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: “I believe that this Nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index S > Category: Scale

Scale Quotes (122 quotes)

“That’s another thing we’ve learned from your Nation,” said Mein Herr, “map-making. But we’ve carried it much further than you. What do you consider the largest map that would be really useful?”
“About six inches to the mile.”
“Only six inches!” exclaimed Mein Herr. “We very soon got to six yards to the mile. Then we tried a hundred yards to the mile. And then came the grandest idea of all! We actually made a map of the country, on the scale of a mile to the mile!
“Have you used it much?” I enquired.
“It has never been spread out, yet,” said Mein Herr: “the farmers objected: they said it would cover the whole country, and shut out the sunlight! So we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well.”
From Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (1893), 169.
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Assure (16)  |  Cartography (3)  |  Consider (428)  |  Country (269)  |  Cover (40)  |  Do (1905)  |  Enquire (4)  |  Exclaim (15)  |  Farmer (35)  |  Grand (29)  |  Grandest (10)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Idea (881)  |  Inch (10)  |  Large (398)  |  Largest (39)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Making (300)  |  Map (50)  |  Mile (43)  |  Model (106)  |  Nation (208)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Never (1089)  |  Object (438)  |  Shut (41)  |  Soon (187)  |  Spread (86)  |  Sunlight (29)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Use (771)  |  Useful (260)  |  Whole (756)  |  Yard (10)

[Euclid's Elements] has been for nearly twenty-two centuries the encouragement and guide of that scientific thought which is one thing with the progress of man from a worse to a better state. The encouragement; for it contained a body of knowledge that was really known and could be relied on, and that moreover was growing in extent and application. For even at the time this book was written—shortly after the foundation of the Alexandrian Museum—Mathematics was no longer the merely ideal science of the Platonic school, but had started on her career of conquest over the whole world of Phenomena. The guide; for the aim of every scientific student of every subject was to bring his knowledge of that subject into a form as perfect as that which geometry had attained. Far up on the great mountain of Truth, which all the sciences hope to scale, the foremost of that sacred sisterhood was seen, beckoning for the rest to follow her. And hence she was called, in the dialect of the Pythagoreans, ‘the purifier of the reasonable soul.’
From a lecture delivered at the Royal Institution (Mar 1873), collected postumously in W.K. Clifford, edited by Leslie Stephen and Frederick Pollock, Lectures and Essays, (1879), Vol. 1, 296.
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Alexandria (2)  |  Application (257)  |  Attain (126)  |  Beckoning (4)  |  Better (493)  |  Body (557)  |  Book (413)  |  Call (781)  |  Career (86)  |  Conquest (31)  |  Element (322)  |  Encouragement (27)  |  Euclid (60)  |  Extent (142)  |  Follow (389)  |  Following (16)  |  Form (976)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Great (1610)  |  Growing (99)  |  Guide (107)  |  Hope (321)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Merely (315)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Museum (40)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Progress (492)  |  Reason (766)  |  Rest (287)  |  Sacred (48)  |  School (227)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Thought (17)  |  Soul (235)  |  Start (237)  |  State (505)  |  Student (317)  |  Subject (543)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)  |  Whole (756)  |  Whole World (29)  |  World (1850)

..und Juwele wägt man nicht mit der Krämerwaage
... and jewels are not weighed on a grocery scale.
Comment on Dirichlet's publication as being not prolific, but profound.
Letter to Alexander von Humbolt (9 Jul 1845). In Jagdish Mehra and Helmut Rechenberg, The Historical Development of Quantum Theory, 267. By
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Being (1276)  |  Man (2252)  |  Profound (105)  |  Publication (102)  |  Weigh (51)

A fractal is a mathematical set or concrete object that is irregular or fragmented at all scales.
Cited as from Fractals: Form, Chance, and Dimension (1977), by J.W. Cannon, in review of The Fractal Geometry of Nature (1982) in The American Mathematical Monthly (Nov 1984), 91, No. 9, 594.
Science quotes on:  |  Concrete (55)  |  Definition (238)  |  Fractal (11)  |  Fragment (58)  |  Irregular (7)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Object (438)  |  Set (400)

A million years is a short time—the shortest worth messing with for most problems. You begin tuning your mind to a time scale that is the planet’s time scale. For me, it is almost unconscious now and is a kind of companionship with the earth.
In Basin and Range (1981), 134.
Science quotes on:  |  Begin (275)  |  Companionship (4)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Kind (564)  |  Mess (14)  |  Million (124)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Planet (402)  |  Problem (731)  |  Short (200)  |  Shortest (16)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tune (20)  |  Unconscious (24)  |  Worth (172)  |  Year (963)

A scientist without imagination is a butcher with dull knives and out-worn scales.
In Kahlil Gibran: The Collected Works (2007), 204.
Science quotes on:  |  Butcher (9)  |  Dull (58)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Knife (24)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Worn (5)

Accountants and second-rate business school jargon are in the ascendant. Costs, which rise rapidly, and are easily ascertained and comprehensible, now weigh more heavily in the scales than the unquantifiable and unpredictable values and future material progress. Perhaps science will only regain its lost primacy as peoples and government begin to recognize that sound scientific work is the only secure basis for the construction of policies to ensure the survival of Mankind without irreversible damage to Planet Earth.
In New Scientist, March 3, 1990.
Science quotes on:  |  Ascertain (41)  |  Basis (180)  |  Begin (275)  |  Business (156)  |  Construction (114)  |  Cost (94)  |  Damage (38)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Ensure (27)  |  Future (467)  |  Government (116)  |  Heavily (14)  |  Irreversible (12)  |  Jargon (13)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Material (366)  |  More (2558)  |  People (1031)  |  Planet (402)  |  Progress (492)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Rise (169)  |  School (227)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Sound (187)  |  Survival (105)  |  Unpredictable (18)  |  Value (393)  |  Weigh (51)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

Adventure is the point where you toss your life on the scales of chance and wait for the pointer to stop.
First Contact (1945)
Science quotes on:  |  Adventure (69)  |  Chance (244)  |  Life (1870)  |  Point (584)  |  Pointer (6)  |  Toss (8)

After the planet becomes theirs, many millions of years will have to pass before a beetle particularly loved by God, at the end of its calculations will find written on a sheet of paper in letters of fire that energy is equal to the mass multiplied by the square of the velocity of light. The new kings of the world will live tranquilly for a long time, confining themselves to devouring each other and being parasites among each other on a cottage industry scale.
'Beetles' Other People’s Trades (1985, trans. 1989).
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Beetle (19)  |  Being (1276)  |  Calculation (134)  |  End (603)  |  Energy (373)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fire (203)  |  God (776)  |  Industry (159)  |  Insect (89)  |  Letter (117)  |  Light (635)  |  Live (650)  |  Long (778)  |  Mass (160)  |  New (1273)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paper (192)  |  Parasite (33)  |  Pass (241)  |  Planet (402)  |  Square (73)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Time (1911)  |  Velocity (51)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

All change is relative. The universe is expanding relatively to our common material standards; our material standards are shrinking relatively to the size of the universe. The theory of the “expanding universe” might also be called the theory of the “shrinking atom”. …
:Let us then take the whole universe as our standard of constancy, and adopt the view of a cosmic being whose body is composed of intergalactic spaces and swells as they swell. Or rather we must now say it keeps the same size, for he will not admit that it is he who has changed. Watching us for a few thousand million years, he sees us shrinking; atoms, animals, planets, even the galaxies, all shrink alike; only the intergalactic spaces remain the same. The earth spirals round the sun in an ever-decreasing orbit. It would be absurd to treat its changing revolution as a constant unit of time. The cosmic being will naturally relate his units of length and time so that the velocity of light remains constant. Our years will then decrease in geometrical progression in the cosmic scale of time. On that scale man’s life is becoming briefer; his threescore years and ten are an ever-decreasing allowance. Owing to the property of geometrical progressions an infinite number of our years will add up to a finite cosmic time; so that what we should call the end of eternity is an ordinary finite date in the cosmic calendar. But on that date the universe has expanded to infinity in our reckoning, and we have shrunk to nothing in the reckoning of the cosmic being.
We walk the stage of life, performers of a drama for the benefit of the cosmic spectator. As the scenes proceed he notices that the actors are growing smaller and the action quicker. When the last act opens the curtain rises on midget actors rushing through their parts at frantic speed. Smaller and smaller. Faster and faster. One last microscopic blurr of intense agitation. And then nothing.
In The Expanding Universe (1933) , 90-92.
Science quotes on:  |  Absurd (60)  |  Act (278)  |  Action (342)  |  Agitation (10)  |  Alike (60)  |  Allowance (6)  |  Animal (651)  |  Atom (381)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Being (1276)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Body (557)  |  Calendar (9)  |  Call (781)  |  Change (639)  |  Common (447)  |  Constancy (12)  |  Constant (148)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Drama (24)  |  Earth (1076)  |  End (603)  |  Eternity (64)  |  Expand (56)  |  Faster (50)  |  Finite (60)  |  Galaxies (29)  |  Growing (99)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Last (425)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Man (2252)  |  Material (366)  |  Microscopic (27)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Notice (81)  |  Number (710)  |  Open (277)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Owing (39)  |  Planet (402)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Progression (23)  |  Property (177)  |  Reckoning (19)  |  Remain (355)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Rise (169)  |  Say (989)  |  Scene (36)  |  See (1094)  |  Shrink (23)  |  Space (523)  |  Speed (66)  |  Spiral (19)  |  Stage (152)  |  Sun (407)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universe (900)  |  Velocity (51)  |  View (496)  |  Walk (138)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

Although gravity is by far the weakest force of nature, its insidious and cumulative action serves to determine the ultimate fate not only of individual astronomical objects but of the entire cosmos. The same remorseless attraction that crushes a star operates on a much grander scale on the universe as a whole.
In The Last Three Minutes (1994).
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Attraction (61)  |  Cosmos (64)  |  Cumulative (14)  |  Determine (152)  |  Fate (76)  |  Force (497)  |  Force Of Nature (9)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Individual (420)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Object (438)  |  Star (460)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Universe (900)  |  Whole (756)

As our researches have made clear, an animal high in the organic scale only reaches this rank by passing through all the intermediate states which separate it from the animals placed below it. Man only becomes man after traversing transitional organisatory states which assimilate him first to fish, then to reptiles, then to birds and mammals.
Annales des Sciences Naturelles (1834), 2 (ii), 248. Trans. in E. S. Russell, Form and Function (1916), 82.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Assimilation (13)  |  Become (821)  |  Below (26)  |  Bird (163)  |  Clarification (8)  |  First (1302)  |  Fish (130)  |  High (370)  |  Intermediate (38)  |  Mammal (41)  |  Man (2252)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organization (120)  |  Pass (241)  |  Passing (76)  |  Rank (69)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reptile (33)  |  Research (753)  |  Separate (151)  |  Separation (60)  |  State (505)  |  Through (846)

Because of the way it came into existence, the solar system has only one-way traffic—like Piccadilly Circus. … If we want to make a model to scale, we must take a very tiny object, such as a pea, to represent the sun. On the same scale the nine planets will be small seeds, grains of sand and specks of dust. Even so, Piccadilly Circus is only just big enough to contain the orbit of Pluto. … The whole of Piccadilly Circus was needed to represent the space of the solar system, but a child can carry the whole substance of the model in its hand. All the rest is empty space.
In The Stars in Their Courses (1931, 1954), 49-50 & 89.
Science quotes on:  |  Carry (130)  |  Child (333)  |  Dust (68)  |  Empty (82)  |  Enough (341)  |  Existence (481)  |  Grain (50)  |  Hand (149)  |  Model (106)  |  Must (1525)  |  Object (438)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Pea (4)  |  Planet (402)  |  Pluto (6)  |  Represent (157)  |  Rest (287)  |  Sand (63)  |  Seed (97)  |  Small (489)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Space (523)  |  Speck (25)  |  Substance (253)  |  Sun (407)  |  System (545)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Traffic (10)  |  Want (504)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)

Contingency is rich and fascinating; it embodies an exquisite tension between the power of individuals to modify history and the intelligible limits set by laws of nature. The details of individual and species’s lives are not mere frills, without power to shape the large-scale course of events, but particulars that can alter entire futures, profoundly and forever.
Reprinted from column, 'This View of Life',Natural History magazine, in Eight Little Piggies (1993), 77.
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Contingency (11)  |  Course (413)  |  Detail (150)  |  Embody (18)  |  Entire (50)  |  Event (222)  |  Exquisite (27)  |  Fascinating (38)  |  Forever (111)  |  Future (467)  |  History (716)  |  Individual (420)  |  Intelligible (35)  |  Large (398)  |  Law (913)  |  Limit (294)  |  Live (650)  |  Mere (86)  |  Modify (15)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Power (771)  |  Profoundly (13)  |  Rich (66)  |  Set (400)  |  Shape (77)  |  Species (435)  |  Tension (24)

Curves that have no tangents are the rule. … Those who hear of curves without tangents, or of functions without derivatives, often think at first that Nature presents no such complications. … The contrary however is true. … Consider, for instance, one of the white flakes that are obtained by salting a solution of soap. At a distance its contour may appear sharply defined, but as we draw nearer its sharpness disappears. The eye can no longer draw a tangent at any point. … The use of a magnifying glass or microscope leaves us just as uncertain, for fresh irregularities appear every time we increase the magnification. … An essential characteristic of our flake … is that we suspect … that any scale involves details that absolutely prohibit the fixing of a tangent.
(1906). As quoted “in free translation” in Benoit B. Mandelbrot, The Fractal Geometry of Nature (1977, 1983), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolutely (41)  |  Appear (122)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Complication (30)  |  Consider (428)  |  Contour (3)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Curve (49)  |  Defined (4)  |  Derivative (6)  |  Detail (150)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Distance (171)  |  Draw (140)  |  Essential (210)  |  Eye (440)  |  First (1302)  |  Fixing (2)  |  Flake (7)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Function (235)  |  Glass (94)  |  Hear (144)  |  Increase (225)  |  Involve (93)  |  Irregularity (12)  |  Magnification (10)  |  Magnifying Glass (3)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nearer (45)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Point (584)  |  Present (630)  |  Prohibit (3)  |  Rule (307)  |  Sharply (4)  |  Sharpness (9)  |  Soap (11)  |  Solution (282)  |  Suspect (18)  |  Tangent (6)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Uncertain (45)  |  Use (771)  |  White (132)

Doubtless the reasoning faculty, the mind, is the leading and characteristic attribute of the human race. By the exercise of this, man arrives at the properties of the natural bodies. This is science, properly and emphatically so called. It is the science of pure mathematics; and in the high branches of this science lies the truly sublime of human acquisition. If any attainment deserves that epithet, it is the knowledge, which, from the mensuration of the minutest dust of the balance, proceeds on the rising scale of material bodies, everywhere weighing, everywhere measuring, everywhere detecting and explaining the laws of force and motion, penetrating into the secret principles which hold the universe of God together, and balancing worlds against worlds, and system against system. When we seek to accompany those who pursue studies at once so high, so vast, and so exact; when we arrive at the discoveries of Newton, which pour in day on the works of God, as if a second fiat had gone forth from his own mouth; when, further, we attempt to follow those who set out where Newton paused, making his goal their starting-place, and, proceeding with demonstration upon demonstration, and discovery upon discovery, bring new worlds and new systems of worlds within the limits of the known universe, failing to learn all only because all is infinite; however we may say of man, in admiration of his physical structure, that “in form and moving he is express and admirable,” it is here, and here without irreverence, we may exclaim, “In apprehension how like a god!” The study of the pure mathematics will of course not be extensively pursued in an institution, which, like this [Boston Mechanics’ Institute], has a direct practical tendency and aim. But it is still to be remembered, that pure mathematics lie at the foundation of mechanical philosophy, and that it is ignorance only which can speak or think of that sublime science as useless research or barren speculation.
In Works (1872), Vol. 1, 180.
Science quotes on:  |  Accompany (22)  |  Acquisition (46)  |  Admirable (20)  |  Admiration (61)  |  Against (332)  |  Aim (175)  |  Apprehension (26)  |  Arrive (40)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Balance (82)  |  Barren (33)  |  Body (557)  |  Boston (7)  |  Branch (155)  |  Bring (95)  |  Call (781)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Course (413)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Deserve (65)  |  Detect (45)  |  Direct (228)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Doubtless (8)  |  Dust (68)  |  Emphatically (8)  |  Epithet (3)  |  Estimates of Mathematics (30)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Exact (75)  |  Exclaim (15)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Explain (334)  |  Express (192)  |  Extensive (34)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Fail (191)  |  Far (158)  |  Fiat (7)  |  Follow (389)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Forth (14)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Goal (155)  |  God (776)  |  High (370)  |  Hold (96)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Institution (73)  |  Irreverence (3)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Law (913)  |  Lead (391)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lie (370)  |  Limit (294)  |  Making (300)  |  Man (2252)  |  Material (366)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Measure (241)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Mensuration (2)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Minute (129)  |  Motion (320)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Move (223)  |  Natural (810)  |  New (1273)  |  New Worlds (5)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Of Course (22)  |  Pause (6)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Physical (518)  |  Pour (9)  |  Practical (225)  |  Principle (530)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Proceeding (38)  |  Properly (21)  |  Property (177)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Race (278)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Remember (189)  |  Research (753)  |  Rise (169)  |  Rising (44)  |  Say (989)  |  Second (66)  |  Secret (216)  |  Seek (218)  |  Set (400)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Starting Point (16)  |  Still (614)  |  Structure (365)  |  Study (701)  |  Sublime (50)  |  System (545)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Think (1122)  |  Together (392)  |  Truly (118)  |  Universe (900)  |  Useless (38)  |  Vast (188)  |  Weigh (51)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

Ever since we arrived on this planet as a species, we’ve cut them down, dug them up, burnt them and poisoned them. Today we’re doing so on a greater scale than ever.
As quoted in Jack Shepherd, "David Attenborough: 15 of the naturalist’s best quotes: In celebration of his 94th birthday", Independent (8 May 2017), on independent.co.uk website.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrive (40)  |  Burn (99)  |  Cut Down (4)  |  Dig (25)  |  Greater (288)  |  Planet (402)  |  Poison (46)  |  Species (435)  |  Today (321)

Evolution on the large scale unfolds, like much of human history, as a succession of dynasties.
In The Diversity of Life (1999), 94.
Science quotes on:  |  Dynasty (8)  |  Evolution (635)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Large (398)  |  Succession (80)  |  Unfolding (16)

Experiments in geology are far more difficult than in physics and chemistry because of the greater size of the objects, commonly outside our laboratories, up to the earth itself, and also because of the fact that the geologic time scale exceeds the human time scale by a million and more times. This difference in time allows only direct observations of the actual geologic processes, the mind having to imagine what could possibly have happened in the past.
In 'The Scientific Character of Geology', The Journal of Geology (Jul 1961), 69, No. 4, 455-6.
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Difference (355)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Direct (228)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Geology (240)  |  Greater (288)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Human (1512)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Million (124)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Object (438)  |  Observation (593)  |  Outside (141)  |  Past (355)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Process (439)  |  Size (62)  |  Time (1911)

For a stone, when it is examined, will be found a mountain in miniature. The fineness of Nature’s work is so great, that, into a single block, a foot or two in diameter, she can compress as many changes of form and structure, on a small scale, as she needs for her mountains on a large one; and, taking moss for forests, and grains of crystal for crags, the surface of a stone, in by far the plurality of instances, is more interesting than the surface of an ordinary hill; more fantastic in form and incomparably richer in colour—the last quality being, in fact, so noble in most stones of good birth (that is to say, fallen from the crystalline mountain ranges).
Modern Painters, 4, Containing part 5 of Mountain Beauty (1860), 311.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Birth (154)  |  Block (13)  |  Change (639)  |  Color (155)  |  Compression (7)  |  Crag (6)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Diameter (28)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fantastic (21)  |  Forest (161)  |  Form (976)  |  Good (906)  |  Grain (50)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hill (23)  |  Instance (33)  |  Interest (416)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Large (398)  |  Last (425)  |  Miniature (7)  |  More (2558)  |  Moss (14)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Noble (93)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Plurality (5)  |  Quality (139)  |  Range (104)  |  Richness (15)  |  Say (989)  |  Single (365)  |  Small (489)  |  Stone (168)  |  Structure (365)  |  Surface (223)  |  Two (936)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

For the most part, Western medicine doctors are not healers, preventers, listeners, or educators. But they're damned good at saving a life and the other aspects kick the beam. It's about time we brought some balance back to the scale.
Science quotes on:  |  Aspect (129)  |  Back (395)  |  Balance (82)  |  Beam (26)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Educator (7)  |  Good (906)  |  Life (1870)  |  Listener (7)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Most (1728)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physician (284)  |  Time (1911)  |  Western (45)

Fractals are patterns which occur on many levels. This concept can be applied to any musical parameter. I make melodic fractals, where the pitches of a theme I dream up are used to determine a melodic shape on several levels, in space and time. I make rhythmic fractals, where a set of durations associated with a motive get stretched and compressed and maybe layered on top of each other. I make loudness fractals, where the characteristic loudness of a sound, its envelope shape, is found on several time scales. I even make fractals with the form of a piece, its instrumentation, density, range, and so on. Here I’ve separated the parameters of music, but in a real piece, all of these things are combined, so you might call it a fractal of fractals.
Interview (1999) on The Discovery Channel. As quoted by Benoit B. Manelbrot and Richard Hudson in The (Mis)Behaviour of Markets: A Fractal View of Risk, Ruin and Reward (2010), 133.
Science quotes on:  |  Applied (176)  |  Associated (2)  |  Call (781)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Combined (3)  |  Compressed (3)  |  Concept (242)  |  Density (25)  |  Determine (152)  |  Dream (222)  |  Duration (12)  |  Envelope (6)  |  Form (976)  |  Fractal (11)  |  Instrumentation (4)  |  Layer (41)  |  Layered (2)  |  Level (69)  |  Loudness (3)  |  Motive (62)  |  Music (133)  |  Musical (10)  |  Occur (151)  |  Other (2233)  |  Parameter (4)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Piece (39)  |  Pitch (17)  |  Range (104)  |  Real (159)  |  Rhythmic (2)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Separate (151)  |  Set (400)  |  Shape (77)  |  Sound (187)  |  Space (523)  |  Space And Time (38)  |  Stretch (39)  |  Stretched (2)  |  Theme (17)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Time And Space (39)  |  Top (100)

From packaging materials, through fibers, foams and surface coatings, to continuous extrusions and large-scale moldings, plastics have transformed almost every aspect of life. Without them, much of modern medicine would be impossible and the consumer electronics and computer industries would disappear. Plastic sewage and water pipes alone have made an immeasurable contribution to public health worldwide.
'Plastics—No Need To Apologize', Trends in Polymer Science (Jun 1996), 4, 172. In Paul C. Painter and Michael M. Coleman, Essentials of Polymer Science and Engineering (2008), 21.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Aspect (129)  |  Computer (131)  |  Consumer (6)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Disappearance (28)  |  Electronics (21)  |  Fiber (16)  |  Health (210)  |  Immeasurable (4)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Industry (159)  |  Large (398)  |  Life (1870)  |  Material (366)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Modern (402)  |  Mold (37)  |  Pipe (7)  |  Plastic (30)  |  Public (100)  |  Public Health (12)  |  Sewage (9)  |  Surface (223)  |  Through (846)  |  Transform (74)  |  Transformation (72)  |  Water (503)  |  Worldwide (19)

Geology, in the magnitude and sublimity of the objects of which it treats, undoubtedly ranks, in the scale of the sciences, next to astronomy.
In Dionysius Lardner (ed.), Cabinet Cyclopaedia, Vol 1, Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy (1831), 287.
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Geology (240)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Next (238)  |  Object (438)  |  Rank (69)

How many and how curious problems concern the commonest of the sea-snails creeping over the wet sea-weed! In how many points of view may its history be considered! There are its origin and development, the mystery of its generation, the phenomena of its growth, all concerning each apparently insignificant individual; there is the history of the species, the value of its distinctive marks, the features which link it with the higher and lower creatures, the reason why it takes its stand where we place it in the scale of creation, the course of its distribution, the causes of its diffusion, its antiquity or novelty, the mystery (deepest of mysteries) of its first appearance, the changes of the outline of continents and of oceans which have taken place since its advent, and their influence on its own wanderings.
On the Natural History of European Seas. In George Wilson and Archibald Geikie, Memoir of Edward Forbes F.R.S. (1861), 547-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Antiquity (34)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Cause (561)  |  Change (639)  |  Concern (239)  |  Consider (428)  |  Continent (79)  |  Course (413)  |  Creation (350)  |  Creature (242)  |  Curious (95)  |  Development (441)  |  Diffusion (13)  |  Distinctive (25)  |  Distribution (51)  |  Evolution (635)  |  First (1302)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Generation (256)  |  Growth (200)  |  History (716)  |  Individual (420)  |  Influence (231)  |  Insignificant (33)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Novelty (31)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Origin (250)  |  Point (584)  |  Problem (731)  |  Reason (766)  |  Sea (326)  |  Sea-Snail (2)  |  Snail (11)  |  Species (435)  |  Stand (284)  |  Value (393)  |  View (496)  |  Weed (19)  |  Why (491)

However much we may enlarge our ideas of the time which has elapsed since the Niagara first began to drain the waters of the upper lakes, we have seen that this period was one only of a series, all belonging to the present zoological epoch; or that in which the living testaceous fauna, whether freshwater or marine, had already come into being. If such events can take place while the zoology of the earth remains almost stationary and unaltered, what ages may not be comprehended in those successive tertiary periods during which the Flora and Fauna of the globe have been almost entirely changed. Yet how subordinate a place in the long calendar of geological chronology do the successive tertiary periods themselves occupy! How much more enormous a duration must we assign to many antecedent revolutions of the earth and its inhabitants! No analogy can be found in the natural world to the immense scale of these divisions of past time, unless we contemplate the celestial spaces which have been measured by the astronomer.
Travels in North America (1845), Vol. 1, 51-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Already (226)  |  Analogy (76)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belonging (36)  |  Calendar (9)  |  Celestial (53)  |  Chronology (9)  |  Division (67)  |  Do (1905)  |  Drain (12)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Enlarge (37)  |  Epoch (46)  |  Event (222)  |  First (1302)  |  Freshwater (3)  |  Idea (881)  |  Immense (89)  |  Inhabitant (50)  |  Lake (36)  |  Living (492)  |  Long (778)  |  Marine Biology (24)  |  Marine Geology (2)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Niagara (8)  |  Niagara Falls (4)  |  Past (355)  |  Period (200)  |  Present (630)  |  Remain (355)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Series (153)  |  Space (523)  |  Stationary (11)  |  Successive (73)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Time (1911)  |  Water (503)  |  World (1850)  |  Zoology (38)

I believe that life can go on forever. It takes a million years to evolve a new species, ten million for a new genus, one hundred million for a class, a billion for a phylum—and that’s usually as far as your imagination goes. In a billion years, it seems, intelligent life might be as different from humans as humans are from insects. But what would happen in another ten billion years? It’s utterly impossible to conceive of ourselves changing as drastically as that, over and over again. All you can say is, on that kind of time scale the material form that life would take is completely open. To change from a human being to a cloud may seem a big order, but it’s the kind of change you’d expect over billions of years.
Quoted in Omni (1986), 8, 38.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Billion (104)  |  Change (639)  |  Class (168)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Completely (137)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Different (595)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Expect (203)  |  Forever (111)  |  Form (976)  |  Genus (27)  |  Happen (282)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Insect (89)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Kind (564)  |  Life (1870)  |  Material (366)  |  New (1273)  |  Open (277)  |  Order (638)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Say (989)  |  Species (435)  |  Time (1911)  |  Usually (176)  |  Year (963)

I grew up in Brooklyn, New York … a city neighborhood that included houses, lampposts, walls, and bushes. But with an early bedtime in the winter, I could look out my window and see the stars, and the stars were not like anything else in my neighborhood. [At age 5] I didn’t know what they were.
[At age 9] my mother … said to me, “You have a library card now, and you know how to read. Take the streetcar to the library and get a book on stars.” … I stepped up to the big librarian and asked for a book on stars. … I sat down and found out the answer, which was something really stunning.
I found out that the stars are glowing balls of gas. I also found out that the Sun is a star but really close and that the stars are all suns except really far away I didn’t know any physics or mathematics at that time, but I could imagine how far you’d have to move the Sun away from us till it was only as bright as a star. It was in that library, reading that book, that the scale of the universe opened up to me. There was something beautiful about it.
At that young age, I already knew that I’d be very happy if I could devote my life to finding out more about the stars and the planets that go around them. And it’s been my great good fortune to do just that.
Quoted in interview with Jack Rightmyer, in 'Stars in His Eyes', Highlights For Children (1 Jan 1997). Ages as given in Tom Head (ed.), Conversations with Carl Sagan (2006), x.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Already (226)  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Ball (64)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Biography (254)  |  Book (413)  |  Bright (81)  |  Brooklyn (3)  |  Career (86)  |  Child (333)  |  City (87)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Early (196)  |  Fortune (50)  |  Gas (89)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Happy (108)  |  House (143)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Know (1538)  |  Library (53)  |  Life (1870)  |  Look (584)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  More (2558)  |  Mother (116)  |  Move (223)  |  Neighborhood (12)  |  New (1273)  |  Open (277)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Planet (402)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  See (1094)  |  Something (718)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Sun (407)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universe (900)  |  Wall (71)  |  Window (59)  |  Winter (46)  |  Young (253)

I had this experience at the age of eight. My parents gave me a microscope. I don’t recall why, but no matter. I then found my own little world, completely wild and unconstrained, no plastic, no teacher, no books, no anything predictable. At first I did not know the names of the water-drop denizens or what they were doing. But neither did the pioneer microscopists. Like them, I graduated to looking at butterfly scales and other miscellaneous objects. I never thought of what I was doing in such a way, but it was pure science. As true as could be of any child so engaged, I was kin to Leeuwenhoek, who said that his work “was not pursued in order to gain the praise I now enjoy, but chiefly from a craving after knowledge, which I notice resides in me more that most other men.”
In The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth (2010), 143-144.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Book (413)  |  Butterfly (26)  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Child (333)  |  Complete (209)  |  Completely (137)  |  Craving (5)  |  Doing (277)  |  Drop (77)  |  Enjoyment (37)  |  Experience (494)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Gain (146)  |  Graduation (6)  |  Kin (10)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (17)  |  Little (717)  |  Looking (191)  |  Matter (821)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Microscopist (2)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Name (359)  |  Never (1089)  |  Notice (81)  |  Object (438)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Parent (80)  |  Pioneer (37)  |  Plastic (30)  |  Praise (28)  |  Predictability (7)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Science (30)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Reside (25)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Thought (995)  |  Unconstrained (2)  |  Water (503)  |  Way (1214)  |  Why (491)  |  Wild (96)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

I have been much amused at ye singular φενόμενα [phenomena] resulting from bringing of a needle into contact with a piece of amber or resin fricated on silke clothe. Ye flame putteth me in mind of sheet lightning on a small—how very small—scale.
Letter to Dr. Law (15 Dec 1716) as quoted in Norman Lockyer, (ed.), Nature (25 May 1881), 24, 39. The source refers to it as an unpublished letter. Newton's comment relating the spark of static electricity with lightning long predates the work of Benjamin Franklin.
Science quotes on:  |  Amber (3)  |  Amused (3)  |  Cloth (6)  |  Contact (66)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Flame (44)  |  Lightning (49)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Needle (7)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Resin (2)  |  Silk (14)  |  Singular (24)  |  Small (489)  |  Spark (32)

If I’m concerned about what an electron does in an amorphous mass then I become an electron. I try to have that picture in my mind and to behave like an electron, looking at the problem in all its dimensions and scales.
Quoted in Timothy L. O’Brien, 'Not Invented here: Are U.S. Innovators Losing Their Competitive Edge?', New York Times (13 Nov 2005), B6.
Science quotes on:  |  Amorphous (6)  |  Become (821)  |  Behave (18)  |  Concern (239)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Electron (96)  |  Looking (191)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Picture (148)  |  Problem (731)  |  Try (296)

In a class I was taking there was one boy who was much older than the rest. He clearly had no motive to work. I told him that, if he could produce for me, accurately to scale, drawings of the pieces of wood required to make a desk like the one he was sitting at, I would try to persuade the Headmaster to let him do woodwork during the mathematics hours—in the course of which, no doubt, he would learn something about measurement and numbers. Next day, he turned up with this task completed to perfection. This I have often found with pupils; it is not so much that they cannot do the work, as that they see no purpose in it.
In Mathematician's Delight (1943), 52.
Science quotes on:  |  Accurate (88)  |  Boy (100)  |  Class (168)  |  Complete (209)  |  Completed (30)  |  Course (413)  |  Desk (13)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Draw (140)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Hour (192)  |  Learn (672)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Motive (62)  |  Next (238)  |  Number (710)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Persuade (11)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Required (108)  |  Rest (287)  |  See (1094)  |  Sitting (44)  |  Something (718)  |  Task (152)  |  Try (296)  |  Turn (454)  |  Wood (97)  |  Woodwork (2)  |  Work (1402)

In design, people like Buckminster Fuller amazed me at the levels at which he could think. He could think molecularly. And he could think at the almost galactic scale. And the idea that somebody could actually talk about molecules and talk about buildings and structures and talk about space just amazed me. As I get older–I’ll be 60 next year–what I’ve discovered is that I find myself in those three realms too.
In interview with Kerry A. Dolan, 'William McDonough On Cradle-to-Cradle Design', Forbes (4 Aug 2010)
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Age (509)  |  Amazement (19)  |  Building (158)  |  Design (203)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Find (1014)  |  R. Buckminster Fuller (16)  |  Galactic (6)  |  Galaxy (53)  |  Idea (881)  |  Level (69)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Myself (211)  |  Next (238)  |  People (1031)  |  Realm (87)  |  Space (523)  |  Structure (365)  |  Talk (108)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Three (10)  |  Year (963)

In geologists’ own lives, the least effect of time is that they think in two languages, function on two different scales. … “A million years is a short time—the shortest worth messing with for most problems.”
In Basin and Range (1981), 134.
Science quotes on:  |  Different (595)  |  Effect (414)  |  Function (235)  |  Geologist (82)  |  Language (308)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Million (124)  |  Most (1728)  |  Problem (731)  |  Short (200)  |  Shortest (16)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Worth (172)  |  Year (963)

In no case may we interpret an action [of an animal] as the outcome of the exercise of a higher psychical faculty, if it can be interpreted as the outcome of the exercise of one which stands lower in the psychological scale.
[Morgan's canon, the principle of parsimony in animal research.]
An Introduction to Comparative Psychology (1894), 53.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Animal (651)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Outcome (15)  |  Principle (530)  |  Psychological (42)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Research (753)  |  Stand (284)

In the real changes which animals undergo during their embryonic growth, in those external transformations as well as in those structural modifications within the body, we have a natural scale to measure the degree or the gradation of those full grown animals which corresponds in their external form and in their structure, to those various degrees in the metamorphoses of animals, as illustrated by embryonic changes, a real foundation for zoological classification.
From Lecture 4, collected in Twelve Lectures on Comparative Embryology: Delivered Before the Lowell Institute in Boston: December and January 1848-9 (1849), 29.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Body (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Classification (102)  |  Degree (277)  |  Embryo (30)  |  Form (976)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Gradation (17)  |  Growth (200)  |  Illustrate (14)  |  Measure (241)  |  Modification (57)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Structural (29)  |  Structure (365)  |  Taxonomy (19)  |  Transformation (72)  |  Various (205)  |  Zoological (5)

Industrial Society is not merely one containing 'industry,' large-scale productive units capable of supplying man's material needs in a way which can eliminate poverty: it is also a society in which knowledge plays a part wholly different from that which it played in earlier social forms, and which indeed possesses a quite different type of knowledge. Modern science is inconceivable outside an industrial society: but modern industrial society is equally inconceivable without modern science. Roughly, science is the mode of cognition of industrial society, and industry is the ecology of science.
Thought and Change (1965), 179.
Science quotes on:  |  Capable (174)  |  Cognition (7)  |  Different (595)  |  Ecology (81)  |  Equally (129)  |  Form (976)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Industry (159)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Large (398)  |  Man (2252)  |  Material (366)  |  Merely (315)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Science (55)  |  Outside (141)  |  Poverty (40)  |  Productive (37)  |  Social (261)  |  Society (350)  |  Type (171)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wholly (88)

Is man a peculiar organism? Does he originate in a wholly different way from a dog, bird, frog, or fish? and does he thereby justify those who assert that he has no place in nature, and no real relationship with the lower world of animal life? Or does he develop from a similar embryo, and undergo the same slow and gradual progressive modifications? The answer is not for an instant doubtful, and has not been doubtful for the last thirty years. The mode of man’s origin and the earlier stages of his development are undoubtedly identical with those of the animals standing directly below him in the scale; without the slightest doubt, he stands in this respect nearer the ape than the ape does to the dog. (1863)
As quoted in Ernst Haeckel and E. Ray Lankester (trans.) as epigraph for Chap. 12, The History of Creation (1886), Vol. 1, 364.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Animal Life (21)  |  Answer (389)  |  Ape (54)  |  Assert (69)  |  Bird (163)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Dog (70)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Doubtful (30)  |  Embryo (30)  |  Fish (130)  |  Frog (44)  |  Gradual (30)  |  Identical (55)  |  Instant (46)  |  Justify (26)  |  Last (425)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lower (11)  |  Man (2252)  |  Modification (57)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nearer (45)  |  Organism (231)  |  Origin (250)  |  Origin Of Man (9)  |  Originate (39)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Place (192)  |  Progressive (21)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Respect (212)  |  Similar (36)  |  Slow (108)  |  Stage (152)  |  Stand (284)  |  Undergo (18)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wholly (88)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

It is a scale of proportions which makes the bad difficult and the good easy.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Bad (185)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Easy (213)  |  Good (906)  |  Proportion (140)

It is a very strange thing to reflect that but for the invention of Professor Haber the Germans could not have continued the War after their original stack of nitrates was exhausted. The invention of this single man has enabled them, utilising the interval in which their accumulations were used up, not only to maintain an almost unlimited supply of explosives for all purposes, but to provide amply for the needs of agriculture in chemical manures. It is a remarkable fact, and shows on what obscure and accidental incidents the fortunes of possible the whole world may turn in these days of scientific discovery.
[During World War I, Fritz Haber and Karl Bosch invented a large scale process to cause the direct combination of hydrogen and nitrogen gases to chemically synthesize ammonia, thus providing a replacement for sodium nitrate in the manufacture of explosives and fertilizers.]
Parliamentary debate (25 Apr 1918). In Winston Churchill, Richard Langworth (ed.), Churchill by Himself: The Definitive Collection of Quotations (2008), 469. by Winston Churchill, Richard Langworth
Science quotes on:  |  Accidental (31)  |  Accumulation (51)  |  Agriculture (78)  |  Ammonia (15)  |  Cause (561)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Combination (150)  |  Direct (228)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Explosive (24)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fertilizer (13)  |  Fortune (50)  |  German (37)  |  Fritz Haber (4)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Invention (400)  |  Large (398)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Man (2252)  |  Manufacture (30)  |  Nitrogen (32)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Possible (560)  |  Process (439)  |  Professor (133)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Replacement (13)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Show (353)  |  Single (365)  |  Sodium (15)  |  Strange (160)  |  Supply (100)  |  Synthesis (58)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Turn (454)  |  Unlimited (24)  |  War (233)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

It is not I who seek to base Man's dignity upon his great toe, or insinuate that we are lost if an Ape has a hippocampus minor. On the contrary, I have done my best to sweep away this vanity. I have endeavoured to show that no absolute structural line of demarcation, wider than that between the animals which immediately succeed us in the scale, can be drawn between the animal world and ourselves; and I may add the expression of my belief that the attempt to draw a physical distinction is equally futile, and that even the highest facuities of feeling and of intellect begin to germinate in lower forms of life. At the same time, no one is more strongly convinced than I am of the vastness of the gulf between civilized man and the brutes; or is more certain that whether from them or not, he is assuredly not of them.
'On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals' (1863). In Collected Essays (1894), Vol. 7. 152-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Animal (651)  |  Ape (54)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Base (120)  |  Begin (275)  |  Belief (615)  |  Best (467)  |  Brute (30)  |  Certain (557)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Dignity (44)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Draw (140)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Equally (129)  |  Expression (181)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Form (976)  |  Futile (13)  |  Great (1610)  |  Gulf (18)  |  Hippocampus (2)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Physical (518)  |  Seek (218)  |  Show (353)  |  Structural (29)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Sweep (22)  |  Time (1911)  |  Vastness (15)  |  World (1850)

It would appear... that moral phenomena, when observed on a great scale, are found to resemble physical phenomena; and we thus arrive, in inquiries of this kind, at the fundamental principle, that the greater the number of individuals observed, the more do individual peculiarities, whether physical or moral, become effaced, and leave in a prominent point of view the general facts, by virtue of which society exists and is preserved.
A Treatise on Man and the Development of his Faculties (1842). Reprinted with an introduction by Solomon Diamond (1969), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Do (1905)  |  Efface (6)  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  General (521)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Greatness (55)  |  Individual (420)  |  Kind (564)  |  Moral (203)  |  More (2558)  |  Number (710)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Peculiarity (26)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physical (518)  |  Point (584)  |  Point Of View (85)  |  Preservation (39)  |  Principle (530)  |  Prominent (6)  |  Resemblance (39)  |  Resemble (65)  |  Society (350)  |  View (496)  |  Virtue (117)

Knowing what we know from X-ray and related studies of the fibrous proteins, how they are built from long polypeptide chains with linear patterns drawn to a grand scale, how these chains can contract and take up different configurations by intramolecular folding, how the chain- groups are penetrated by, and their sidechains react with, smaller co-operating molecules, and finally how they can combine so readily with nucleic acid molecules and still maintain the fibrous configuration, it is but natural to assume, as a first working hypothesis at least, that they form the long scroll on which is written the pattern of life. No other molecules satisfy so many requirements.
William Thomas Astbury and Florence O. Bell. 'Some Recent Developments in the X-Ray Study of Proteins and Related Structures', Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology, 1938, 6, 1144.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Combine (58)  |  Different (595)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Life (1870)  |  Linear (13)  |  Long (778)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nucleic Acid (23)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Protein (56)  |  Ray (115)  |  Requirement (66)  |  Still (614)  |  Structure (365)  |  X-ray (43)

LEAD, n. A heavy blue-gray metal much used ... as a counterpoise to an argument of such weight that it turns the scale of debate the wrong way. An interesting fact in the chemistry of international controversy is that at the point of contact of two patriotisms lead is precipitated in great quantities.
[Referring to bullets.]
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce (1911), Vol. 7, The Devil's Dictionary,  187.
Science quotes on:  |  Ammunition (2)  |  Argument (145)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Contact (66)  |  Controversy (30)  |  Debate (40)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Great (1610)  |  Humour (116)  |  Interesting (153)  |  International (40)  |  Lead (391)  |  Metal (88)  |  Patriotism (9)  |  Point (584)  |  Turn (454)  |  Two (936)  |  War (233)  |  Way (1214)  |  Weight (140)  |  Wrong (246)

Look Nature thro’, ’tis neat Gradation all.
By what minute Degrees her Scale ascends!
Each middle Nature join’d at each Extreme,
To that above it join’d, to that beneath.
The Complaint: or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality (1742, 1750), Night 6, 140.
Science quotes on:  |  Ascend (30)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Degree (277)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Gradation (17)  |  Join (32)  |  Look (584)  |  Middle (19)  |  Minute (129)  |  Nature (2017)

Magnitude may be compared to the power output in kilowatts of a [radio] broadcasting station; local intensity, on the Mercalli or similar scale, is then comparable to the signal strength noted on a receiver at a given locality. Intensity, like signal strength, will generally fall off with distance from the source; it will also depend on local conditions at the point of observation, and to some extent on the conditions along the path from source to that point.
From interview in the Earthquake Information Bulletin (Jul-Aug 1971), 3, No. 4, as abridged in article on USGS website.
Science quotes on:  |  Comparable (7)  |  Compare (76)  |  Condition (362)  |  Depend (238)  |  Distance (171)  |  Extent (142)  |  Fall (243)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Kilowatt (2)  |  Local (25)  |  Locality (8)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Observation (593)  |  Output (12)  |  Path (159)  |  Point (584)  |  Power (771)  |  Radio (60)  |  Receiver (5)  |  Signal (29)  |  Source (101)  |  Station (30)  |  Strength (139)  |  Will (2350)

Man may be excused for feeling some pride at having risen, though not through his own exertions, to the very summit of the organic scale; and the fact of his having thus risen, instead of having been aboriginally placed there, may give him hopes for a still higher destiny in the distant future. But we are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with the truth as far as our reason allows us to discover it. I have given the evidence to the best of my ability; and we must acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system—with all these exalted powers—Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.
Concluding remarks. The Descent of Man (1871), Vol. 2, 405.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Acknowledge (33)  |  Bear (162)  |  Benevolence (11)  |  Best (467)  |  Concern (239)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Creature (242)  |  Destiny (54)  |  Discover (571)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exalt (29)  |  Exalted (22)  |  Extend (129)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fear (212)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Future (467)  |  God (776)  |  Hope (321)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Humblest (4)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Living (492)  |  Man (2252)  |  Most (1728)  |  Movement (162)  |  Must (1525)  |  Noble (93)  |  Organic (161)  |  Origin (250)  |  Other (2233)  |  Power (771)  |  Pride (84)  |  Reason (766)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Stamp (36)  |  Still (614)  |  Summit (27)  |  Sympathy (35)  |  System (545)  |  Through (846)  |  Truth (1109)

Mars tugs at the human imagination like no other planet. With a force mightier than gravity, it attracts the eye to its shimmering red presence in the clear night sky. It is like a glowing ember in a field of ethereal lights, projecting energy and promise. It inspires visions of an approachable world. The mind vaults to thoughts of what might have been (if Mars were a litter closer to the warming Sun) and of what could be (if humans were one day to plant colonies there). Mysterious Mars, alluring Mars, fourth planet from the Sun: so far away and yet, on a cosmic scale, so very near.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Alluring (5)  |  Attract (25)  |  Clear (111)  |  Close (77)  |  Closer (43)  |  Colony (8)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Ember (2)  |  Energy (373)  |  Ethereal (9)  |  Eye (440)  |  Far (158)  |  Field (378)  |  Force (497)  |  Fourth (8)  |  Glow (15)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Human (1512)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Inspire (58)  |  Light (635)  |  Litter (5)  |  Mars (47)  |  Mighty (13)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mysterious (83)  |  Night (133)  |  Other (2233)  |  Planet (402)  |  Plant (320)  |  Presence (63)  |  Project (77)  |  Promise (72)  |  Red (38)  |  Shimmering (2)  |  Sky (174)  |  Sun (407)  |  Thought (995)  |  Vault (2)  |  Vision (127)  |  Warm (74)  |  Warming (24)  |  World (1850)

Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing else but medicine on a large scale.
From the original German “Die Medicin ist eine sociale Wissenschaft, und die Politik ist weiter nichts, als Medicin im Grossen.” In his weekly medical newspaper, 'Der Armenarzt' (Poor Doctor), Die Medizinische Reform, (3 Nov 1848), 3, No. 18, 125. As translated in Henry Ernest Sigerist, Medicine and Human Welfare, (1941) 93.
Science quotes on:  |  Large (398)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Politics (122)  |  Social (261)  |  Social Science (37)

My picture of the world is drawn in perspective and not like a model to scale. The foreground is occupied by human beings and the stars are all as small as three-penny bits. I don't really believe in astronomy, except as a complicated description of part of the course of human and possibly animal sensation. I apply my perspective not merely to space but also to time. In time the world will cool and everything will die; but that is a long time off still and its present value at compound discount is almost nothing.
From a paper read to the Apostles, a Cambridge discussion society (1925). In 'The Foundations of Mathematics' (1925), collected in Frank Plumpton Ramsey and D.H. Mellor (ed.), Philosophical Papers (1990), Epilogue, 249. Citation to the paper, in Nils-Eric Sahlin, The Philosophy of F.P. Ramsey (1990), 225.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Application (257)  |  Apply (170)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belief (615)  |  Coin (13)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Complication (30)  |  Compound (117)  |  Cooling (10)  |  Course (413)  |  Death (406)  |  Description (89)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Everything (489)  |  Foreground (3)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Long (778)  |  Merely (315)  |  Model (106)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Occupation (51)  |  Occupied (45)  |  Part (235)  |  Perspective (28)  |  Picture (148)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Present (630)  |  Sensation (60)  |  Small (489)  |  Space (523)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Still (614)  |  Time (1911)  |  Value (393)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

My sense is that the most under-appreciated–and perhaps most under-researched–linkages between forests and food security are the roles that forest-based ecosystem services play in underpinning sustainable agricultural production. Forests regulate hydrological services including the quantity, quality, and timing of water available for irrigation. Forest-based bats and bees pollinate crops. Forests mitigate impacts of climate change and extreme weather events at the landscape scale.
In 'Forests and food security: What we know and need to know', Forest News online blog by the Center for International Forestry Research (20 Apr 2011).
Science quotes on:  |  Agriculture (78)  |  Availability (10)  |  Available (80)  |  Bat (10)  |  Bee (44)  |  Change (639)  |  Climate (102)  |  Climate Change (76)  |  Crop (26)  |  Ecosystem (33)  |  Event (222)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Food (213)  |  Food Security (7)  |  Forest (161)  |  Hydrology (10)  |  Impact (45)  |  Irrigation (12)  |  Landscape (46)  |  Linkage (5)  |  Mitigation (2)  |  Most (1728)  |  Production (190)  |  Quality (139)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Regulation (25)  |  Research (753)  |  Role (86)  |  Security (51)  |  Sense (785)  |  Service (110)  |  Sustainable (14)  |  Sustainable Agriculture (3)  |  Underpinning (2)  |  Water (503)  |  Weather (49)

Nature proceeds little by little from things lifeless to animal life in such a way that it is impossible to determine the exact line of demarcation, nor on which side thereof an intermediate form should lie. Thus, next after lifeless things comes the plant, and of plants one will differ from another as to its amount of apparent vitality; and, in a word, the whole genus of plants, whilst it is devoid of life as compared with an animal, is endowed with life as compared with other corporeal entities. Indeed, as we just remarked, there is observed in plants a continuous scale of ascent towards the animal. So, in the sea, there are certain objects concerning which one would be at a loss to determine whether they be animal or vegetable. For instance, certain of these objects are fairly rooted, and in several cases perish if detached.
Aristotle
History of Animals, 588b, 4-14. In Jonathan Barnes (ed.) The Complete Works of Aristotle (1984), Vol. 1, 922.
Science quotes on:  |  Amount (153)  |  Animal (651)  |  Animal Life (21)  |  Apparent (85)  |  Certain (557)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Determine (152)  |  Differ (88)  |  Endowed (52)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Form (976)  |  Genus (27)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Intermediate (38)  |  Lie (370)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lifeless (15)  |  Little (717)  |  Loss (117)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Next (238)  |  Object (438)  |  Observed (149)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perish (56)  |  Plant (320)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Root (121)  |  Sea (326)  |  Side (236)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Vegetable (49)  |  Vitality (24)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)

Newton was probably responsible for the concept that there are seven primary colours in the spectrum—he had a strong interest in musical harmonies and, since there are seven distinct notes in the musical scale, he divided up the spectrum into spectral bands with widths corresponding to the ratios of the small whole numbers found in the just scale.
In 'Light and Colour', Trevor Lamb and Janine Bourriau, Colour: Art & Science (1995), 72.
Science quotes on:  |  Color (155)  |  Concept (242)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Divide (77)  |  Divided (50)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Interest (416)  |  Music (133)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Note (39)  |  Number (710)  |  Primary (82)  |  Ratio (41)  |  Responsible (19)  |  Seven (5)  |  Small (489)  |  Spectrum (35)  |  Strong (182)  |  Whole (756)

Now it is a well-known principle of zoological evolution that an isolated region, if large and sufficiently varied in its topography, soil, climate and vegetation, will give rise to a diversified fauna according to the law of adaptive radiation from primitive and central types. Branches will spring off in all directions to take advantage of every possible opportunity of securing food. The modifications which animals undergo in this adaptive radiation are largely of mechanical nature, they are limited in number and kind by hereditary, stirp or germinal influences, and thus result in the independent evolution of similar types in widely-separated regions under the law of parallelism or homoplasy. This law causes the independent origin not only of similar genera but of similar families and even of our similar orders. Nature thus repeats herself upon a vast scale, but the similarity is never complete and exact.
'The Geological and Faunal Relations of Europe and America during the Tertiary Period and the Theory of the Successive Invasions of an African Fauna', Science (1900), 11, 563-64.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Adaptation (59)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Animal (651)  |  Branch (155)  |  Cause (561)  |  Central (81)  |  Climate (102)  |  Complete (209)  |  Completeness (19)  |  Direction (185)  |  Diversification (2)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exactness (29)  |  Family (101)  |  Fauna (13)  |  Food (213)  |  Genus (27)  |  Heredity (62)  |  Independence (37)  |  Influence (231)  |  Isolation (32)  |  Kind (564)  |  Known (453)  |  Large (398)  |  Law (913)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Modification (57)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Number (710)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Order (638)  |  Origin (250)  |  Parallelism (2)  |  Possible (560)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Principle (530)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Region (40)  |  Repetition (29)  |  Result (700)  |  Rise (169)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Soil (98)  |  Spring (140)  |  Type (171)  |  Variation (93)  |  Vast (188)  |  Vegetation (24)  |  Will (2350)  |  Zoology (38)

O truth of the earth! O truth of things! I am determin’d to press my way toward you;
Sound your voice! I scale mountains, or dive in the sea after you.
In poem, 'Great are the Myths', Leaves of Grass (1867), 292.
Science quotes on:  |  Determined (9)  |  Dive (13)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Sea (326)  |  Sound (187)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Voice (54)  |  Way (1214)

On the most usual assumption, the universe is homogeneous on the large scale, i.e. down to regions containing each an appreciable number of nebulae. The homogeneity assumption may then be put in the form: An observer situated in a nebula and moving with the nebula will observe the same properties of the universe as any other similarly situated observer at any time.
From 'Review of Cosmology,', Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (1948), 107-8; as quoted and cited in Hermann Friedmann, Wissenschaft und Symbol, Biederstein (1949), 472.
Science quotes on:  |  Appreciable (2)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Containing (3)  |  Down (455)  |  Form (976)  |  Homogeneity (9)  |  Homogeneous (17)  |  Large (398)  |  Most (1728)  |  Moving (11)  |  Nebula (16)  |  Number (710)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observe (179)  |  Observer (48)  |  Other (2233)  |  Property (177)  |  Region (40)  |  Same (166)  |  Similar (36)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universe (900)  |  Will (2350)

On the whole, at least in the author's experience, the preparation of species-specific antiserum fractions and the differentiation of closely related species with precipitin sera for serum proteins does not succeed so regularly as with agglutinins and lysins for blood cells. This may be due to the fact that in the evolutional scale the proteins undergo continuous variations whereas cell antigens are subject to sudden changes not linked by intermediary stages.
The Specificity of Serological Reactions (1936), 12-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Agglutinin (2)  |  Antigen (5)  |  Author (175)  |  Blood (144)  |  Cell (146)  |  Change (639)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Differentiation (28)  |  Due (143)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Preparation (60)  |  Protein (56)  |  Serum (11)  |  Species (435)  |  Specific (98)  |  Stage (152)  |  Subject (543)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Variation (93)  |  Whole (756)

Once you go from 10 people to 100, you already don’t know who everyone is. So at that stage you might as well keep growing, to get the advantages of scale.
As quoted, without citation, in Can Akdeniz, Fast MBA (2014), 281.
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Already (226)  |  Everyone (35)  |  Grow (247)  |  Growing (99)  |  Keep (104)  |  Know (1538)  |  People (1031)  |  Person (366)  |  Stage (152)

One cannot ignore half of life for the purposes of science, and then claim that the results of science give a full and adequate picture of the meaning of life. All discussions of “life” which begin with a description of man's place on a speck of matter in space, in an endless evolutionary scale, are bound to be half-measures, because they leave out most of the experiences which are important to use as human beings.
In Religion and the Rebel (1957), 309.
Science quotes on:  |  Adequate (50)  |  Begin (275)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bound (120)  |  Claim (154)  |  Description (89)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Endless (60)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Experience (494)  |  Full (68)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Ignore (52)  |  Important (229)  |  Leave Out (2)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Meaning Of Life (2)  |  Measure (241)  |  Most (1728)  |  Picture (148)  |  Place (192)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Result (700)  |  Space (523)  |  Speck (25)  |  Use (771)

One of my inventions was a large thermometer made of an iron rod, … The expansion and contraction of this rod was multiplied by a series of levers … so that the slightest change in the length of the rod was instantly shown on a dial about three feet wide multiplied about thirty-two thousand times. The zero-point was gained by packing the rod in wet snow. The scale was so large that … the temperature read while we were ploughing in the field below the house.
From The Story of My Boyhood and Youth (1913), 258-259. One of the inventions made while growing up on his father’s farm, before he left the year after he was 21.
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Contraction (18)  |  Dial (9)  |  Expansion (43)  |  Field (378)  |  Gain (146)  |  House (143)  |  Instantly (20)  |  Invention (400)  |  Iron (99)  |  Large (398)  |  Lever (13)  |  Melting Point (3)  |  Multiply (40)  |  Ploughing (3)  |  Point (584)  |  Read (308)  |  Rod (6)  |  Series (153)  |  Snow (39)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Thermometer (11)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Wide (97)  |  Zero (38)

Our plenteous streams a various race supply,
The bright-eye Perch with fins of Tyrian dye,
The silver Eel, in shining volumes roll’d,
The yellow Carp, in scales bedropp’d with gold,
Swift Trouts, diversified with crimson stains,
And Pykes, the Tyrants of the wat’ry plains.
In poem, 'Windsor Forest', collected in The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope (1718), 51.
Science quotes on:  |  Bright (81)  |  Crimson (4)  |  Dye (10)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fin (4)  |  Gold (101)  |  Marine Biology (24)  |  Perch (7)  |  Race (278)  |  Roll (41)  |  Shining (35)  |  Silver (49)  |  Stain (10)  |  Stream (83)  |  Supply (100)  |  Swift (16)  |  Trout (4)  |  Tyrant (10)  |  Various (205)  |  Water (503)  |  Yellow (31)

Over very long time scales, when the perturbing influences of both Jupiter and Saturn are taken into account, the seemingly regular orbits of asteroids that stray into the Kirkwood gaps turn chaotic. For millions of years … such an orbit seems predictable. Then the path grows increasingly eccentric until it begins to cross the orbit of Mars and then the Earth. Collisions or close encounters with those planets are inevitable.
In article 'Tales of Chaos: Tumbling Moons and Unstable Asteroids", New York Times (20 Jan 1987), C3.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Asteroid (19)  |  Begin (275)  |  Both (496)  |  Chaos (99)  |  Collision (16)  |  Cross (20)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Eccentric (11)  |  Gap (36)  |  Grow (247)  |  Inevitable (53)  |  Influence (231)  |  Jupiter (28)  |  Long (778)  |  Mars (47)  |  Million (124)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Path (159)  |  Perturb (2)  |  Planet (402)  |  Predictable (10)  |  Regular (48)  |  Saturn (15)  |  Seemingly (28)  |  Stray (7)  |  Time (1911)  |  Turn (454)  |  Year (963)

Phenomena unfold on their own appropriate scales of space and time and may be invisible in our myopic world of dimensions assessed by comparison with human height and times metered by human lifespans. So much of accumulating importance at earthly scales ... is invisible by the measuring rod of a human life. So much that matters to particles in the microscopic world of molecules ... either averages out to stability at our scale or simply stands below our limits of perception.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Accumulate (30)  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Assess (4)  |  Average (89)  |  Below (26)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Earthly (8)  |  Height (33)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Life (32)  |  Importance (299)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lifespan (9)  |  Limit (294)  |  Matter (821)  |  Measure (241)  |  Meter (9)  |  Microscopic (27)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Myopic (2)  |  Particle (200)  |  Perception (97)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Rod (6)  |  Simply (53)  |  Space (523)  |  Space And Time (38)  |  Stability (28)  |  Stand (284)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unfold (15)  |  World (1850)

Plenty of mathematicians, Hardy knew, could follow a step-by-step discursus unflaggingly—yet counted for nothing beside Ramanujan. Years later, he would contrive an informal scale of natural mathematical ability on which he assigned himself a 25 and Littlewood a 30. To David Hilbert, the most eminent mathematician of the day, he assigned an 80. To Ramanujan he gave 100.
In The Man who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan (1975), 226.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Assignment (12)  |  Contrive (10)  |  Count (107)  |  Discourse (19)  |  Eminence (25)  |  Follow (389)  |  G. H. Hardy (71)  |  David Hilbert (45)  |  Himself (461)  |  Informal (5)  |  J. E. Littlewood (19)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Most (1728)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Srinivasa Ramanujan (17)  |  Step (234)  |  Year (963)

Saturated with that speculative spirit then pervading the Greek mind, he [Pythagoras] endeavoured to discover some principle of homogeneity in the universe. Before him, the philosophers of the Ionic school had sought it in the matter of things; Pythagoras looked for it in the structure of things. He observed the various numerical relations or analogies between numbers and the phenomena of the universe. Being convinced that it was in numbers and their relations that he was to find the foundation to true philosophy, he proceeded to trace the origin of all things to numbers. Thus he observed that musical strings of equal lengths stretched by weights having the proportion of 1/2, 2/3, 3/4, produced intervals which were an octave, a fifth and a fourth. Harmony, therefore, depends on musical proportion; it is nothing but a mysterious numerical relation. Where harmony is, there are numbers. Hence the order and beauty of the universe have their origin in numbers. There are seven intervals in the musical scale, and also seven planets crossing the heavens. The same numerical relations which underlie the former must underlie the latter. But where number is, there is harmony. Hence his spiritual ear discerned in the planetary motions a wonderful “Harmony of spheres.”
In History of Mathematics (1893), 67.
Science quotes on:  |  Analogy (76)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Being (1276)  |  Convinced (23)  |  Cross (20)  |  Depend (238)  |  Discern (35)  |  Discover (571)  |  Ear (69)  |  Endeavor (74)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Equal (88)  |  Fifth (3)  |  Find (1014)  |  Former (138)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Fourth (8)  |  Greek (109)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Homogeneity (9)  |  Homogeneous (17)  |  Interval (14)  |  Length (24)  |  Look (584)  |  Mathematics As A Fine Art (23)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Motion (320)  |  Musical (10)  |  Must (1525)  |  Mysterious (83)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Number (710)  |  Numerical (39)  |  Observe (179)  |  Observed (149)  |  Octave (3)  |  Order (638)  |  Origin (250)  |  Pervade (10)  |  Pervading (7)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Planet (402)  |  Planetary (29)  |  Principle (530)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Produce (117)  |  Produced (187)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Pythagoras (38)  |  Relation (166)  |  School (227)  |  Seek (218)  |  Speculative (12)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Stretch (39)  |  String (22)  |  Structure (365)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Trace (109)  |  True (239)  |  Underlie (19)  |  Universe (900)  |  Various (205)  |  Weight (140)  |  Wonderful (155)

Science gains from it [the pendulum] more than one can expect. With its huge dimensions, the apparatus presents qualities that one would try in vain to communicate by constructing it on a small [scale], no matter how carefully. Already the regularity of its motion promises the most conclusive results. One collects numbers that, compared with the predictions of theory, permit one to appreciate how far the true pendulum approximates or differs from the abstract system called 'the simple pendulum'.
In 'Demonstration Experimentale du Movement de Rotation de la Terre' (31 May 1851). In C.M. Gariel (ed.), J. Bertrand (ed.) and Harold Burstyn (trans.), Recueil des Travaux Scientifiques de Lion Foucault (1878), Vol. 2, 527.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Already (226)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Appreciate (67)  |  Approximate (25)  |  Call (781)  |  Carefully (65)  |  Communicate (39)  |  Conclusive (11)  |  Differ (88)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Expect (203)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Gain (146)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motion (320)  |  Number (710)  |  Pendulum (17)  |  Permit (61)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Present (630)  |  Promise (72)  |  Regularity (40)  |  Result (700)  |  Simple (426)  |  Small (489)  |  System (545)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Try (296)  |  Vain (86)

Science has been arranging, classifying, methodizing, simplifying, everything except itself. It has made possible the tremendous modern development of power of organization which has so multiplied the effective power of human effort as to make the differences from the past seem to be of kind rather than of degree. It has organized itself very imperfectly. Scientific men are only recently realizing that the principles which apply to success on a large scale in transportation and manufacture and general staff work to apply them; that the difference between a mob and an army does not depend upon occupation or purpose but upon human nature; that the effective power of a great number of scientific men may be increased by organization just as the effective power of a great number of laborers may be increased by military discipline.
'The Need for Organization in Scientific Research', in Bulletin of the National Research Council: The National Importance of Scientific and Industrial Research (Oct 1919), Col 1, Part 1, No. 1, 8.
Science quotes on:  |  Apply (170)  |  Army (35)  |  Classification (102)  |  Degree (277)  |  Depend (238)  |  Development (441)  |  Difference (355)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Effective (68)  |  Effort (243)  |  Everything (489)  |  General (521)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Kind (564)  |  Laborer (9)  |  Large (398)  |  Manufacture (30)  |  Manufacturing (29)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  Military (45)  |  Mob (10)  |  Modern (402)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Number (710)  |  Occupation (51)  |  Organization (120)  |  Past (355)  |  Possible (560)  |  Power (771)  |  Principle (530)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Success (327)  |  Transportation (19)  |  Tremendous (29)  |  Work (1402)

Science is often regarded as the most objective and truth-directed of human enterprises, and since direct observation is supposed to be the favored route to factuality, many people equate respectable science with visual scrutiny–just the facts ma’am, and palpably before my eyes. But science is a battery of observational and inferential methods, all directed to the testing of propositions that can, in principle, be definitely proven false ... At all scales, from smallest to largest, quickest to slowest, many well-documented conclusions of science lie beyond the strictly limited domain of direct observation. No one has ever seen an electron or a black hole, the events of a picosecond or a geological eon.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Battery (12)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Black Hole (17)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Definitely (5)  |  Direct (228)  |  Domain (72)  |  Electron (96)  |  Enterprise (56)  |  Eon (12)  |  Equate (3)  |  Event (222)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Factuality (2)  |  False (105)  |  Favor (69)  |  Favored (5)  |  Geological (11)  |  Human (1512)  |  Inferential (2)  |  Large (398)  |  Largest (39)  |  Lie (370)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Method (531)  |  Most (1728)  |  Objective (96)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observational (15)  |  Often (109)  |  Palpably (2)  |  People (1031)  |  Principle (530)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Prove (261)  |  Quick (13)  |  Regard (312)  |  Respectable (8)  |  Route (16)  |  Scrutiny (15)  |  See (1094)  |  Slow (108)  |  Small (489)  |  Strictly (13)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Test (221)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Visual (16)

See, thro' this air, this ocean, and this earth,
All matter quick, and bursting into birth.
Above, how high progressive life may go!
Around, how wide! how deep extend below!
Vast chain of being, which from God began,
Natures ethereal, human, angel, man,
Beast, bird, fish, insect! what no eye can see,
No glass can reach! from Infinite to thee,
From thee to Nothing—On superior pow'rs
Were we to press, inferior might on ours:
Or in the full creation leave a void,
Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd:
From Nature's chain whatever link you strike,
Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
'An Essay on Man' (1733-4), Epistle I. In John Butt (ed.), The Poems of Alexander Pope (1965), 513.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Alike (60)  |  Angel (47)  |  Beast (58)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Below (26)  |  Bird (163)  |  Birth (154)  |  Break (109)  |  Broken (56)  |  Burst (41)  |  Chain (51)  |  Creation (350)  |  Deep (241)  |  Depth (97)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Ether (37)  |  Ethereal (9)  |  Extend (129)  |  Extension (60)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fish (130)  |  Glass (94)  |  God (776)  |  Great (1610)  |  High (370)  |  Human (1512)  |  Inferior (37)  |  Inferiority (7)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Insect (89)  |  Life (1870)  |  Link (48)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  Might (3)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Power (771)  |  Press (21)  |  Progress (492)  |  Quickness (5)  |  Reach (286)  |  See (1094)  |  Step (234)  |  Strike (72)  |  Superior (88)  |  Superiority (19)  |  Vast (188)  |  Vastness (15)  |  Void (31)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Wide (97)  |  Width (5)

So far as modern science is concerned, we have to abandon completely the idea that by going into the realm of the small we shall reach the ultimate foundations of the universe. I believe we can abandon this idea without any regret. The universe is infinite in all directions, not only above us in the large but also below us in the small. If we start from our human scale of existence and explore the content of the universe further and further, we finally arrive, both in the large and in the small, at misty distances where first our senses and then even our concepts fail us.
To the German Society of Scientists and Physicists, Braunschweig, Germany (Sep 1896). As quoted in Anton Z. Capri, Quips, Quotes, and Quanta: An Anecdotal History of Physics (2011), 20. Wiechert was reporting his measurement of the mass of the moving particles in a cathode ray beam (electrons).
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Belief (615)  |  Below (26)  |  Both (496)  |  Completely (137)  |  Concept (242)  |  Concern (239)  |  Direction (185)  |  Distance (171)  |  Existence (481)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Fail (191)  |  First (1302)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Human (1512)  |  Idea (881)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Large (398)  |  Misty (6)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Science (55)  |  Reach (286)  |  Realm (87)  |  Regret (31)  |  Sense (785)  |  Small (489)  |  Start (237)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Universe (900)

Soccer ball C60 quickly became a sort of “Rosetta Stone” leading to the discovery of a new world of geodesic structures of pure carbon built on the nanometer scale.
From Nobel Lecture (7 Dec 1996), 'Discovering the Fullerenes', collected in Ingmar Grenthe (ed.), Nobel Lectures, Chemistry 1996-2000 (2003).
Science quotes on:  |  Ball (64)  |  Buckyball (5)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Geodesic (2)  |  New (1273)  |  Pure (299)  |  Rosetta Stone (4)  |  Soccer (3)  |  Stone (168)  |  Structure (365)  |  World (1850)

Sooner or later in every talk, [David] Brower describes the creation of the world. He invites his listeners to consider the six days of Genesis as a figure of speech for what has in fact been 4 billion years. On this scale, one day equals something like six hundred and sixty-six million years, and thus, all day Monday and until Tuesday noon, creation was busy getting the world going. Life began Tuesday noon, and the beautiful organic wholeness of it developed over the next four days. At 4 p.m. Saturday, the big reptiles came on. At three minutes before midnight on the last day, man appeared. At one-fourth of a second before midnight Christ arrived. At one-fortieth of a second before midnight, the Industrial Revolution began. We are surrounded with people who think that what we have been doing for that one-fortieth of a second can go on indefinitely. They are considered normal, but they are stark. raving mad.
In Encounters with the Archdruid (1971), 79-80.
Science quotes on:  |  Appear (122)  |  Arrive (40)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Begin (275)  |  Big (55)  |  Billion (104)  |  Brower (2)  |  Busy (32)  |  Christ (17)  |  Consider (428)  |  Creation (350)  |  David (6)  |  Describe (132)  |  Develop (278)  |  Doing (277)  |  Equal (88)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Figure (162)  |   Genesis (26)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Indefinitely (10)  |  Industrial Revolution (10)  |  Invite (10)  |  Last (425)  |  Late (119)  |  Life (1870)  |  Listener (7)  |  Mad (54)  |  Man (2252)  |  Midnight (12)  |  Million (124)  |  Minute (129)  |  Monday (3)  |  Next (238)  |  Noon (14)  |  Normal (29)  |  Organic (161)  |  P (2)  |  People (1031)  |  Reptile (33)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Saturday (11)  |  Second (66)  |  Something (718)  |  Sooner (6)  |  Speech (66)  |  Stark (3)  |  Surround (33)  |  Talk (108)  |  Think (1122)  |  Tuesday (3)  |  Wholeness (9)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

Technology is an inherent democratizer. Because of the evolution of hardware and software, you’re able to scale up almost anything you can think up. … We’ll have to see if in our lifetime that means that everybody has more or less tools that are of equal power.
Guest Lecture, UC Berkeley, 'Search Engines, Technology, and Business' (3 Oct 2005). At 10:37 in the YouTube video.
Science quotes on:  |  Equal (88)  |  Everybody (72)  |  Everyone (35)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Hardware (3)  |  Inherent (43)  |  Lifetime (40)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Power (771)  |  See (1094)  |  Software (14)  |  Technology (281)  |  Think (1122)  |  Tool (129)

That special substance according to whose mass and degree of development all the creatures of this world take rank in the scale of creation, is not bone, but brain.
The Foot-prints of the Creator: Or, The Asterolepis of Stromness (1850, 1859), 160.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Bone (101)  |  Brain (281)  |  Creation (350)  |  Creature (242)  |  Degree (277)  |  Development (441)  |  Mass (160)  |  Rank (69)  |  Special (188)  |  Substance (253)  |  World (1850)

The argument of the ‘long view’ may be correct in some meaninglessly abstract sense, but it represents a fundamental mistake in categories and time scales. Our only legitimate long view extends to our children and our children’s children’s children–hundreds or a few thousands of years down the road. If we let the slaughter continue, they will share a bleak world with rats, dogs, cockroaches, pigeons, and mosquitoes. A potential recovery millions of years later has no meaning at our appropriate scale.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Argument (145)  |  Bleak (2)  |  Category (19)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Cockroach (6)  |  Continue (179)  |  Correct (95)  |  Dog (70)  |  Down (455)  |  Extend (129)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Hundreds (6)  |  Late (119)  |  Legitimate (26)  |  Let (64)  |  Long (778)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Millions (17)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Pigeon (8)  |  Potential (75)  |  Rat (37)  |  Recovery (24)  |  Represent (157)  |  Road (71)  |  Sense (785)  |  Share (82)  |  Slaughter (8)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

The automatic computing engine now being designed at N.P.L. [National Physics Laboratory] is atypical large scale electronic digital computing machine. In a single lecture it will not be possible to give much technical detail of this machine, and most of what I shall say will apply equally to any other machine of this type now being planned. From the point of view of the mathematician the property of being digital should be of greater interest than that of being electronic. That it is electronic is certainly important because these machines owe their high speed to this, and without the speed it is doubtful if financial support for their construction would be forthcoming. But this is virtually all that there is to be said on that subject. That the machine is digital however has more subtle significance. It means firstly that numbers are represented by sequences of digits which can be as long as one wishes. One can therefore work to any desired degree of accuracy. This accuracy is not obtained by more careful machining of parts, control of temperature variations, and such means, but by a slight increase in the amount of equipment in the machine.
Lecture to the London Mathematical Society, 20 February 1947. Quoted in B. E. Carpenter and R. W. Doran (eds.), A. M. Turing's Ace Report of 1946 and Other Papers (1986), 106.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Amount (153)  |  Apply (170)  |  Atypical (2)  |  Automatic (16)  |  Being (1276)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Computer (131)  |  Construction (114)  |  Control (182)  |  Degree (277)  |  Design (203)  |  Designed (2)  |  Desired (5)  |  Detail (150)  |  Digital (10)  |  Doubtful (30)  |  Electronics (21)  |  Engine (99)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Equally (129)  |  Equipment (45)  |  Greater (288)  |  High (370)  |  Increase (225)  |  Interest (416)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Large (398)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Long (778)  |  Machine (271)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Number (710)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Other (2233)  |  Owe (71)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Point (584)  |  Point Of View (85)  |  Possible (560)  |  Property (177)  |  Represent (157)  |  Say (989)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Significance (114)  |  Single (365)  |  Speed (66)  |  Subject (543)  |  Support (151)  |  Technology (281)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Type (171)  |  Variation (93)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

The Babylonian and Assyrian civilizations have perished; Hammurabi, Sargon and Nebuchadnezzar are empty names; yet Babylonian mathematics is still interesting, and the Babylonian scale of 60 is still used in Astronomy.
In A Mathematician's Apology (1940, 2012), 80.
Science quotes on:  |  Assyria (2)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Babylon (7)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Empty (82)  |  Hammurabi (2)  |  Interest (416)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Name (359)  |  Perish (56)  |  Sixty (6)  |  Still (614)

The biologist can push it back to the original protist, and the chemist can push it back to the crystal, but none of them touch the real question of why or how the thing began at all. The astronomer goes back untold million of years and ends in gas and emptiness, and then the mathematician sweeps the whole cosmos into unreality and leaves one with mind as the only thing of which we have any immediate apprehension. Cogito ergo sum, ergo omnia esse videntur. All this bother, and we are no further than Descartes. Have you noticed that the astronomers and mathematicians are much the most cheerful people of the lot? I suppose that perpetually contemplating things on so vast a scale makes them feel either that it doesn’t matter a hoot anyway, or that anything so large and elaborate must have some sense in it somewhere.
As co-author with Robert Eustace, The Documents in the Case (1930), 72.
Science quotes on:  |  Apprehension (26)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Back (395)  |  Begin (275)  |  Biologist (70)  |  Cheerful (10)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Cogito Ergo Sum (4)  |  Contemplate (29)  |  Cosmos (64)  |  Crystal (71)  |  René Descartes (83)  |  Elaborate (31)  |  Emptiness (13)  |  End (603)  |  Feel (371)  |  Gas (89)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Large (398)  |  Leave (138)  |  Lot (151)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Matter (821)  |  Million (124)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  People (1031)  |  Perpetual (59)  |  Perpetually (20)  |  Protist (3)  |  Push (66)  |  Question (649)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sum (103)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Sweep (22)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Touch (146)  |  Unreality (3)  |  Vast (188)  |  Whole (756)  |  Why (491)  |  Year (963)

The day when the scientist, no matter how devoted, may make significant progress alone and without material help is past. This fact is most self-evident in our work. Instead of an attic with a few test tubes, bits of wire and odds and ends, the attack on the atomic nucleus has required the development and construction of great instruments on an engineering scale.
Nobel Prize banquet speech (29 Feb 1940)
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Attack (86)  |  Construction (114)  |  Development (441)  |  Devoted (59)  |  End (603)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Evident (92)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Great (1610)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Material (366)  |  Matter (821)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nucleus (54)  |  Past (355)  |  Progress (492)  |  Required (108)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Self (268)  |  Self-Evident (22)  |  Significant (78)  |  Test (221)  |  Test Tube (13)  |  Wire (36)  |  Work (1402)

The essence of life is statistical improbability on a colossal scale.
In The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design (1986), 317.
Science quotes on:  |  Colossal (15)  |  Essence (85)  |  Improbability (11)  |  Life (1870)  |  Statistics (170)

The forces which displace continents are the same as those which produce great fold-mountain ranges. Continental drift, faults and compressions, earthquakes, volcanicity, transgression cycles and polar wandering are undoubtedly connected causally on a grand scale. Their common intensification in certain periods of the earth’s history shows this to be true. However, what is cause and what effect, only the future will unveil.
In The Origins of Continents and Oceans (4th ed. 1929), trans. John Biram (1966), 179.
Science quotes on:  |  Cause (561)  |  Certain (557)  |  Common (447)  |  Compression (7)  |  Connect (126)  |  Connection (171)  |  Continent (79)  |  Continental Drift (15)  |  Cycle (42)  |  Displace (9)  |  Displacement (9)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Earthquake (37)  |  Effect (414)  |  Fault (58)  |  Fold (9)  |  Force (497)  |  Future (467)  |  Great (1610)  |  History (716)  |  Intensification (2)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Period (200)  |  Plate Tectonics (22)  |  Polar (13)  |  Pole (49)  |  Range (104)  |  Show (353)  |  Transgression (3)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Unveiling (2)  |  Volcano (46)  |  Will (2350)

The greatest human evils are not those that individuals perform in private, the tiny transgressions against some arbitrary social standard we call sins. The ultimate evils are the mass murders that occur in revolution and war, the large-scale savageries that arise when one agglomeration of humans tries to dominate another: the deeds of the social group. … only group efforts can save us from the sporadic insanities of the group.
In 'The Clint Eastwood Conundrum', The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History (1997), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Arbitrary (27)  |  Arise (162)  |  Call (781)  |  Deed (34)  |  Dominate (20)  |  Effort (243)  |  Evil (122)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Group (83)  |  Human (1512)  |  Individual (420)  |  Insanity (8)  |  Large (398)  |  Large Scale (2)  |  Mass (160)  |  Occur (151)  |  Perform (123)  |  Private (29)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Savage (33)  |  Save (126)  |  Sin (45)  |  Social (261)  |  Sporadic (2)  |  Standard (64)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Transgression (3)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  War (233)

The last few centuries have seen the world freed from several scourges—slavery, for example; death by torture for heretics; and, most recently, smallpox. I am optimistic enough to believe that the next scourge to disappear will be large-scale warfare—killed by the existence and nonuse of nuclear weapons.
Alvarez: Adventures of a Physicist (1987), 152.
Science quotes on:  |  Death (406)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Enough (341)  |  Existence (481)  |  Heretic (8)  |  Kill (100)  |  Large (398)  |  Last (425)  |  Most (1728)  |  Next (238)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nuclear Weapon (17)  |  Slavery (13)  |  Smallpox (14)  |  Torture (30)  |  War (233)  |  Warfare (12)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Weapons (57)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

The messages that DNA molecules contain are all but eternal when seen against the time scale of individual lifetimes. The lifetimes of DNA messages (give or take a few mutations) are measured in units ranging from millions of years to hundreds of millions of years; or, in other words, ranging from 10,000 individual lifetimes to a trillion individual lifetimes. Each individual organism should be seen as a temporary vehicle, in which DNA messages spend a tiny fraction of their geological lifetimes.
The Blind Watchmaker (1996), 126.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  DNA (81)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Individual (420)  |  Message (53)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Mutation (40)  |  Organism (231)  |  Other (2233)  |  Spend (97)  |  Temporary (24)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Vehicle (11)  |  Word (650)  |  Year (963)

The most extensive computation known has been conducted over the last billion years on a planet-wide scale: it is the evolution of life. The power of this computation is illustrated by the complexity and beauty of its crowning achievement, the human brain.
In Gary William Flake, The Computational Beauty of Nature (2000), 415.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Billion (104)  |  Brain (281)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Computation (28)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Extensive (34)  |  Human (1512)  |  Known (453)  |  Last (425)  |  Life (1870)  |  Most (1728)  |  Planet (402)  |  Power (771)  |  Wide (97)  |  Year (963)

The most remarkable feature about the magnitude scale was that it worked at all and that it could be extended on a worldwide basis. It was originally envisaged as a rather rough-and-ready procedure by which we could grade earthquakes. We would have been happy if we could have assigned just three categories, large, medium, and small; the point is, we wanted to avoid personal judgments. It actually turned out to be quite a finely tuned scale.
From interview with Henry Spall, as in an abridged version of Earthquake Information Bulletin (Jan-Feb 1980), 12, No. 1, that is on the USGS website.
Science quotes on:  |  Actually (27)  |  Assigned (2)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Basis (180)  |  Earthquake (37)  |  Extend (129)  |  Extended (4)  |  Feature (49)  |  Finely (3)  |  Grade (12)  |  Happy (108)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Large (398)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Medium (15)  |  Most (1728)  |  Originally (7)  |  Personal (75)  |  Point (584)  |  Procedure (48)  |  Remarkable (50)  |  Richter Scale (4)  |  Small (489)  |  Three (10)  |  Turn (454)  |  Turned Out (5)  |  Want (504)  |  Work (1402)  |  Worked (2)  |  Worldwide (19)

The next difficulty is in the economical production of small lights by electricity. This is what is commonly meant by the phrase, ‘dividing the electric light.’ Up to the present time, and including Mr. Edison’s latest experiments, it appears that this involves an immense loss of efficiency. Next comes the difficulty of distributing on any large scale the immense electric currents which would be needed.
In 'A Scientific View of It: Prof. Henry Morton Not Sanguine About Edison’s Success', New York Times (28 Dec 1879), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Appear (122)  |  Current (122)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Distribute (16)  |  Divide (77)  |  Economical (11)  |  Thomas Edison (83)  |  Efficiency (46)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electric Light (2)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Immense (89)  |  Involve (93)  |  Large (398)  |  Light (635)  |  Loss (117)  |  Need (320)  |  Next (238)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Present (630)  |  Production (190)  |  Small (489)  |  Time (1911)

The process of natural selection has been summed up in the phrase “survival of the fittest.” This, however, tells only part of the story. “Survival of the existing” in many cases covers more of the truth. For in hosts of cases the survival of characters rests not on any special usefulness or fitness, but on the fact that individuals possessing these characters have inhabited or invaded a certain area. The principle of utility explains survivals among competing structures. It rarely accounts for qualities associated with geographic distribution.
The nature of animals which first colonize a district must determine what the future fauna will be. From their specific characters, which are neither useful nor harmful, will be derived for the most part the specific characters of their successors.
It is not essential to the meadow lark that he should have a black blotch on the breast or the outer tail-feather white. Yet all meadow larks have these characters just as all shore larks have the tiny plume behind the ear. Those characters of the parent stock, which may be harmful in the new relations, will be eliminated by natural selection. Those especially helpful will be intensified and modified, but the great body of characters, the marks by which we know the species, will be neither helpful nor hurtful. These will be meaningless streaks and spots, variations in size of parts, peculiar relations of scales or hair or feathers, little matters which can neither help nor hurt, but which have all the persistence heredity can give.
Foot-notes to Evolution. A Series of Popular Addresses on the Evolution of Life (1898), 218.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Animal (651)  |  Behind (139)  |  Bird (163)  |  Body (557)  |  Certain (557)  |  Character (259)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Determine (152)  |  Distribution (51)  |  Ear (69)  |  Essential (210)  |  Explain (334)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fauna (13)  |  Feather (13)  |  First (1302)  |  Future (467)  |  Geographic (10)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hair (25)  |  Heredity (62)  |  Hurtful (8)  |  Individual (420)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lark (2)  |  Little (717)  |  Matter (821)  |  Meadow (21)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Selection (98)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Parent (80)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Persistence (25)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Principle (530)  |  Process (439)  |  Rest (287)  |  Selection (130)  |  Special (188)  |  Species (435)  |  Specific (98)  |  Story (122)  |  Structure (365)  |  Successor (16)  |  Survival (105)  |  Survival Of The Fittest (43)  |  Tell (344)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Useful (260)  |  Usefulness (92)  |  Utility (52)  |  Variation (93)  |  White (132)  |  Will (2350)

The pursuit of science has often been compared to the scaling of mountains, high and not so high. But who amongst us can hope, even in imagination, to scale the Everest and reach its summit when the sky is blue and the air is still, and in the stillness of the air survey the entire Himalayan range in the dazzling white of the snow stretching to infinity? None of us can hope for a comparable vision of nature and of the universe around us. But there is nothing mean or lowly in standing in the valley below and awaiting the sun to rise over Kinchinjunga.
Truth and Beauty: Aesthetics and Motivations in Science (1987), 26.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Dazzling (13)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  High (370)  |  Hope (321)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Mean (810)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Range (104)  |  Reach (286)  |  Rise (169)  |  Sky (174)  |  Snow (39)  |  Still (614)  |  Summit (27)  |  Sun (407)  |  Survey (36)  |  Universe (900)  |  Valley (37)  |  Vision (127)  |  White (132)

The routine produces. But each day, nevertheless, when you try to get started you have to transmogrify, transpose yourself; you have to go through some kind of change from being a normal human being, into becoming some kind of slave.
I simply don’t want to break through that membrane. I’d do anything to avoid it. You have to get there and you don’t want to go there because there’s so much pressure and so much strain and you just want to stay on the outside and be yourself. And so the day is a constant struggle to get going.
And if somebody says to me, You’re a prolific writer—it seems so odd. It’s like the difference between geological time and human time. On a certain scale, it does look like I do a lot. But that’s my day, all day long, sitting there wondering when I’m going to be able to get started. And the routine of doing this six days a week puts a little drop in a bucket each day, and that’s the key. Because if you put a drop in a bucket every day, after three hundred and sixty-five days, the bucket’s going to have some water in it.
https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5997/john-mcphee-the-art-of-nonfiction-no-3-john-mcphee
Science quotes on:  |  Avoid (123)  |  Become (821)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Being (1276)  |  Break (109)  |  Bucket (4)  |  Certain (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Constant (148)  |  Difference (355)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  Drop (77)  |  Geological (11)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Key (56)  |  Kind (564)  |  Little (717)  |  Long (778)  |  Look (584)  |  Lot (151)  |  Membrane (21)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Normal (29)  |  Odd (15)  |  Outside (141)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Produce (117)  |  Prolific (5)  |  Routine (26)  |  Say (989)  |  Seem (150)  |  Simply (53)  |  Sit (51)  |  Sitting (44)  |  Slave (40)  |  Somebody (8)  |  Start (237)  |  Stay (26)  |  Strain (13)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Transpose (2)  |  Try (296)  |  Want (504)  |  Water (503)  |  Week (73)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Writer (90)

The rudest numerical scales, such as that by which the mineralogists distinguish different degrees of hardness, are found useful. The mere counting of pistils and stamens sufficed to bring botany out of total chaos into some kind of form. It is not, however, so much from counting as from measuring, not so much from the conception of number as from that of continuous quantity, that the advantage of mathematical treatment comes. Number, after all, only serves to pin us down to a precision in our thoughts which, however beneficial, can seldom lead to lofty conceptions, and frequently descend to pettiness.
On the Doctrine of Chances, with Later Reflections (1878), 61-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Beneficial (16)  |  Botany (63)  |  Chaos (99)  |  Conception (160)  |  Continuity (39)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Count (107)  |  Counting (26)  |  Degree (277)  |  Descend (49)  |  Descent (30)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguishing (14)  |  Down (455)  |  Form (976)  |  Hardness (4)  |  Kind (564)  |  Lead (391)  |  Lofty (16)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Measure (241)  |  Mineralogist (3)  |  Number (710)  |  Numerical (39)  |  Pettiness (3)  |  Pin (20)  |  Precision (72)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Rudeness (5)  |  Seldom (68)  |  Stamen (4)  |  Sufficiency (16)  |  Thought (995)  |  Total (95)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Useful (260)  |  Usefulness (92)

The science of optics, like every other physical science, has two different directions of progress, which have been called the ascending and the descending scale, the inductive and the deductive method, the way of analysis and of synthesis. In every physical science, we must ascend from facts to laws, by the way of induction and analysis; and we must descend from laws to consequences, by the deductive and synthetic way. We must gather and group appearances, until the scientific imagination discerns their hidden law, and unity arises from variety; and then from unity must reduce variety, and force the discovered law to utter its revelations of the future.
In On a General Method of Expressing the Paths of Light, & of the Planets, by the Coefficients of a Characteristic Function (1833), 7-8. [The spelling as “groupe” in the original text, has her been corrected to “group” to avoid an intrusive “sic”.]
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Arise (162)  |  Ascend (30)  |  Ascent (7)  |  Call (781)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Deductive (13)  |  Descend (49)  |  Different (595)  |  Direction (185)  |  Discern (35)  |  Discover (571)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Force (497)  |  Future (467)  |  Gather (76)  |  Group (83)  |  Hide (70)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Induction (81)  |  Inductive (20)  |  Law (913)  |  Method (531)  |  Must (1525)  |  Optics (24)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Progress (492)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Revelation (51)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Synthesis (58)  |  Synthetic (27)  |  Two (936)  |  Unity (81)  |  Utter (8)  |  Variety (138)  |  Way (1214)

The standard of proof is not very high for an investigation that announces that a plume is responsible for a bit of magma or a bit of chemistry found in, or near, or away from a volcano. The standard is being lowered all the time. Plumes were invented to explain small-scale features such as volcanoes. They were 100 kilometers wide. Then they were used to provide magmas 600 km away from a volcano, or to interact with distant ridges. Then the whole North Atlantic, from Canada to England needed to be serviced by a single plume. Then all of Africa. Then a bit of basalt on the East Pacific Rise was found to be similar to a Hawaiian basalt, so the plume influence was stretched to 5000 kilometers! No reviewer or editor has been found to complain yet. Superplumes are now routinely used to affect geology all around the Pacific. This is called creeping incredulity. It can also be called a Just-So Story.
Please contact Webmaster if you know the primary source for this quote.
Science quotes on:  |  Africa (38)  |  Announce (13)  |  Being (1276)  |  Call (781)  |  Canada (6)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Explain (334)  |  Geology (240)  |  High (370)  |  Incredulity (5)  |  Influence (231)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Kilometer (10)  |  Magma (4)  |  Mantle (4)  |  Proof (304)  |  Rise (169)  |  Single (365)  |  Small (489)  |  Story (122)  |  Stretch (39)  |  Time (1911)  |  Volcano (46)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wide (97)

The stone that Dr. Johnson once kicked to demonstrate the reality of matter has become dissipated in a diffuse distribution of mathematical probabilities. The ladder that Descartes, Galileo, Newton, and Leibniz erected in order to scale the heavens rests upon a continually shifting, unstable foundation.
Mathematics in Western Culture (1953), 382.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  René Descartes (83)  |  Distribution (51)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Samuel Johnson (51)  |  Ladder (18)  |  Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (51)  |  Matter (821)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Order (638)  |  Reality (274)  |  Rest (287)  |  Stone (168)

The sum of human happiness would not necessarily be reduced if for ten years every physical and chemical laboratory were closed and the patient and resourceful energy displayed in them transferred to the lost art of getting on together and finding the formula for making both ends meet in the scale of human life.
In a speech to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Leeds, September 4, 1927.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Both (496)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Closed (38)  |  Display (59)  |  End (603)  |  Energy (373)  |  Formula (102)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Human (1512)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Life (1870)  |  Making (300)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Patient (209)  |  Physical (518)  |  Sum (103)  |  Together (392)  |  Year (963)

The tropical rain forests of the world harbor the majority of the planet’s species, yet this wealth of species is being quickly spent. While the exact numbers of species involved and the rate of forest clearing are still under debate, the trend is unmistakable—the richest terrestrial biome is being altered at a scale unparalleled in geologic history.
In The Fragmented Forest: Island Biogeography Theory and the Preservation of Biotic Diversity (1984),
Science quotes on:  |  Alter (64)  |  Altered (32)  |  Being (1276)  |  Clearing (2)  |  Debate (40)  |  Deforestation (50)  |  Forest (161)  |  Geologic History (2)  |  Harbor (8)  |  History (716)  |  Involved (90)  |  Majority (68)  |  Number (710)  |  Planet (402)  |  Rain (70)  |  Rain Forest (34)  |  Rate (31)  |  Richest (2)  |  Species (435)  |  Spent (85)  |  Still (614)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Trend (23)  |  Tropical (9)  |  Unmistakable (6)  |  Unparalleled (3)  |  Wealth (100)  |  World (1850)

The understanding must not however be allowed to jump and fly from particulars to axioms remote and of almost the highest generality (such as the first principles, as they are called, of arts and things), and taking stand upon them as truths that cannot be shaken, proceed to prove and frame the middle axioms by reference to them; which has been the practice hitherto, the understanding being not only carried that way by a natural impulse, but also by the use of syllogistic demonstration trained and inured to it. But then, and then only, may we hope well of the sciences when in a just scale of ascent, and by successive steps not interrupted or broken, we rise from particulars to lesser axioms; and then to middle axioms, one above the other; and last of all to the most general. For the lowest axioms differ but slightly from bare experience, while the highest and most general (which we now have) are notional and abstract and without solidity. But the middle are the true and solid and living axioms, on which depend the affairs and fortunes of men; and above them again, last of all, those which are indeed the most general; such, I mean, as are not abstract, but of which those intermediate axioms are really limitations.
The understanding must not therefore be supplied with wings, but rather hung with weights, to keep it from leaping and flying. Now this has never yet been done; when it is done, we may entertain better hopes of science.
From Novum Organum (1620), Book 1, Aphorism 104. Translated as The New Organon: Aphorisms Concerning the Interpretation of Nature and the Kingdom of Man), collected in James Spedding, Robert Ellis and Douglas Heath (eds.), The Works of Francis Bacon (1857), Vol. 4, 97.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Art (680)  |  Axiom (65)  |  Bare (33)  |  Being (1276)  |  Better (493)  |  Broken (56)  |  Call (781)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Depend (238)  |  Differ (88)  |  Entertain (27)  |  Experience (494)  |  First (1302)  |  Fly (153)  |  Flying (74)  |  Fortune (50)  |  General (521)  |  Generality (45)  |  Hope (321)  |  Impulse (52)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Intermediate (38)  |  Jump (31)  |  Last (425)  |  Limitation (52)  |  Living (492)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mean (810)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Never (1089)  |  Other (2233)  |  Practice (212)  |  Principle (530)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Prove (261)  |  Remote (86)  |  Rise (169)  |  Solid (119)  |  Stand (284)  |  Step (234)  |  Successive (73)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Train (118)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Use (771)  |  Way (1214)  |  Weight (140)  |  Wing (79)

The unprecedented identification of the spectrum of an apparently stellar object in terms of a large red-shift suggests either of the two following explanations.
The stellar object is a star with a large gravitational red-shift. Its radius would then be of the order of 10km. Preliminary considerations show that it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to account for the occurrence of permitted lines and a forbidden line with the same red-shift, and with widths of only 1 or 2 per cent of the wavelength.
The stellar object is the nuclear region of a galaxy with a cosmological red-shift of 0.158, corresponding to an apparent velocity of 47,400 km/sec. The distance would be around 500 megaparsecs, and the diameter of the nuclear region would have to be less than 1 kiloparsec. This nuclear region would be about 100 times brighter optically than the luminous galaxies which have been identified with radio sources thus far. If the optical jet and component A of the radio source are associated with the galaxy, they would be at a distance of 50 kiloparsecs implying a time-scale in excess of 105 years. The total energy radiated in the optical range at constant luminosity would be of the order of 1059 ergs.
Only the detection of irrefutable proper motion or parallax would definitively establish 3C 273 as an object within our Galaxy. At the present time, however, the explanation in terms of an extragalactic origin seems more direct and less objectionable.
'3C 273: A Star-like Object with Large Red-Shift', Nature (1963), 197, 1040.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Apparent (85)  |  Component (51)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Constant (148)  |  Cosmological (11)  |  Detection (19)  |  Diameter (28)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Direct (228)  |  Distance (171)  |  Energy (373)  |  Excess (23)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Forbidden (18)  |  Galaxies (29)  |  Galaxy (53)  |  Identification (20)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Large (398)  |  Line (100)  |  Luminosity (6)  |  Luminous (19)  |  More (2558)  |  Motion (320)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Object (438)  |  Occurrence (53)  |  Optical (11)  |  Order (638)  |  Origin (250)  |  Parallax (3)  |  Present (630)  |  Proper (150)  |  Radio (60)  |  Radius (5)  |  Range (104)  |  Red-Shift (4)  |  Shift (45)  |  Show (353)  |  Spectrum (35)  |  Star (460)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Time (1911)  |  Total (95)  |  Two (936)  |  Unprecedented (11)  |  Velocity (51)  |  Wavelength (10)  |  Year (963)

The usual designation of the magnitude scale to my name does less than justice to the great part that Dr. Gutenberg played in extending the scale to apply to earthquakes in all parts of the world.
From interview with Henry Spall, as in an abridged version of Earthquake Information Bulletin (Jan-Feb 1980), 12, No. 1, that is on the USGS website.
Science quotes on:  |  Apply (170)  |  Designation (13)  |  Earthquake (37)  |  Extending (3)  |  Great (1610)  |  Beno Gutenberg (2)  |  Justice (40)  |  Less (105)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Name (359)  |  Played (2)  |  Richter Scale (4)  |  World (1850)

The value of fundamental research does not lie only in the ideas it produces. There is more to it. It affects the whole intellectual life of a nation by determining its way of thinking and the standards by which actions and intellectual production are judged. If science is highly regarded and if the importance of being concerned with the most up-to-date problems of fundamental research is recognized, then a spiritual climate is created which influences the other activities. An atmosphere of creativity is established which penetrates every cultural frontier. Applied sciences and technology are forced to adjust themselves to the highest intellectual standards which are developed in the basic sciences. This influence works in many ways: some fundamental students go into industry; the techniques which are applied to meet the stringent requirements of fundamental research serve to create new technological methods. The style, the scale, and the level of scientific and technical work are determined in pure research; that is what attracts productive people and what brings scientists to those countries where science is at the highest level. Fundamental research sets the standards of modern scientific thought; it creates the intellectual climate in which our modern civilization flourishes. It pumps the lifeblood of idea and inventiveness not only into the technological laboratories and factories, but into every cultural activity of our time. The case for generous support for pure and fundamental science is as simple as that.
In 'Why Pure Science?' in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 1965.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Activity (218)  |  Adjust (11)  |  Applied (176)  |  Applied Science (36)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Basic (144)  |  Being (1276)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Climate (102)  |  Concern (239)  |  Country (269)  |  Create (245)  |  Creativity (84)  |  Cultural (26)  |  Develop (278)  |  Establish (63)  |  Factory (20)  |  Flourish (34)  |  Frontier (41)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Generous (17)  |  Idea (881)  |  Importance (299)  |  Industry (159)  |  Influence (231)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Inventive (10)  |  Inventiveness (8)  |  Judge (114)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Lie (370)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lifeblood (4)  |  Method (531)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Civilization (3)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nation (208)  |  New (1273)  |  Other (2233)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  People (1031)  |  Problem (731)  |  Production (190)  |  Productive (37)  |  Pump (9)  |  Pure (299)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Regard (312)  |  Requirement (66)  |  Research (753)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Thought (17)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Serve (64)  |  Set (400)  |  Simple (426)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Standard (64)  |  Stringent (2)  |  Student (317)  |  Support (151)  |  Technique (84)  |  Technological (62)  |  Technology (281)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Value (393)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)  |  Work (1402)

The world is full of signals that we don’t perceive. Tiny creatures live in a different world of unfamiliar forces. Many animals of our scale greatly exceed our range of perception for sensations familiar to us ... What an imperceptive lot we are. Surrounded by so much, so fascinating and so real, that we do not see (hear, smell, touch, taste) in nature, yet so gullible and so seduced by claims for novel power that we mistake the tricks of mediocre magicians for glimpses of a psychic world beyond our ken. The paranormal may be a fantasy; it is certainly a haven for charlatans. But ‘parahuman’ powers of perception lie all about us in birds, bees, and bacteria.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Bacteria (50)  |  Bacterium (6)  |  Bee (44)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Bird (163)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Charlatan (8)  |  Claim (154)  |  Creature (242)  |  Different (595)  |  Do (1905)  |  Exceed (10)  |  Familiar (47)  |  Fantasy (15)  |  Fascinating (38)  |  Force (497)  |  Full (68)  |  Glimpse (16)  |  Greatly (12)  |  Haven (3)  |  Hear (144)  |  Ken (2)  |  Lie (370)  |  Live (650)  |  Lot (151)  |  Magician (15)  |  Mediocre (14)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Novel (35)  |  Paranormal (3)  |  Perceive (46)  |  Perception (97)  |  Power (771)  |  Psychic (15)  |  Range (104)  |  Real (159)  |  Seduce (4)  |  See (1094)  |  Sensation (60)  |  Signal (29)  |  Smell (29)  |  Surround (33)  |  Taste (93)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Touch (146)  |  Trick (36)  |  Unfamiliar (17)  |  World (1850)

The world's forests need to be seen for what they are—giant global utilities, providing essential public services to humanity on a vast scale. They store carbon, which is lost to the atmosphere when they burn, increasing global warming. The life they support cleans the atmosphere of pollutants and feeds it with moisture. They act as a natural thermostat, helping to regulate our climate and sustain the lives of 1.4 billion of the poorest people on this Earth. And they do these things to a degree that is all but impossible to imagine.
Speech (25 Oct 2007) at the World Wildlife Fund gala dinner, Hampton Court Palace, announcing the Prince's Rainforests Project. On the Prince of Wales website.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Billion (104)  |  Burn (99)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Carbon Cycle (5)  |  Clean (52)  |  Climate (102)  |  Deforestation (50)  |  Degree (277)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Essential (210)  |  Forest (161)  |  Giant (73)  |  Global (39)  |  Global Warming (29)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Increase (225)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Loss (117)  |  Moisture (21)  |  Natural (810)  |  People (1031)  |  Pollution (53)  |  Poverty (40)  |  Public Service (6)  |  Regulation (25)  |  Service (110)  |  Store (49)  |  Support (151)  |  Sustain (52)  |  Thermostat (2)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Utility (52)  |  Vast (188)  |  Warming (24)  |  World (1850)

There are things out there that are very simple and you never think would work. … Wikipedia is one of those that it would never occur to me that something like that would work. … But it does work. … People who have taken fairly simple ideas, … at a certain scale and after they gain a certain amount of momentum, they can really take off and work. And that’s really an amazing thing.
Guest Lecture, UC Berkeley, 'Search Engines, Technology, and Business' (3 Oct 2005). At 1:13 in the YouTube video.
Science quotes on:  |  Amazing (35)  |  Amount (153)  |  Certain (557)  |  Gain (146)  |  Idea (881)  |  Momentum (10)  |  Never (1089)  |  Occur (151)  |  People (1031)  |  Simple (426)  |  Something (718)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Work (1402)

There does seem to be a sense in which physics has gone beyond what human intuition can understand. We shouldn’t be too surprised about that because we’re evolved to understand things that move at a medium pace at a medium scale. We can’t cope with the very tiny scale of quantum physics or the very large scale of relativity.
From 'Interview: Of Mind and Matter: David Attenborough Meets Richard Dawkins', The Guardian (11 Sep 2010).
Science quotes on:  |  Beyond (316)  |  Can�t (16)  |  Cope (9)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Human (1512)  |  Intuition (82)  |  Large Scale (2)  |  Medium (15)  |  Pace (18)  |  Physics (564)  |  Quantum Physics (19)  |  Relativity (91)  |  Surprise (91)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Understand (648)

There has never been an age so full of humbug. Humbug everywhere, even in science. For years now the scientists have been promising us every morning a new miracle, a new element, a new metal, guaranteeing to warm us with copper discs immersed in water, to feed us with nothing, to kill us at no expense whatever on a grand scale, to keep us alive indefinitely, to make iron out of heaven knows what. And all this fantastic, scientific humbugging leads to membership of the Institut, to decorations, to influence, to stipends, to the respect of serious people. In the meantime the cost of living rises, doubles, trebles; there is a shortage of raw materials; even death makes no progress—as we saw at Sebastopol, where men cut each other to ribbons—and the cheapest goods are still the worst goods in the world.
With co-author Jules de Goncourt (French writer, 1830-70)
Diary entry, 7 Jan 1857. In R. Baldick (ed. & trans.), Pages from the Goncourt Journal (1978), 24.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Alive (97)  |  Author (175)  |  Copper (25)  |  Cost (94)  |  Cut (116)  |  Death (406)  |  Element (322)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Fantastic (21)  |  Good (906)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Humbug (6)  |  Influence (231)  |  Iron (99)  |  Kill (100)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lead (391)  |  Living (492)  |  Material (366)  |  Metal (88)  |  Miracle (85)  |  Morning (98)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Other (2233)  |  People (1031)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Progress (492)  |  Raw (28)  |  Respect (212)  |  Rise (169)  |  Saw (160)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Serious (98)  |  Still (614)  |  Warm (74)  |  Water (503)  |  Whatever (234)  |  World (1850)  |  Worst (57)  |  Writer (90)  |  Year (963)

There is common misapprehension that the magnitude scale is itself some kind of instrument or apparatus. Visitors will ask to “see the scale,” and are disconcerted by being referred to tables and charts used for applying the scale to readings taken from the seismograms.
From interview with Henry Spall, as in an abridged version of Earthquake Information Bulletin (Jan-Feb 1980), 12, No. 1, that was on the USGS website.
Science quotes on:  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Apply (170)  |  Ask (420)  |  Being (1276)  |  Chart (7)  |  Common (447)  |  Disappointed (6)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Kind (564)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Misapprehension (2)  |  Reading (136)  |  See (1094)  |  Table (105)  |  Visitor (3)  |  Will (2350)

There is no absolute scale of size in the Universe, for it is boundless towards the great and also boundless towards the small.
As restated by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, in On Growth and Form (1917, 1959), 24. Note that Thompson does not uses quotation marks when he gives this as what “Oliver Heaviside used to say.”
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Boundless (28)  |  Great (1610)  |  Size (62)  |  Small (489)  |  Toward (45)  |  Universe (900)

This theme of mutually invisible life at widely differing scales bears an important implication for the ‘culture wars’ that supposedly now envelop our universities and our intellectual discourse in general ... One side of this false dichotomy features the postmodern relativists who argue that all culturally bound modes of perception must be equally valid, and that no factual truth therefore exists. The other side includes the benighted, old-fashioned realists who insist that flies truly have two wings, and that Shakespeare really did mean what he thought he was saying. The principle of scaling provides a resolution for the false parts of this silly dichotomy. Facts are facts and cannot be denied by any rational being. (Often, facts are also not at all easy to determine or specify–but this question raises different issues for another time.) Facts, however, may also be highly scale dependent–and the perceptions of one world may have no validity or expression in the domain of another. The one-page map of Maine cannot recognize the separate boulders of Acadia, but both provide equally valid representations of a factual coastline.
The World as I See It (1999)
Science quotes on:  |  Argue (25)  |  Bear (162)  |  Being (1276)  |  Benighted (2)  |  Bind (26)  |  Both (496)  |  Boulder (8)  |  Bound (120)  |  Coastline (2)  |  Culturally (2)  |  Culture (157)  |  Deny (71)  |  Dependent (26)  |  Determine (152)  |  Dichotomy (4)  |  Differ (88)  |  Different (595)  |  Discourse (19)  |  Domain (72)  |  Easy (213)  |  Envelop (5)  |  Equally (129)  |  Exist (458)  |  Expression (181)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Factual (8)  |  False (105)  |  Feature (49)  |  Fly (153)  |  General (521)  |  Highly (16)  |  Implication (25)  |  Important (229)  |  Include (93)  |  Insist (22)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Issue (46)  |  Life (1870)  |  Map (50)  |  Mean (810)  |  Mode (43)  |  Must (1525)  |  Mutually (7)  |  Often (109)  |  Old (499)  |  Old-Fashioned (9)  |  Other (2233)  |  Part (235)  |  Perception (97)  |  Principle (530)  |  Provide (79)  |  Question (649)  |  Raise (38)  |  Rational (95)  |  Realist (3)  |  Really (77)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Relativist (2)  |  Representation (55)  |  Resolution (24)  |  Say (989)  |  Separate (151)  |  Shakespeare (6)  |  Side (236)  |  Silly (17)  |  Specify (6)  |  Supposedly (2)  |  Theme (17)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truly (118)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)  |  University (130)  |  Valid (12)  |  Validity (50)  |  War (233)  |  Widely (9)  |  Wing (79)  |  World (1850)

Today scientists describe the universe in terms of two basic partial theories—the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. They are the great intellectual achievements of the first half of this century. The general theory of relativity describes the force of gravity and the large-scale structure of the universe, that is, the structure on scales from only a few miles to as large as a million million million million (1 with twenty-four zeros after it) miles, the size of the observable universe. Quantum mechanics, on the other hand, deals with phenomena on extremely small scales, such as a millionth of a millionth of an inch. Unfortunately, however, these two theories are known to be inconsistent with each other—they cannot both be correct.
A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes (1988), 11-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Basic (144)  |  Both (496)  |  Century (319)  |  Deal (192)  |  Describe (132)  |  First (1302)  |  Force (497)  |  General (521)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Great (1610)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Known (453)  |  Large (398)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Observable (21)  |  Other (2233)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quantum Mechanics (47)  |  Quantum Physics (19)  |  Relativity (91)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Small (489)  |  Structure (365)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Theory Of Relativity (33)  |  Today (321)  |  Two (936)  |  Unfortunately (40)  |  Universe (900)  |  Zero (38)

We are in a position similar to that of a mountaineer who is wandering over uncharted spaces, and never knows whether behind the peak which he sees in front of him and which he tries to scale there may not be another peak still beyond and higher up.
In Max Planck and James Vincent Murphy (trans.), Where is Science Going?, (1932), 200.
Science quotes on:  |  Behind (139)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Higher (37)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Mountaineer (3)  |  Never (1089)  |  Peak (20)  |  See (1094)  |  Space (523)  |  Still (614)  |  Uncharted (10)  |  Wandering (6)

We cannot step aside and say that we have achieved our goal by inventing a new drug or a new way by which to treat presently incurable diseases, a new way to help those who suffer from malnutrition, or the creation of ideal balanced diets on a worldwide scale. We cannot rest till the way has been found, with our help, to bring our finest achievement to everyone.
Address to the Medical College of Virginia, Richmond (1 Dec 1950).
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Creation (350)  |  Diet (56)  |  Disease (340)  |  Drug (61)  |  Goal (155)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Incurable (10)  |  Medicine (392)  |  New (1273)  |  Research (753)  |  Rest (287)  |  Say (989)  |  Step (234)  |  Way (1214)  |  Worldwide (19)

We developed a computer program, based on tests of a quarter-scale model of the lunar module, and we ran the program through some 400 different [moon] landing conditions.
From interview with Technology Review, quoted in Douglas Martin, 'Joseph Gavin, Who Helped Put First Man on Moon, Dies at 90', New York Times (4 Nov 2010).
Science quotes on:  |  Base (120)  |  Computer (131)  |  Condition (362)  |  Develop (278)  |  Different (595)  |  Model (106)  |  Module (3)  |  Moon (252)  |  Moon Landing (9)  |  Program (57)  |  Test (221)  |  Through (846)

We only have to look around us to see how complexity ... and psychic “temperature” are still rising: and rising no longer on the scale of the individual but now on that of the planet. This indication is so familiar to us that we cannot but recognize the objective, experiential, reality of a directionally controlled transformation of the Noosphere “as a whole.”
In Teilhard de Chardin and René Hague (trans.), The Heart of Matter (1950, 1978), 38. His term Noosphere refers to the collective sphere of human consciousness.
Science quotes on:  |  Complexity (121)  |  Controlled (3)  |  Familiar (47)  |  Indication (33)  |  Individual (420)  |  Look (584)  |  Objective (96)  |  Planet (402)  |  Psychic (15)  |  Reality (274)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Rising (44)  |  See (1094)  |  Still (614)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Transformation (72)  |  Whole (756)

We starve the rats, creosote the ticks, swat the flies, step on the cockroaches and poison the scales. Yet when these pests appear in human form we go paralytic.
Science quotes on:  |  Cockroach (6)  |  Fly (153)  |  Form (976)  |  Human (1512)  |  Poison (46)  |  Rat (37)  |  Starvation (13)  |  Step (234)  |  Tick (9)

What a scale of improvement is comprehended between the faculties of a Fuegian savage and a Sir Isaac Newton.
R. D. Keynes, Darwin's Beagle Diary (1988), 223.
Science quotes on:  |  Anthropology (61)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)

What about the magical number seven? What about the seven wonders of the world, the seven seas, the seven deadly sins, the seven daughters of Atlas in the Pleiades, the seven ages of man, the seven levels of hell, the seven primary colors, the seven notes of the musical scale, and the seven days of the week? What about the seven-point rating scale, the seven categories for absolute judgment, the seven objects in the span of attention, and the seven digits in the span of immediate memory? For the present I propose to withhold judgment. Perhaps there is something deep and profound behind all these sevens, something just calling out for us to discover it. But I suspect that it is only a pernicious, Pythagorean coincidence.
The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two (1956), 42-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Age (509)  |  Attention (196)  |  Behind (139)  |  Coincidence (20)  |  Color (155)  |  Daughter (30)  |  Deadly (21)  |  Deep (241)  |  Discover (571)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Magic (92)  |  Man (2252)  |  Memory (144)  |  Number (710)  |  Object (438)  |  Pernicious (9)  |  Pleiades (4)  |  Point (584)  |  Present (630)  |  Primary (82)  |  Profound (105)  |  Pythagoras (38)  |  Sea (326)  |  Seven (5)  |  Sin (45)  |  Something (718)  |  Week (73)  |  Wonder (251)  |  World (1850)

What is art
But life upon the larger scale, the higher,
When, graduating up in a spiral line
Of still expanding and ascending gyres,
It pushed toward the intense significance
Of all things, hungry for the Infinite?
From poem, 'Aurora Leigh' (1856), Book 4. In Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Harriet Waters Preston (ed.), The Complete Poetical Works of Mrs. Browning (1900), 323.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Ascend (30)  |  Expand (56)  |  High (370)  |  Hungry (5)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Intense (22)  |  Large (398)  |  Life (1870)  |  Line (100)  |  Push (66)  |  Significance (114)  |  Spiral (19)  |  Still (614)  |  Thing (1914)

When asked what it was like to set about proving something, the mathematician likened proving a theorem to seeing the peak of a mountain and trying to climb to the top. One establishes a base camp and begins scaling the mountain’s sheer face, encountering obstacles at every turn, often retracing one’s steps and struggling every foot of the journey. Finally when the top is reached, one stands examining the peak, taking in the view of the surrounding countryside and then noting the automobile road up the other side!
Space-filler in The Two-Year College Mathematics Journal (Nov 1980), 11, No. 5, 295.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Automobile (23)  |  Base (120)  |  Begin (275)  |  Camp (12)  |  Climb (39)  |  Countryside (5)  |  Encounter (23)  |  Establish (63)  |  Examine (84)  |  Face (214)  |  Journey (48)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Obstacle (42)  |  Other (2233)  |  Peak (20)  |  Prove (261)  |  Reach (286)  |  Retrace (3)  |  Road (71)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Set (400)  |  Sheer (9)  |  Side (236)  |  Something (718)  |  Stand (284)  |  Step (234)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Surrounding (13)  |  Theorem (116)  |  Top (100)  |  Trying (144)  |  Turn (454)  |  View (496)

Wherever we seek to find constancy we discover change. Having looked at the old woodlands in Hutcheson Forest, at Isle Royale, and in the wilderness of the boundary waters, in the land of the moose and the wolf, and having uncovered the histories hidden within the trees and within the muds, we find that nature undisturbed is not constant in form, structure, or proportion, but changes at every scale of time and space. The old idea of a static landscape, like a single musical chord sounded forever, must be abandoned, for such a landscape never existed except in our imagination. Nature undisturbed by human influence seems more like a symphony whose harmonies arise from variation and change over many scales of time and space, changing with individual births and deaths, local disruptions and recoveries, larger scale responses to climate from one glacial age to another, and to the slower alterations of soils, and yet larger variations between glacial ages.
Discordant Harmonies (1990), 62.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Age (509)  |  Alteration (31)  |  Arise (162)  |  Birth (154)  |  Boundary (55)  |  Change (639)  |  Climate (102)  |  Constancy (12)  |  Constant (148)  |  Death (406)  |  Discover (571)  |  Exist (458)  |  Find (1014)  |  Forest (161)  |  Forever (111)  |  Form (976)  |  Glaciation (2)  |  Human (1512)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Individual (420)  |  Influence (231)  |  Landscape (46)  |  Look (584)  |  Moose (4)  |  More (2558)  |  Mud (26)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Old (499)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Response (56)  |  Seek (218)  |  Single (365)  |  Soil (98)  |  Sound (187)  |  Space (523)  |  Structure (365)  |  Succession (80)  |  Symphony (10)  |  Time (1911)  |  Time And Space (39)  |  Tree (269)  |  Uncover (20)  |  Variation (93)  |  Water (503)  |  Wherever (51)  |  Wilderness (57)  |  Wolf (11)

Why it is that animals, instead of developing in a simple and straightforward way, undergo in the course of their growth a series of complicated changes, during which they often acquire organs which have no function, and which, after remaining visible for a short time, disappear without leaving a trace ... To the Darwinian, the explanation of such facts is obvious. The stage when the tadpole breathes by gills is a repetition of the stage when the ancestors of the frog had not advanced in the scale of development beyond a fish.
In The Works of Francis Maitland Balfour (1885), Vol. 1, 702.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquisition (46)  |  Advance (298)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Animal (651)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Change (639)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Complication (30)  |  Course (413)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Development (441)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Disappearance (28)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fish (130)  |  Frog (44)  |  Function (235)  |  Gill (3)  |  Growth (200)  |  Leaving (10)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Organ (118)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remaining (45)  |  Repetition (29)  |  Series (153)  |  Short (200)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Stage (152)  |  Straightforward (10)  |  Tadpole (3)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trace (109)  |  Undergo (18)  |  Visibility (6)  |  Visible (87)  |  Way (1214)  |  Why (491)

With crystals we are in a situation similar to an attempt to investigate an optical grating merely from the spectra it produces... But a knowledge of the positions and intensities of the spectra does not suffice for the determination of the structure. The phases with which the diffracted waves vibrate relative to one another enter in an essential way. To determine a crystal structure on the atomic scale, one must know the phase differences between the different interference spots on the photographic plate, and this task may certainly prove to be rather difficult.
Physikalische Zeitschrift (1913), 14. Translated in Walter Moore, Schrödinger. Life and Thought (1989), 73.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Determination (80)  |  Determine (152)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Diffraction (5)  |  Enter (145)  |  Essential (210)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Interference (22)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Merely (315)  |  Must (1525)  |  Optical (11)  |  Phase (37)  |  Photograph (23)  |  Position (83)  |  Prove (261)  |  Situation (117)  |  Spectrum (35)  |  Structure (365)  |  Task (152)  |  Vibrate (7)  |  Wave (112)  |  Way (1214)

Your remarks upon chemical notation with the variety of systems which have arisen, &c., &c., had almost stirred me up to regret publicly that such hindrances to the progress of science should exist. I cannot help thinking it a most unfortunate thing that men who as experimentalists & philosophers are the most fitted to advance the general cause of science & knowledge should by promulgation of their own theoretical views under the form of nomenclature, notation, or scale, actually retard its progress.
Letter to William Whewell (21 Feb 1831). In Isaac Todhunter, William Whewell, An Account of his Writings (1876), Vol. 1., 307. Faraday may have been referring to a paper by Whewell published in the Journal of the Royal Institution of England (1831), 437-453.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Advancement (63)  |  Cause (561)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Exist (458)  |  Experimentalist (20)  |  Form (976)  |  General (521)  |  Hindrance (9)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Notation (28)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Progress (492)  |  Progress Of Science (40)  |  Promulgation (5)  |  Regret (31)  |  Remark (28)  |  Retardation (5)  |  Stir (23)  |  System (545)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Unfortunate (19)  |  Variety (138)  |  View (496)


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.