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: “Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index P > Category: Periodicity

Periodicity Quotes (6 quotes)

Before the promulgation of the periodic law the chemical elements were mere fragmentary incidental facts in nature; there was no special reason to expect the discovery of new elements, and the new ones which were discovered from time to time appeared to be possessed of quite novel properties. The law of periodicity first enabled us to perceive undiscovered elements at a distance which formerly were inaccessible to chemical vision, and long ere they were discovered new elements appeared before our eyes possessed of a number of well-defined properties.
In Faraday Lecture, delivered before the Fellows of the Chemical Society in the Theatre of the Royal Institution (4 Jun 1889), printed in Professor Mendeléeff, 'The Periodic Law of the Chemical Elements', Transactions of the Chemical Society (1889), 55, 648.
Science quotes on:  |  Chemical (303)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Distance (171)  |  Element (322)  |  Expect (203)  |  Expectation (67)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  First (1302)  |  Fragmentary (8)  |  Inaccessible (18)  |  Incidental (15)  |  Law (913)  |  Long (778)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Novel (35)  |  Number (710)  |  Periodic Law (6)  |  Possess (157)  |  Promulgation (5)  |  Property (177)  |  Reason (766)  |  Special (188)  |  Time (1911)  |  Undiscovered (15)  |  Vision (127)  |  Well-Defined (9)

Heredity is the general expression of the periodicity of organic life. All generations belong to a continuous succession of waves, in which every single one resembles its predecessors and its followers.
In 'On the Principles of Animal Morphology', Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1888), 15, 295. Original as Letter to Mr John Murray, communicated to the Society by Professor Sir William Turner. Page given as in collected volume published 1889.
Science quotes on:  |  Belong (168)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Expression (181)  |  Follower (11)  |  General (521)  |  Generation (256)  |  Heredity (62)  |  Life (1870)  |  Organic (161)  |  Predecessor (29)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Single (365)  |  Succession (80)  |  Wave (112)

If all the elements are arranged in the order of their atomic weights, a periodic repetition of properties is obtained. This is expressed by the law of periodicity.
Principles of Chemistry (1905), Vol. 2, 17.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Element (322)  |  Express (192)  |  Law (913)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Order (638)  |  Periodic Table (19)  |  Property (177)  |  Repetition (29)  |  Weight (140)

In physics we have dealt hitherto only with periodic crystals. To a humble physicist’s mind, these are very interesting and complicated objects; they constitute one of the most fascinating and complex material structures by which inanimate nature puzzles his wits. Yet, compared with the aperiodic crystal, they are rather plain and dull. The difference in structure is of the same kind as that between an ordinary wallpaper in which the same pattern is repeated again and again in regular periodicity and a masterpiece of embroidery, say a Raphael tapestry, which shows no dull repetition, but an elaborate, coherent, meaningful design traced by the great master.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Coherent (14)  |  Compare (76)  |  Complex (202)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Deal (192)  |  Design (203)  |  Difference (355)  |  Dull (58)  |  Elaborate (31)  |  Embroidery (2)  |  Fascinating (38)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hitherto (6)  |  Humble (54)  |  Inanimate (18)  |  Interest (416)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Kind (564)  |  Master (182)  |  Masterpiece (9)  |  Material (366)  |  Meaningful (19)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Object (438)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Periodic (3)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Plain (34)  |  Puzzle (46)  |  Raphael (2)  |  Regular (48)  |  Repeat (44)  |  Repetition (29)  |  Same (166)  |  Say (989)  |  Show (353)  |  Structure (365)  |  Tapestry (5)  |  Trace (109)  |  Wallpaper (2)  |  Wit (61)

Most, if not all, of the great ideas of modern mathematics have had their origin in observation. Take, for instance, the arithmetical theory of forms, of which the foundation was laid in the diophantine theorems of Fermat, left without proof by their author, which resisted all efforts of the myriad-minded Euler to reduce to demonstration, and only yielded up their cause of being when turned over in the blow-pipe flame of Gauss’s transcendent genius; or the doctrine of double periodicity, which resulted from the observation of Jacobi of a purely analytical fact of transformation; or Legendre’s law of reciprocity; or Sturm’s theorem about the roots of equations, which, as he informed me with his own lips, stared him in the face in the midst of some mechanical investigations connected (if my memory serves me right) with the motion of compound pendulums; or Huyghen’s method of continued fractions, characterized by Lagrange as one of the principal discoveries of that great mathematician, and to which he appears to have been led by the construction of his Planetary Automaton; or the new algebra, speaking of which one of my predecessors (Mr. Spottiswoode) has said, not without just reason and authority, from this chair, “that it reaches out and indissolubly connects itself each year with fresh branches of mathematics, that the theory of equations has become almost new through it, algebraic geometry transfigured in its light, that the calculus of variations, molecular physics, and mechanics” (he might, if speaking at the present moment, go on to add the theory of elasticity and the development of the integral calculus) “have all felt its influence”.
In 'A Plea for the Mathematician', Nature, 1, 238 in Collected Mathematical Papers, Vol. 2, 655-56.
Science quotes on:  |  Add (42)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Appear (122)  |  Arithmetical (11)  |  Author (175)  |  Authority (99)  |  Automaton (12)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Blow (45)  |  Branch (155)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Cause (561)  |  Chair (25)  |  Characterize (22)  |  Compound (117)  |  Connect (126)  |  Construction (114)  |  Continue (179)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Development (441)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Double (18)  |  Effort (243)  |  Elasticity (8)  |  Equation (138)  |  Leonhard Euler (35)  |  Face (214)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Feel (371)  |  Pierre de Fermat (15)  |  Flame (44)  |  Form (976)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Fraction (16)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Carl Friedrich Gauss (79)  |  Genius (301)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Great (1610)  |  Christiaan Huygens (11)  |  Idea (881)  |  Influence (231)  |  Inform (50)  |  Instance (33)  |  Integral (26)  |  Integral Calculus (7)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Karl Jacobi (11)  |  Count Joseph-Louis de Lagrange (26)  |  Laid (7)  |  Law (913)  |  Lead (391)  |  Leave (138)  |  Adrien-Marie Legendre (3)  |  Light (635)  |  Lip (4)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Memory (144)  |  Method (531)  |  Midst (8)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Mathematics (50)  |  Molecular (7)  |  Moment (260)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motion (320)  |  Myriad (32)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  New (1273)  |  Observation (593)  |  Origin (250)  |  Pendulum (17)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Planetary (29)  |  Predecessor (29)  |  Present (630)  |  Principal (69)  |  Proof (304)  |  Purely (111)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reciprocity (2)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Resist (15)  |  Result (700)  |  Right (473)  |  Root (121)  |  Say (989)  |  Serve (64)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speaking (118)  |  William Spottiswoode (3)  |  Star (460)  |  Stare (9)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Through (846)  |  Transcendent (3)  |  Transfigure (2)  |  Transformation (72)  |  Turn (454)  |  Variation (93)  |  Year (963)  |  Yield (86)

The modesty of women, which, in its most primitive form among animals, is based on sexual periodicity, is, with that periodicity, an essential condition of courtship.
Psychology of Sex (1933), 30.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Condition (362)  |  Essential (210)  |  Form (976)  |  Modesty (18)  |  Most (1728)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Sex (68)  |  Sexual (27)


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.