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: “Environmental extremists ... wouldn�t let you build a house unless it looked like a bird�s nest.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index P > Category: Pedantic

Pedantic Quotes (4 quotes)

It is frivolous to fix pedantically the date of particular inventions. They have all been invented over and over fifty times. Man is the arch machine, of which all these shifts drawn from himself are toy models. He helps himself on each emergency by copying or duplicating his own structure, just so far as the need is.
Science quotes on:  |  Arch (12)  |  Copy (34)  |  Date (14)  |  Duplicate (9)  |  Emergency (10)  |  Frivolous (8)  |  Help (116)  |  Himself (461)  |  Invention (400)  |  Machine (271)  |  Man (2252)  |  Model (106)  |  Need (320)  |  Particular (80)  |  Shift (45)  |  Structure (365)  |  Time (1911)  |  Toy (22)

The ancients devoted a lifetime to the study of arithmetic; it required days to extract a square root or to multiply two numbers together. Is there any harm in skipping all that, in letting the school boy learn multiplication sums, and in starting his more abstract reasoning at a more advanced point? Where would be the harm in letting the boy assume the truth of many propositions of the first four books of Euclid, letting him assume their truth partly by faith, partly by trial? Giving him the whole fifth book of Euclid by simple algebra? Letting him assume the sixth as axiomatic? Letting him, in fact, begin his severer studies where he is now in the habit of leaving off? We do much less orthodox things. Every here and there in one’s mathematical studies one makes exceedingly large assumptions, because the methodical study would be ridiculous even in the eyes of the most pedantic of teachers. I can imagine a whole year devoted to the philosophical study of many things that a student now takes in his stride without trouble. The present method of training the mind of a mathematical teacher causes it to strain at gnats and to swallow camels. Such gnats are most of the propositions of the sixth book of Euclid; propositions generally about incommensurables; the use of arithmetic in geometry; the parallelogram of forces, etc., decimals.
In Teaching of Mathematics (1904), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Advance (298)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Assume (43)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Axiomatic (2)  |  Begin (275)  |  Book (413)  |  Boy (100)  |  Camel (12)  |  Cause (561)  |  Decimal (21)  |  Devote (45)  |  Devoted (59)  |  Do (1905)  |  Euclid (60)  |  Exceedingly (28)  |  Extract (40)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Faith (209)  |  First (1302)  |  Force (497)  |  Generally (15)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Give (208)  |  Gnat (7)  |  Habit (174)  |  Harm (43)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Incommensurable (4)  |  Large (398)  |  Learn (672)  |  Leave (138)  |  Lifetime (40)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Method (531)  |  Methodical (8)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Multiplication (46)  |  Multiply (40)  |  Number (710)  |  Orthodox (4)  |  Parallelogram (3)  |  Partly (5)  |  Philosophical (24)  |  Point (584)  |  Present (630)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Require (229)  |  Required (108)  |  Ridiculous (24)  |  Root (121)  |  School (227)  |  Schoolboy (9)  |  Severe (17)  |  Simple (426)  |  Skip (4)  |  Square (73)  |  Square Root (12)  |  Start (237)  |  Strain (13)  |  Stride (15)  |  Student (317)  |  Study (701)  |  Sum (103)  |  Swallow (32)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Together (392)  |  Training (92)  |  Trial (59)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)  |  Use (771)  |  Whole (756)  |  Year (963)

The real problem in speech is not precise language. The problem is clear language. The desire is to have the idea clearly communicated to the other person. [But] precise language is not precise in any sense if you deal with the real objects of the world, and is overly pedantic and quite confusing to use it unless there are some special subtleties which have to be carefully distinguished.
Criticizing “overly pedantic” language in proposed textbooks for a modified arithmetic course for grades 1-8 in California schools. In article, 'New Textbooks for the ‘New’ Mathematics', Engineering and Science (Mar 1965), 28, No. 6. Collected in Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track: The Letters of Richard Feynman (2008), 454. He was writing as a member of the California State Curriculum Committee
Science quotes on:  |  Carefully (65)  |  Clear (111)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Deal (192)  |  Definition (238)  |  Desire (212)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Distinguishing (14)  |  Idea (881)  |  Language (308)  |  Object (438)  |  Other (2233)  |  Person (366)  |  Precise (71)  |  Problem (731)  |  Real (159)  |  Sense (785)  |  Special (188)  |  Speech (66)  |  Subtlety (19)  |  Use (771)  |  World (1850)

There is an influence which is getting strong and stronger day by day, which shows itself more and more in all departments of human activity, and influence most fruitful and beneficial—the influence of the artist. It was a happy day for the mass of humanity when the artist felt the desire of becoming a physician, an electrician, an engineer or mechanician or—whatnot—a mathematician or a financier; for it was he who wrought all these wonders and grandeur we are witnessing. It was he who abolished that small, pedantic, narrow-grooved school teaching which made of an aspiring student a galley-slave, and he who allowed freedom in the choice of subject of study according to one's pleasure and inclination, and so facilitated development.
'Roentgen Rays or Streams', Electrical Review (12 Aug 1896). Reprinted in The Nikola Tesla Treasury (2007), 307. By Nikola Tesla
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Activity (218)  |  Artist (97)  |  Aspiration (35)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Beneficial (16)  |  Choice (114)  |  Department (93)  |  Desire (212)  |  Development (441)  |  Electrician (6)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Freedom (145)  |  Fruitful (61)  |  Grandeur (35)  |  Happy (108)  |  Human (1512)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Inclination (36)  |  Influence (231)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mechanician (2)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Narrow (85)  |  Pedantry (5)  |  Physician (284)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  School (227)  |  Show (353)  |  Slave (40)  |  Small (489)  |  Strong (182)  |  Stronger (36)  |  Student (317)  |  Study (701)  |  Subject (543)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Witness (57)  |  Wonder (251)


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.