Best 9669 quotes in «science quotes» category

An announcement of [Christopher] Zeeman's lecture at Northwestern University in the spring of 1977 contains a quote describing catastrophe theory as the most important development in mathematics since the invention of calculus 300 years ago.

An approximate answer to the right problem is worth a good deal more than an exact answer to an approximate problem.

[An artist] will sooner and with more certainty, establish the character of skeletons, than the most learned anatomist, whose eye has not been accustomed to seize on every peculiarity.

Anaximenes and Anaxagoras and Democritus say that its [the earth's] flatness is responsible for it staying still: for it does not cut the air beneath but covers it like a lid, which flat bodies evidently do: for they are hard to move even for the winds, on account of their resistance.

Anaximenes ... also says that the underlying nature is one and infinite ... but not undefined as Anaximander said but definite, for he identifies it as air; and it differs in its substantial nature by rarity and density. Being made finer it becomes fire; being made thicker it becomes wind, then cloud, then (when thickened still more) water, then earth, then stones; and the rest come into being from these.

A nation has a fixed quantity of invention, and it will make itself felt.

An atom must be at least as complex as a grand piano.

And as for other men, who worked in tank-rooms full of steam, and in some of which there were open vats near the level of the floor, their peculiar trouble was that they fell into the vats; and when they were fished out, there was never enough of them left to be worth exhibiting,-sometimes they would be overlooked for days, till all but the bones of them had gone out into the world as Durham's Pure Leaf Lard! This contributed to the passing of the Pure Food Act of 1906.

And as to the faculties of the mind, setting aside the arts grounded upon words, and especially that skill of proceeding upon generall, and infallible rules, called Science; which very few have, and but in few things; as being not a native faculty, born within us; nor attained, (as Prudence,) while we look after somewhat else.

Ancient stars in their death throes spat out atoms like iron which this universe had never known. ... Now the iron of old nova coughings vivifies the redness of our blood.

And as we continue to improve our understanding of the basic science on which applications increasingly depend, material benefits of this and other kinds are secured for the future.

And first, it seems not at all probable, That if the Omniscient Author of Nature knew that the study of his Works did really tend to make Men disbelieve his Being or Attributes, he would have given Men so many Invitations, and almost Necessities, to study and contemplate the Nature of his Creatures: Of these Invitations divers have been mention'd already, and more might be added to them, if we thought it requisite.

And by the influence of heat, light, and electrical powers, there is a constant series of changes; matter assumes new forms, the destruction of one order of beings tends to the conservation of another; solution and consolidation, decay and renovation, are connected; and whilst the parts of the system continue in a state of fluctuation and change, the order and harmony of the whole remain unalterable.

And extracting one molecule's signature in spectral analysis from the rest of the signatures is hard work, sort of like picking out the sound of your toddler's voice in a roomful of screaming children during playtime. It's hard, but you can do it.

And I don't care what else anyone has ever told you, the Sun is white, not yellow. Human color perception is a complicated business, but if the Sun were yellow, like a yellow lightbulb, then white stuff such as snow would reflect this light and appear yellow-a snow condition confirmed to happen only near fire hydrants.

And if this were so in all cases, the principle would be established, that sometimes conditions can be treated by things opposite to those from which they arose, and sometimes by things like to those from which they arose.

And if doctor says that you don't have IBS with constipation, you might want to get a second opinion, because I had doctors that were telling me... of course, a lot of this has to do with science - progressing.

And, in fine, the ancient precept, "Know thyself," and the modern precept, "Study nature," become at last one maxim.

And invention must still go on for it is necessary that we should completely control our circumstances. It is not sufficient that there should [only] be organization capable of providing food and shelter for all and organization to effect its proper distribution.

And many kinds of creatures must have died, Unable to plant out new sprouts of life. For whatever you see that lives and breathes and thrives Has been, from the very beginning, guarded, saved By it's trickery for its swiftness or brute strength. And many have been entrusted to our care, Commended by their usefulness to us. For instance, strength supports a savage lion; Foxes rely on their cunning; deer their flight.

And now, as a germination of planetary dimensions, comes the thinking layer which over its full extent develops and intertwines its fibres, not to confuse and neutralise them but to reinforce them in the living unity of a single tissue.

And no one has the right to say that no water-babies exist, till they have seen no water-babies existing; which is quite a different thing, mind, from not seeing water-babies; and a thing which nobody ever did, or perhaps will ever do. But surely ... they would have put it into spirits, or into the Illustrated News, or perhaps cut it into two halves, poor dear little thing, and sent one to Professor Owen, and one to Professor Huxley, to see what they would each say about it.

Andrade [who was looking after wartime inventions] is like an inverted Micawber, waiting for something to turn down.

And perhaps, posterity will thank me for having shown that the ancients did not know everything.

And part of the soil is called to wash away In storms and streams shave close and gnaw the rocks. Besides, whatever the earth feeds and grows Is restored to earth. And since she surely is The womb of all things and their common grave, Earth must dwindle, you see and take on growth again.

And one of the three great things in the world is gossip, you know. First there's religion; and then there's science; and there's-and then there's friendly gossip. Those are the three-the three great things.

And teach me how To name the bigger light, and how the less, That burn by day and night.

And so I conclude that blood lives and is nourished of itself and in no way depends on any other part of the body as being prior to it or more excellent... So that from this we may perceive the causes not only of life in general... but also of longer or shorter life, of sleeping and waking, of skill, of strength and so forth.

And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, that one small head could carry all he knew.

And therefore in geometry (which is the only science that it hath pleased God hitherto to bestow on mankind), men begin at settling the significations of their words; which settling of significations, they call definitions, and place them in the beginning of their reckoning.

And we daily in our experiments electrise bodies plus or minus, as we think proper. [These terms we may use till your Philosophers give us better.] To electrise plus or minus, no more needs to be known than this, that the parts of the Tube or Sphere, that are rubb'd, do, in the Instant of Friction, attract the Electrical Fire, and therefore take it from the Thin rubbing; the same parts immediately, as the Friction upon them ceases, are disposed to give the fire they have received, to any Body that has less.

And, to prevent mistakes, I must advertize you, that I now mean by elements, as those chymists that speak plainest do by their principles, certain primitive or simple, or perfectly unmingled bodies; which not being made of any other bodies, or of one another, are the ingredients of which all those called perfectly mixt bodies are immediately compounded, and into which they are ultimately resolved: now whether there be any such body to be constantly met with in all, and each, of those that are said to be elemented bodies, is the thing I now question.

And yet I would not freely exchange my science for those of my fellow laureates. They are forever confined in their professional discussions to the small numbers of their fellow scientists.

And yet in a funny way our lack of success led to our breakthrough; because, since we could not get a cell line off the shelf doing what we wanted, we were forced to construct it. And the original experiment ... developed into a method for the production of hybridomas ... [which] was of more importance than our original purpose.

And why does England thus persecute the votaries of her science? Why does she depress them to the level of her hewers of wood and her drawers of water? Is it because science flatters no courtier, mingles in no political strife? ... Can we behold unmoved the science of England, the vital principle of her arts, struggling for existence, the meek and unarmed victim of political strife?

[An engineer's] invention causes things to come into existence from ideas, makes world conform to thought; whereas science, by deriving ideas from observation, makes thought conform to existence.

A neat and orderly laboratory is unlikely. It is, after all, so much a place of false starts and multiple attempts.

An experiment in nature, like a text in the Bible, is capable of different interpretations, according to the preconceptions of the interpreter.

An electron is no more (and no less) hypothetical than a star. Nowadays we count electrons one by one in a Geiger counter, as we count the stars one by one on a photographic plate.

A new theory is guilty until proven innocent, and the pre-existing theory innocent until proven guilty ... Continental drift was guilty until proven innocent.

An Experiment, like every other event which takes place, is a natural phenomenon; but in a Scientific Experiment the circumstances are so arranged that the relations between a particular set of phenomena may be studied to the best advantage.

A new truth is a truth, an old error is an error.

A new species develops if a population which has become geographically isolated from its parental species acquires during this period of isolation characters which promote or guarantee reproductive isolation when the external barriers break down.

An extra-terrestrial philosopher, who had watched a single youth up to the age of twenty-one and had never come across any other human being, might conclude that it is the nature of human beings to grow continually taller and wiser in an indefinite progress towards perfection; and this generalization would be just as well founded as the generalization which evolutionists base upon the previous history of this planet.

A neurotic is a man who builds a castle in the air. A psychotic is the man who lives in it. A psychiatrist is the man who collects the rent.

An event experienced is an event perceived, digested, and assimilated into the substance of our being, and the ratio between the number of cases seen and the number of cases assimilated is the measure of experience.

Angling may be said to be so like the Mathematics that it can never be fully learnt; at least not so fully but that there will still be more new experiments left for the trial of other men that succeed us.

[Animals] do not so much act as be put into action, and that objects make an impression on their senses such that it is necessary for them to follow it just as it is necessary for the wheels of a clock to follow the weights and the spring that pulls them.

An independant reality in the ordinary physical sense can neither be ascribed to the phenomenon nor to the agencies of observation.

An indispensable hypothesis, even though still far from being a guarantee of success, is however the pursuit of a specific aim, whose lighted beacon, even by initial failures, is not betrayed.