage, or level, of the evolutionary process, governed entirely by the laws of the physiology of individuals. Once produced, mutations are injected in the genetic composition of the population, where their further fate is determined by the dynamic regularities of the physiology of populations. A mutation may be lost or increased in frequency in generations immediately following its origin, and this (in the case of recessive mutations) without regard to the beneficial or deleterious effects of the mutation. The influences of selection, migration, and geographical isolation then mold the genetic structure of populations into new shapes, in conformity with the secular environment and the ecology, especially the breeding habits, of the species. This is the second level of the evolutionary process, on which the impact of the environment produces historical changes in the living population.
Genetics and Origin of Species (1937), 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Arise (162)  |  Breeding (21)  |  Certain (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Chromosome (23)  |  Composition (86)  |  Ecology (81)  |  Effect (414)  |  Environment (239)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fate (76)  |  Finite (60)  |  First (1302)  |  Frequency (25)  |  Generation (256)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Govern (66)  |  Habit (174)  |  Historical (70)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Impact (45)  |  Individual (420)  |  Influence (231)  |  Injection (9)  |  Involve (93)  |  Law (913)  |  Living (492)  |  Material (366)  |  Migration (12)  |  Mold (37)  |  More (2558)  |  Mutation (40)  |  New (1273)  |  Organism (231)  |  Origin (250)  |  Origin Of Species (42)  |  Physiology (101)  |  Population (115)  |  Process (439)  |  Produced (187)  |  Raw (28)  |  Recessive (6)  |  Regard (312)  |  Secular (11)  |  Selection (130)  |  Something (718)  |  Species (435)  |  Stage (152)  |  Structure (365)  |  Supply (100)

Now it is a well-known principle of zoological evolution that an isolated region, if large and sufficiently varied in its topography, soil, climate and vegetation, will give rise to a diversified fauna according to the law of adaptive radiation from primitive and central types. Branches will spring off in all directions to take advantage of every possible opportunity of securing food. The modifications which animals undergo in this adaptive radiation are largely of mechanical nature, they are limited in number and kind by hereditary, stirp or germinal influences, and thus result in the independent evolution of similar types in widely-separated regions under the law of parallelism or homoplasy. This law causes the independent origin not only of similar genera but of similar families and even of our similar orders. Nature thus repeats herself upon a vast scale, but the similarity is never complete and exact.
'The Geological and Faunal Relations of Europe and America during the Tertiary Period and the Theory of the Successive Invasions of an African Fauna', Science (1900), 11, 563-64.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Animal (651)  |  Branch (155)  |  Cause (561)  |  Central (81)  |  Climate (102)  |  Complete (209)  |  Completeness (19)  |  Direction (185)  |  Diversification (2)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exactness (29)  |  Family (101)  |  Fauna (13)  |  Food (213)  |  Genus (27)  |  Heredity (62)  |  Independence (37)  |  Influence (231)  |  Kind (564)  |  Known (453)  |  Large (398)  |  Law (913)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Modification (57)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Number (710)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Order (638)  |  Origin (250)  |  Parallelism (2)  |  Possible (560)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Principle (530)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Region (40)  |  Repetition (29)  |  Result (700)  |  Rise (169)  |  Scale (122)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Soil (98)  |  Spring (140)  |  Type (171)  |  Variation (93)  |  Vast (188)  |  Vegetation (24)  |  Will (2350)  |  Zoology (38)

Nowhere is water so beautiful as in the desert for nowhere else is it so scarce. By definition. Water, like a human being or a tree or a bird or a song gains value by rarity, singularity, isolation. In a humid climate water is common. In the desert each drop is precious.
Essay in Desert Images, collected in Beyond the Wall: Essays from the Outside (1984), 82.
Science quotes on:  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bird (163)  |  Climate (102)  |  Common (447)  |  Definition (238)  |  Desert (59)  |  Drop (77)  |  Gain (146)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Nowhere (28)  |  Precious (43)  |  Rarity (11)  |  Scarce (11)  |  Singularity (4)  |  Song (41)  |  Tree (269)  |  Value (393)  |  Water (503)

Quantum theory thus reveals a basic oneness of the universe. It shows that we cannot decompose the world into independently existing smallest units. As we penetrate into matter, nature does not show us any isolated “building blocks,” but rather appears as a complicated web of relations between the various parts of the whole. These relations always include the observer in an essential way. The human observer constitute the final link in the chain of observational processes, and the properties of any atomic object can be understood only in terms of the object’s interaction with the observer.
In The Tao of Physics (1975), 68.
Science quotes on:  |  Appearance (145)  |  Atom (381)  |  Basic (144)  |  Building (158)  |  Building Block (9)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Complication (30)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Decompose (10)  |  Decomposition (19)  |  Essential (210)  |  Final (121)  |  Human (1512)  |  Include (93)  |  Independence (37)  |  Independently (24)  |  Interaction (47)  |  Matter (821)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Object (438)  |  Observational (15)  |  Observer (48)  |  Oneness (6)  |  Part (235)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Penetration (18)  |  Process (439)  |  Property (177)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quantum Theory (67)  |  Relation (166)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revelation (51)  |  Show (353)  |  Small (489)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Understood (155)  |  Unit (36)  |  Universe (900)  |  Various (205)  |  Way (1214)  |  Web (17)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

Srinivasa Ramanujan was the strangest man in all of mathematics, probably in the entire history of science. He has been compared to a bursting supernova, illuminating the darkest, most profound corners of mathematics, before being tragically struck down by tuberculosis at the age of 33... Working in total isolation from the main currents of his field, he was able to rederive 100 years’ worth of Western mathematics on his own. The tragedy of his life is that much of his work was wasted rediscovering known mathematics.
In Hyperspace:A Scientific Odyssey through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the Tenth Dimension (1994), 172.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bursting (3)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Corner (59)  |  Current (122)  |  Dark (145)  |  Derivation (15)  |  Down (455)  |  Field (378)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Science (80)  |  Illuminating (12)  |  Known (453)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Most (1728)  |  Profound (105)  |  Srinivasa Ramanujan (17)  |  Strangest (4)  |  Supernova (7)  |  Total (95)  |  Tragedy (31)  |  Tuberculosis (9)  |  Waste (109)  |  Western (45)  |  Work (1402)  |  Working (23)  |  Worth (172)  |  Year (963)

Subatomic particles have no meaning as isolated entities, but can only be understood as interconnections between the preparation of an experiment and the subsequent measurement.
In The Tao of Physics (1975), 68.
Science quotes on:  |  Entity (37)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Interconnection (12)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Particle (200)  |  Preparation (60)  |  Subatomic (10)  |  Subsequent (34)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Understood (155)

Such is the privilege of genius; it perceives, it seizes relations where vulgar eyes see only isolated facts.
In François Arago, trans. by William Henry Smyth, Baden Powell and Robert Grant, 'Fourier', Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men (1859), Vol. 1, 412. From the original French, “Tel est le privilége du génie: il aperçoit, il saisit des rapports, là où des yeux vulgaires lie voient que des faits isolés.”
Science quotes on:  |  Eye (440)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Genius (301)  |  Perception (97)  |  Privilege (41)  |  Relationship (114)  |  See (1094)  |  Vulgar (33)

The advancement of science is slow; it is effected only by virtue of hard work and perseverance. And when a result is attained, should we not in recognition connect it with the efforts of those who have preceded us, who have struggled and suffered in advance? Is it not truly a duty to recall the difficulties which they vanquished, the thoughts which guided them; and how men of different nations, ideas, positions, and characters, moved solely by the love of science, have bequeathed to us the unsolved problem? Should not the last comer recall the researches of his predecessors while adding in his turn his contribution of intelligence and of labor? Here is an intellectual collaboration consecrated entirely to the search for truth, and which continues from century to century.
[Respecting how the work of prior researchers had enabled his isolation of fluorine.]
Proceedings of the Royal Institution (1897). In Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution to July 1897 (1898), 262.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Advancement (63)  |  Attain (126)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Century (319)  |  Character (259)  |  Collaboration (16)  |  Connect (126)  |  Consecration (3)  |  Continuation (20)  |  Continue (179)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Different (595)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Duty (71)  |  Effect (414)  |  Effort (243)  |  Fluorine (5)  |  Guide (107)  |  Hard (246)  |  Hard Work (25)  |  Idea (881)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Labor (200)  |  Last (425)  |  Love (328)  |  Nation (208)  |  Perseverance (24)  |  Position (83)  |  Predecessor (29)  |  Problem (731)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Recollection (12)  |  Research (753)  |  Researcher (36)  |  Result (700)  |  Search (175)  |  Slow (108)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Thought (995)  |  Truly (118)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Turn (454)  |  Unsolved (15)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Work (1402)

The analysis of Nature into its individual parts, the grouping of the different natural processes and natural objects in definite classes, the study of the internal anatomy of organic bodies in their manifold forms—these were the fundamental conditions of the gigantic strides in our knowledge of Nature which have been made during the last four hundred years. But this method of investigation has also left us as a legacy the habit of observing natural objects and natural processes in their isolation, detached from the whole vast interconnection of things; and therefore not in their motion, but in their repose; not as essentially changing, but fixed constants; not in their life, but in their death.
Herr Eugen Dühring's Revolution in Science (Anti-Dühring), First Publication (1878). Trans. Emile Burns and ed. C.P. Dutt (1935), 27-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Anatomy (75)  |  Condition (362)  |  Constant (148)  |  Death (406)  |  Definite (114)  |  Different (595)  |  Form (976)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Gigantic (40)  |  Habit (174)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Individual (420)  |  Interconnection (12)  |  Internal (69)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Last (425)  |  Legacy (14)  |  Life (1870)  |  Manifold (23)  |  Method (531)  |  Motion (320)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Object (438)  |  Observation (593)  |  Organic (161)  |  Stride (15)  |  Study (701)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Vast (188)  |  Whole (756)  |  Year (963)

The desire for truth so prominent in the quest of science, a reaching out of the spirit from its isolation to something beyond, a response to beauty in nature and art, an Inner Light of conviction and guidance—are these as much a part of our being as our sensitivity to sense impressions?
Swarthmore Lecture (1929) at Friends’ House, London, printed in Science and the Unseen World (1929), 42-43.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Being (1276)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Desire (212)  |  Guidance (30)  |  Impression (118)  |  Inner (72)  |  Light (635)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Quest (39)  |  Response (56)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sensitivity (10)  |  Something (718)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Truth (1109)

The discovery of an interaction among the four hemes made it obvious that they must be touching, but in science what is obvious is not necessarily true. When the structure of hemoglobin was finally solved, the hemes were found to lie in isolated pockets on the surface of the subunits. Without contact between them how could one of them sense whether the others had combined with oxygen? And how could as heterogeneous a collection of chemical agents as protons, chloride ions, carbon dioxide, and diphosphoglycerate influence the oxygen equilibrium curve in a similar way? It did not seem plausible that any of them could bind directly to the hemes or that all of them could bind at any other common site, although there again it turned out we were wrong. To add to the mystery, none of these agents affected the oxygen equilibrium of myoglobin or of isolated subunits of hemoglobin. We now know that all the cooperative effects disappear if the hemoglobin molecule is merely split in half, but this vital clue was missed. Like Agatha Christie, Nature kept it to the last to make the story more exciting. There are two ways out of an impasse in science: to experiment or to think. By temperament, perhaps, I experimented, whereas Jacques Monod thought.
From essay 'The Second Secret of Life', collected in I Wish I'd Made You Angry Earlier (1998), 263-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Agent (73)  |  Binding (9)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Carbon Dioxide (25)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Agatha Christie (7)  |  Clue (20)  |  Collection (68)  |  Combination (150)  |  Common (447)  |  Contact (66)  |  Cooperation (38)  |  Curve (49)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Effect (414)  |  Equilibrium (34)  |  Excitement (61)  |  Exciting (50)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Half (63)  |  Hemoglobin (5)  |  Heterogeneity (4)  |  Impasse (2)  |  Influence (231)  |  Interaction (47)  |  Ion (21)  |  Know (1538)  |  Last (425)  |  Lie (370)  |  Merely (315)  |  Miss (51)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Jacques Monod (22)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Other (2233)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Plausibility (7)  |  Plausible (24)  |  Pocket (11)  |  Proton (23)  |  Sense (785)  |  Site (19)  |  Solution (282)  |  Split (15)  |  Story (122)  |  Structure (365)  |  Surface (223)  |  Temperament (18)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Touch (146)  |  Touching (16)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Turn (454)  |  Two (936)  |  Vital (89)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wrong (246)

The reduced variability of small populations is not always due to accidental gene loss, but sometimes to the fact that the entire population was started by a single pair or by a single fertilized female. These “founders” of the population carried with them only a very small proportion of the variability of the parent population. This “founder” principle sometimes explains even the uniformity of rather large populations, particularly if they are well isolated and near the borders of the range of the species.
Systematics and the Origin of Species: From the Viewpoint of a Zoologist (1942), 237.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Accidental (31)  |  Due (143)  |  Explain (334)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Female (50)  |  Fertilization (15)  |  Founder (26)  |  Gene (105)  |  Large (398)  |  Loss (117)  |  Parent (80)  |  Population (115)  |  Principle (530)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Range (104)  |  Single (365)  |  Small (489)  |  Species (435)  |  Start (237)  |  Uniform (20)  |  Uniformity (38)  |  Variation (93)

The statement that although the past can be recorded, the future cannot, is translatable into the statistical statement: Isolated states of order are always postinteraction states, never preinteraction states.
'18. Cause aud Effect: Producing and Recording—The Time Direction of Macrostatistics', in Hans Reichenbach and Maria Reichenbach (ed.), The Direction of Time (1956, 1991), 155.
Science quotes on:  |  Future (467)  |  Never (1089)  |  Order (638)  |  Past (355)  |  Record (161)  |  State (505)  |  Statement (148)

The theory here developed is that mega-evolution normally occurs among small populations that become preadaptive and evolve continuously (without saltation, but at exceptionally rapid rates) to radically different ecological positions. The typical pattern involved is probably this: A large population is fragmented into numerous small isolated lines of descent. Within these, inadaptive differentiation and random fixation of mutations occur. Among many such inadaptive lines one or a few are preadaptive, i.e., some of their characters tend to fit them for available ecological stations quite different from those occupied by their immediate ancestors. Such groups are subjected to strong selection pressure and evolve rapidly in the further direction of adaptation to the new status. The very few lines that successfully achieve this perfected adaptation then become abundant and expand widely, at the same time becoming differentiated and specialized on lower levels within the broad new ecological zone.
Tempo and Mode in Evolution (1944), 123.
Science quotes on:  |  Abundance (26)  |  Abundant (23)  |  Achievement (187)  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Available (80)  |  Become (821)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Character (259)  |  Descent (30)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Differentiation (28)  |  Direction (185)  |  Ecology (81)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Expand (56)  |  Expansion (43)  |  Fit (139)  |  Fixation (5)  |  Fragment (58)  |  Group (83)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Involved (90)  |  Large (398)  |  Level (69)  |  Mutation (40)  |  New (1273)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Occupation (51)  |  Occupied (45)  |  Occur (151)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Population (115)  |  Position (83)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Probability (135)  |  Radically (5)  |  Random (42)  |  Rapidity (29)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Selection (130)  |  Small (489)  |  Specialization (24)  |  Station (30)  |  Status (35)  |  Strong (182)  |  Subject (543)  |  Tend (124)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)  |  Typical (16)  |  Zone (5)

This notion that “science” is something that belongs in a separate compartment of its own, apart from everyday life, is one that I should like to challenge. We live in a scientific age; yet we assume that knowledge of science is the prerogative of only a small number of human beings, isolated and priest-like in their laboratories. This is not true. It cannot be true. The materials of science are the materials of life itself. Science is part of the reality of living; it is the what, the how, and the why of everything in our experience. It is impossible to understand man without understanding his environment and the forces that have molded him physically and mentally.
Address upon receiving National Book Award at reception, Hotel Commodore, New York (27 Jan 1952). As cited in Linda Lear, Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature (1997), 218-219.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belong (168)  |  Belonging (36)  |  Challenge (91)  |  Environment (239)  |  Everyday (32)  |  Everyday Life (15)  |  Everything (489)  |  Experience (494)  |  Force (497)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Man (2252)  |  Material (366)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mold (37)  |  Notion (120)  |  Number (710)  |  Physical (518)  |  Prerogative (3)  |  Priest (29)  |  Reality (274)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Separate (151)  |  Small (489)  |  Something (718)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Why (491)

Without preparing fluorine, without being able to separate it from the substances with which it is united, chemistry has been able to study and to analyze a great number of its compounds. The body was not isolated, and yet its place was marked in our classifications. This well demonstrates the usefulness of a scientific theory, a theory which is regarded as true during a certain time, which correlates facts and leads the mind to new hypotheses, the first causes of experimentation; which, little by little, destroy the theory itself, in order to replace it by another more in harmony with the progress of science.
[Describing the known history of fluorine compounds before his isolation of the element.]
'Fluorine', lecture at the Royal Institution (28 May 1897), translated from the French, in Proceedings of the Royal Institution (1897). In Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution to July 1897 (1898), 262.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Body (557)  |  Cause (561)  |  Certain (557)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Classification (102)  |  Compound (117)  |  Correlation (19)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Element (322)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  First (1302)  |  Fluorine (5)  |  Great (1610)  |  Harmony (105)  |  History (716)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Known (453)  |  Lead (391)  |  Little (717)  |  Marked (55)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  Order (638)  |  Periodic Table (19)  |  Preparing (21)  |  Progress (492)  |  Progress Of Science (40)  |  Regard (312)  |  Replacement (13)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Scientific Theory (24)  |  Separate (151)  |  Separation (60)  |  Study (701)  |  Substance (253)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Usefulness (92)


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.