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 M > Category: Mobility

Mobility Quotes (11 quotes)

I can say, if I like, that social insects behave like the working parts of an immense central nervous system: the termite colony is an enormous brain on millions of legs; the individual termite is a mobile neurone.
In Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony(1984), 224. Note: Spelling “neurone&rdwuo; [sic].
Science quotes on:  |  Behavior (95)  |  Brain (281)  |  Central (81)  |  Colony (8)  |  Enormous (44)  |  Immense (89)  |  Individual (420)  |  Insect (89)  |  Leg (35)  |  Million (124)  |  Nervous System (35)  |  Neuron (10)  |  Part (235)  |  Say (989)  |  Social (261)  |  System (545)  |  Termite (7)  |  Work (1402)

In reality the origin of the notion of derivatives is in the vague feeling of the mobility of things, and of the greater or less speed with which phenomena take place; this is well expressed by the terms fluent and fluxion, which were used by Newton and which we may believe were borrowed from the ancient mathematician Heraclitus.
From address to the section of Algebra and Analysis, International Congress of Arts and Sciences, St. Louis (22 Sep 1904), 'On the Development of Mathematical Analysis and its Relation to Certain Other Sciences,' as translated by M.W. Haskell in Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society (May 1905), 11, 407.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Borrow (31)  |  Derivative (6)  |  Express (192)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Fluent (2)  |  Fluxion (7)  |  Greater (288)  |  Heraclitus (15)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Notion (120)  |  Origin (250)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Reality (274)  |  Speed (66)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Vague (50)

In the first book I shall describe all the positions of the spheres, along with the motions which I attribute to the Earth, so that the book will contain as it were the general structure of the universe. In the remaining books I relate the motions of the remaining stars, and all the spheres, to the mobility of the Earth, so that it can be thence established how far the motions and appearances of the remaining stars and spheres can be saved, if they are referred to the motions of the Earth.
'To His Holiness Pope Paul III', in Copernicus: On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (1543), trans, A. M. Duncan (1976), 26.
Science quotes on:  |  Appearance (145)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Book (413)  |  Describe (132)  |  Earth (1076)  |  First (1302)  |  General (521)  |  Motion (320)  |  Remaining (45)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Structure (365)  |  Universe (900)  |  Will (2350)

Like the furtive collectors of stolen art, we [cell biologists] are forced to be lonely admirers of spectacular architecture, exquisite symmetry, dramas of violence and death, mobility, self-sacrifice and, yes, rococo sex.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Admirer (9)  |  Architecture (50)  |  Art (680)  |  Biologist (70)  |  Cell (146)  |  Collector (8)  |  Death (406)  |  Drama (24)  |  Exquisite (27)  |  Force (497)  |  Furtive (2)  |  Lonely (24)  |  Sacrifice (58)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Sacrifice (5)  |  Sex (68)  |  Spectacular (22)  |  Steal (14)  |  Symmetry (44)  |  Violence (37)

Of the four elements water is the second in weight and the second in respect of mobility. It is never at rest until it unites with the sea…
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Element (322)  |  Never (1089)  |  Respect (212)  |  Rest (287)  |  Sea (326)  |  Second (66)  |  Unite (43)  |  Water (503)  |  Weight (140)

Our earth is very old, an old warrior that has lived through many battles. Nevertheless, the face of it is still changing, and science sees no certain limit of time for its stately evolution. Our solid earth, apparently so stable, inert, and finished, is changing, mobile, and still evolving. Its major quakings are largely the echoes of that divine far-off event, the building of our noble mountains. The lava floods and intriguing volcanoes tell us of the plasticity, mobility, of the deep interior of the globe. The slow coming and going of ancient shallow seas on the continental plateaus tell us of the rhythmic distortion of the deep interior-deep-seated flow and changes of volume. Mountain chains prove the earth’s solid crust itself to be mobile in high degree. And the secret of it all—the secret of the earthquake, the secret of the “temple of fire,” the secret of the ocean basin, the secret of the highland—is in the heart of the earth, forever invisible to human eyes.
In Our Mobile Earth (1926), 320.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Building (158)  |  Certain (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Coming (114)  |  Crust (43)  |  Deep (241)  |  Degree (277)  |  Distortion (13)  |  Divine (112)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Earthquake (37)  |  Event (222)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Eye (440)  |  Face (214)  |  Finish (62)  |  Fire (203)  |  Flood (52)  |  Flow (89)  |  Forever (111)  |  Heart (243)  |  High (370)  |  Human (1512)  |  Inert (14)  |  Interior (35)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Lava (12)  |  Limit (294)  |  Lithosphere (2)  |  Magma (4)  |  Major (88)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Noble (93)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Old (499)  |  Plasticity (7)  |  Prove (261)  |  Sea (326)  |  Secret (216)  |  See (1094)  |  Slow (108)  |  Solid (119)  |  Stable (32)  |  Stately (12)  |  Still (614)  |  Tell (344)  |  Temple (45)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Volcano (46)

Plants, generally speaking, meet the impact of the terrestrial environment head on, although of course they in turn modify the physical environment by adventitious group activity. The individual plant cannot select its habitat; its location is largely determined by the vagaries of the dispersal of seeds or spores and is thus profoundly affected by chance. Because of their mobility and their capacity for acceptance or rejection terrestrial animals, in contrast, can and do actively seek out and utilize the facets of the environment that allow their physiological capacities to function adequately. This means that an animal by its behavior can fit the environment to its physiology by selecting situations in which its physiological capacities can cope with physical conditions. If one accepts this idea, it follows that there is no such thing as The Environment, for there exist as many different terrestrial environments as there are species of animals.
From 'The role of physiology in the distribution of terrestrial vertebrates', collected in C.L. Hubbs (ed.), Zoogeography: Publ. 51 (1958), 84.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Acceptance (56)  |  Actively (3)  |  Activity (218)  |  Adequately (4)  |  Affect (19)  |  Allow (51)  |  Animal (651)  |  Behavior (95)  |  Capacity (105)  |  Chance (244)  |  Condition (362)  |  Contrast (45)  |  Cope (9)  |  Course (413)  |  Determine (152)  |  Different (595)  |  Dispersal (2)  |  Do (1905)  |  Environment (239)  |  Exist (458)  |  Facet (9)  |  Fit (139)  |  Follow (389)  |  Function (235)  |  Generally (15)  |  Group (83)  |  Habitat (17)  |  Head (87)  |  Idea (881)  |  Impact (45)  |  Individual (420)  |  Largely (14)  |  Location (15)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Meet (36)  |  Modify (15)  |  Of Course (22)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physiological (64)  |  Physiology (101)  |  Plant (320)  |  Profoundly (13)  |  Rejection (36)  |  Seed (97)  |  Seek (218)  |  Select (45)  |  Situation (117)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Species (435)  |  Spore (3)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Turn (454)  |  Utilize (10)  |  Vagary (2)

Since, then, there is no objection to the mobility of the Earth, I think it must now be considered whether several motions are appropriate for it, so that it can be regarded as one of the wandering stars. For the fact that it is not the centre of all revolutions is made clear by the apparent irregular motion of the wandering stars, and their variable distances from the Earth, which cannot be understood in a circle having the same centre as the Earth.
'Book One. Chapter IX. Whether several motions can be attributed to the Earth, and on the centre of the universe', in Copernicus: On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (1543), trans. A. M. Duncan (1976), 46.
Science quotes on:  |  Apparent (85)  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Circle (117)  |  Consider (428)  |  Distance (171)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Motion (320)  |  Must (1525)  |  Objection (34)  |  Regard (312)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Think (1122)  |  Understood (155)  |  Variable (37)

Technology, while adding daily to our physical ease, throws daily another loop of fine wire around our souls. It contributes hugely to our mobility, which we must not confuse with freedom. The extensions of our senses, which we find so fascinating, are no
My Faith in Democratic Capitalism, in Fortune (Oct 1955).
Science quotes on:  |  Add (42)  |  Confuse (22)  |  Contribute (30)  |  Daily (91)  |  Ease (40)  |  Extension (60)  |  Fascinating (38)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fine (37)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Loop (6)  |  Must (1525)  |  Physical (518)  |  Sense (785)  |  Soul (235)  |  Technology (281)  |  Throw (45)  |  Wire (36)

The most revolutionary aspect of technology is its mobility. Anybody can learn it. It jumps easily over barriers of race and language. … The new technology of microchips and computer software is learned much faster than the old technology of coal and iron. It took three generations of misery for the older industrial countries to master the technology of coal and iron. The new industrial countries of East Asia, South Korea, and Singapore and Taiwan, mastered the new technology and made the jump from poverty to wealth in a single generation.
Infinite in All Directions: Gifford lectures given at Aberdeen, Scotland (2004), 270.
Science quotes on:  |  Anybody (42)  |  Asia (7)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Barrier (34)  |  Coal (64)  |  Computer (131)  |  Faster (50)  |  Generation (256)  |  Industry (159)  |  Iron (99)  |  Jump (31)  |  Language (308)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Master (182)  |  Misery (31)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Old (499)  |  Poverty (40)  |  Race (278)  |  Revolutionary (31)  |  Singapore (2)  |  Single (365)  |  Software (14)  |  South (39)  |  Technology (281)  |  Wealth (100)

When the ability to have movement across social class becomes virtually impossible, I think it is the beginning of the end of a country. And because education is so critical to success in this country, if we don't figure out a way to create greater mobility across social class, I do think it will be the beginning of the end.
In a segment from PBS TV program, Newshour (9 Sep 2013).
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Become (821)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Class (168)  |  Country (269)  |  Create (245)  |  Critical (73)  |  Do (1905)  |  Education (423)  |  End (603)  |  Figure (162)  |  Greater (288)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Movement (162)  |  Social (261)  |  Success (327)  |  Think (1122)  |  U.S.A. (7)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)


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.