Opticks Quotes (2 quotes)
Fortunate Newton, happy childhood of science! … In one person he combined the experimenter, the theorist, the mechanic—and, not least, the artist in exposition. He stands before us strong, certain, and alone: his joy in creation and his minute precision are evident in every word and
in every figure.
Describing the reader’s experience while perusing the Opticks. From Isaac Newton, Opticks, Or, A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections (1730; Dover edition, 1979), Forward by Albert Einstein, lix.
The Opticks invites … the reader to roam, with great Newton as his guide, through the major unresolved problems of science and even the relation of the whole world of nature to Him who had created it.
From Isaac Newton, Opticks, Or, A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections (1730; Dover edition, 1979), Preface by I. Bernard Cohen, xviii.
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) -- 
