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: “A people without children would face a hopeless future; a country without trees is almost as helpless.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index L > Category: Load

Load Quotes (12 quotes)

Question: What is the reason that the hammers which strike the strings of a pianoforte are made not to strike the middle of the strings? Why are the bass strings loaded with coils of wire?
Answer: Because the tint of the clang would be bad. Because to jockey them heavily.
Genuine student answer* to an Acoustics, Light and Heat paper (1880), Science and Art Department, South Kensington, London, collected by Prof. Oliver Lodge. Quoted in Henry B. Wheatley, Literary Blunders (1893), 176, Question 3. (*From a collection in which Answers are not given verbatim et literatim, and some instances may combine several students' blunders.)
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Bad (185)  |  Bass (2)  |  Coil (4)  |  Examination (102)  |  Hammer (26)  |  Heavily (14)  |  Heavy (24)  |  Howler (15)  |  Jockey (2)  |  Middle (19)  |  Piano (12)  |  Question (649)  |  Reason (766)  |  Strike (72)  |  String (22)  |  Tint (3)  |  Why (491)  |  Wire (36)

Anton Chekhov wrote that ‘one must not put a loaded rifle on stage if no one is thinking of firing it.’ Good drama requires spare and purposive action, sensible linking of potential causes with realized effects. Life is much messier; nothing happens most of the time. Millions of Americans (many hotheaded) own rifles (many loaded), but the great majority, thank God, do not go off most of the time. We spend most of real life waiting for Godot, not charging once more unto the breach.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  American (56)  |  Breach (2)  |  Cause (561)  |  Charge (63)  |  Do (1905)  |  Drama (24)  |  Effect (414)  |  Fire (203)  |  God (776)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Happen (282)  |  Life (1870)  |  Link (48)  |  Linking (8)  |  Majority (68)  |  Messy (6)  |  Millions (17)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Potential (75)  |  Real Life (8)  |  Realize (157)  |  Require (229)  |  Rifle (3)  |  Sensible (28)  |  Spare (9)  |  Spend (97)  |  Stage (152)  |  Thank (48)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unto (8)  |  Wait (66)  |  Waiting (42)  |  Write (250)

Archimedes … had stated that given the force, any given weight might be moved, and even boasted, we are told, relying on the strength of demonstration, that if there were another earth, by going into it he could remove this. Hiero being struck with amazement at this, and entreating him to make good this problem by actual experiment, and show some great weight moved by a small engine, he fixed accordingly upon a ship of burden out of the king’s arsenal, which could not be drawn out of the dock without great labor and many men; and, loading her with many passengers and a full freight, sitting himself the while far off with no great endeavor, but only holding the head of the pulley in his hand and drawing the cords by degrees, he drew the ship in a straight line, as smoothly and evenly, as if she had been in the sea. The king, astonished at this, and convinced of the power of the art, prevailed upon Archimedes to make him engines accommodated to all the purposes, offensive and defensive, of a siege. … the apparatus was, in most opportune time, ready at hand for the Syracusans, and with it also the engineer himself.
Plutarch
In John Dryden (trans.), Life of Marcellus.
Science quotes on:  |  Accommodate (17)  |  According (236)  |  Actual (118)  |  Amazement (19)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Archimedes (63)  |  Arsenal (5)  |  Art (680)  |  Astonish (39)  |  Astonished (10)  |  At Hand (7)  |  Being (1276)  |  Boast (22)  |  Burden (30)  |  Convinced (23)  |  Cord (3)  |  Defensive (2)  |  Degree (277)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Draw (140)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Engine (99)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Far (158)  |  Fix (34)  |  Force (497)  |  Freight (3)  |  Full (68)  |  Give (208)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hand (149)  |  Head (87)  |  Hiero (2)  |  Himself (461)  |  Hold (96)  |  King (39)  |  Labor (200)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Most (1728)  |  Move (223)  |  Offensive (4)  |  Passenger (10)  |  Power (771)  |  Prevail (47)  |  Problem (731)  |  Pulley (2)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Ready (43)  |  Rely (12)  |  Remove (50)  |  Sea (326)  |  Ship (69)  |  Show (353)  |  Siege (2)  |  Sit (51)  |  Sitting (44)  |  Small (489)  |  Smoothly (2)  |  State (505)  |  Straight (75)  |  Straight Line (34)  |  Strength (139)  |  Strike (72)  |  Syracuse (5)  |  Tell (344)  |  Time (1911)  |  Weight (140)

God plays dice with the universe, but they’re loaded dice. And the main objective of physics now is to find out by what rules were they loaded and how can we use them for our own ends.
Quoted in James Gleick, Chaos: Making a New Science (1987), 314.
Science quotes on:  |  Dice (21)  |  End (603)  |  Find (1014)  |  Find Out (25)  |  God (776)  |  Main (29)  |  Objective (96)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Play (116)  |  Rule (307)  |  Universe (900)  |  Use (771)

Ideas pull the trigger, but instinct loads the gun.
Attributed. Widely seen, but without citation. An early example of the aphorism, stated without naming Marquis, is in Southwestern Medicine (Oct 1920). 4, No. 10, 4. If you know the primary source, please contact Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Gun (10)  |  Idea (881)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Pull (43)  |  Trigger (6)

Ninety-nine and nine-tenths of the earth’s volume must forever remain invisible and untouchable. Because more than 97 per cent of it is too hot to crystallize, its body is extremely weak. The crust, being so thin, must bend, if, over wide areas, it becomes loaded with glacial ice, ocean water or deposits of sand and mud. It must bend in the opposite sense if widely extended loads of such material be removed. This accounts for … the origin of chains of high mountains … and the rise of lava to the earth’s surface.
Presidential speech to the Geological Society of America at Cambridge, Mass. (1932). As quoted in New York Times (20 Sep 1957), 23. Also summarized in Popular Mechanics (Apr 1933), 513.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bend (13)  |  Body (557)  |  Chain (51)  |  Crust (43)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Crystallize (12)  |  Deposit (12)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Extend (129)  |  Forever (111)  |  Glacier (17)  |  High (370)  |  Hot (63)  |  Ice (58)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Lava (12)  |  Material (366)  |  More (2558)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Mud (26)  |  Must (1525)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Origin (250)  |  Remain (355)  |  Removal (12)  |  Rise (169)  |  Sand (63)  |  Sense (785)  |  Surface (223)  |  Water (503)  |  Weak (73)  |  Wide (97)

Speaking of libraries: A big open-stack academic or public library is no small pleasure to work in. You’re, say, trying to do a piece on something in Nevada, and you go down to C Floor, deep in the earth, and out to what a miner would call a remote working face. You find 10995.497S just where the card catalog and the online computer thought it would be, but that is only the initial nick. The book you knew about has led you to others you did not know about. To the ceiling the shelves are loaded with books about Nevada. You pull them down, one at a time, and sit on the floor and look them over until you are sitting on a pile five feet high, at which point you are late home for dinner and you get up and walk away. It’s an incomparable boon to research, all that; but it is also a reason why there are almost no large open-stack libraries left in the world.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Academic (20)  |  Big (55)  |  Book (413)  |  Boon (7)  |  C (2)  |  Call (781)  |  Card (5)  |  Catalog (5)  |  Ceiling (5)  |  Computer (131)  |  Deep (241)  |  Dinner (15)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Face (214)  |  Find (1014)  |  Five (16)  |  Floor (21)  |  Foot (65)  |  Get Up (5)  |  High (370)  |  Home (184)  |  Incomparable (14)  |  Initial (17)  |  Know (1538)  |  Large (398)  |  Late (119)  |  Lead (391)  |  Leave (138)  |  Library (53)  |  Look (584)  |  Miner (9)  |  Nick (2)  |  Online (4)  |  Open (277)  |  Other (2233)  |  Piece (39)  |  Pile (12)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Point (584)  |  Public (100)  |  Pull (43)  |  Reason (766)  |  Remote (86)  |  Research (753)  |  Say (989)  |  Shelve (2)  |  Sit (51)  |  Sitting (44)  |  Small (489)  |  Something (718)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Try (296)  |  Trying (144)  |  Walk (138)  |  Why (491)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

The edge of the sea is a strange and beautiful place. All through the long history of Earth it has been an area of unrest where waves have broken heavily against the land, where the tides have pressed forward over the continents, receded, and then returned. For no two successive days is the shore line precisely the same. Not only do the tides advance and retreat in their eternal rhythms, but the level of the sea itself is never at rest. It rises or falls as the glaciers melt or grow, as the floor of the deep ocean basins shifts under its increasing load of sediments, or as the Earth’s crust along the continental margins warps up or down in adjustment to strain and tension. Today a little more land may belong to the sea, tomorrow a little less. Always the edge of the sea remains an elusive and indefinable boundary.
Opening paragraph in The Edge of the Sea (1955), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Adjustment (21)  |  Advance (298)  |  Against (332)  |  Area (33)  |  Basin (2)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Belong (168)  |  Boundary (55)  |  Break (109)  |  Broken (56)  |  Continent (79)  |  Continental (2)  |  Crust (43)  |  Deep (241)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Edge (51)  |  Elusive (8)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Fall (243)  |  Floor (21)  |  Forward (104)  |  Glacier (17)  |  Grow (247)  |  Heavily (14)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Earth (2)  |  Increase (225)  |  Indefinable (5)  |  Land (131)  |  Less (105)  |  Level (69)  |  Line (100)  |  Little (717)  |  Long (778)  |  Margin (6)  |  Melt (16)  |  More (2558)  |  Never (1089)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Place (192)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Press (21)  |  Recede (11)  |  Remain (355)  |  Rest (287)  |  Retreat (13)  |  Return (133)  |  Rhythm (21)  |  Rise (169)  |  Same (166)  |  Sea (326)  |  Sediment (9)  |  Shift (45)  |  Shore (25)  |  Strain (13)  |  Strange (160)  |  Successive (73)  |  Tension (24)  |  Through (846)  |  Tide (37)  |  Today (321)  |  Tomorrow (63)  |  Two (936)  |  Unrest (2)  |  Warp (7)  |  Wave (112)

We must stop fretting over the minute statistical risks of cancer from chemicals or radiation. Almost a third of us will die of cancer anyway, mainly because we breathe air laden with that all pervasive carcinogen, oxygen.
In The Revenge of Gaia: Earth’s Climate Crisis & The Fate of Humanity (2006, 2007), 15.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Anyway (3)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Cancer (61)  |  Carcinogen (2)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Die (94)  |  Fret (3)  |  Mainly (10)  |  Minute (129)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Pervasive (6)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Risk (68)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Stop (89)  |  Third (17)

When you can dump a load of bricks on a corner lot, and let me watch them arrange themselves into a house — when you can empty a handful of springs and wheels and screws on my desk, and let me see them gather themselves together into a watch — it will be easier for me to believe that all these thousands of worlds could have been created, balanced, and set to moving in their separate orbits, all without any directing intelligence at all.
In 'If A Man Die, Shall He Live again?', More Power To You: Fifty Editorials From Every Week (1917), 218-219.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrange (33)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Balance (82)  |  Belief (615)  |  Brick (20)  |  Corner (59)  |  Creation (350)  |  Desk (13)  |  Directing (5)  |  Dump (2)  |  Ease (40)  |  Easier (53)  |  Empty (82)  |  Gather (76)  |  Handful (14)  |  House (143)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Lot (151)  |  Moving (11)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Screw (17)  |  See (1094)  |  Separate (151)  |  Set (400)  |  Spring (140)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Together (392)  |  Watch (118)  |  Wheel (51)  |  Will (2350)  |  Without (13)  |  World (1850)

Whereas in The Two Towers you have different races, nations, cultures coming together and examining their conscience and unifying against a very real and terrifying enemy. What the United States has been doing for the past year is bombing innocent civilians without having come anywhere close to catching Osama bin Laden or any presumed enemy.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Anywhere (16)  |  Bomb (20)  |  Catch (34)  |  Civilian (2)  |  Close (77)  |  Coming (114)  |  Conscience (52)  |  Culture (157)  |  Different (595)  |  Doing (277)  |  Enemy (86)  |  Examine (84)  |  Innocent (13)  |  Nation (208)  |  Past (355)  |  Presume (9)  |  Race (278)  |  Real (159)  |  State (505)  |  Terrify (12)  |  Together (392)  |  Tower (45)  |  Two (936)  |  Unify (7)  |  United States (31)  |  Year (963)

You say a thousand things,
Persuasively,
And with strange passion hotly I agree,
And praise your zest,
And then
A blackbird sings, or fieldfaring men,
Ghostlike, with loaded wain,
Come down the twilit lane
To rest,
And what is all your argument to me.
From poem, 'Politics', collected in Poems, 1908-1919 (1919), 187. As quoted in A.E. Heath, 'The Scope of the Scientific Method', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (1918-1919), 179.
Science quotes on:  |  Agree (31)  |  Argument (145)  |  Blackbird (4)  |  Down (455)  |  Ghost (36)  |  Passion (121)  |  Persuasive (2)  |  Praise (28)  |  Rest (287)  |  Rural (6)  |  Say (989)  |  Sing (29)  |  Strange (160)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Twilight (6)  |  Wagon (10)  |  Zest (4)


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.