Science Quotes - Page 281

modern science was largely conceived of as an answer to the servant problem and ... it is generally practiced by those who lack a flair for conversation.

There's always wan encouragin' thing about th' sad scientific facts that come out ivrv week in th' pa-apers. They're usually not thrue.

The mathematical giant [Gauss], who from his lofty heights embraces in one view the stars and the abysses.

Do not try the parallels in that way: I know that way all along. I have measured that bottomless night, and all the light and all the joy of my life went out there.

The Geometer has the special privilege to carry out, by abstraction, all constructions by means of the intellect.

I once knew an otherwise excellent teacher who compelled his students to perform all their demonstrations with incorrect figures, on the theory that it was the logical connection of the concepts, not the figure, that was essential.

Everyone is free to set up an opinion and to adduce proofs in support of it. Whether, though, a scientist shall find it worth his while to enter into serious investigations of opinions so advanced is a question which his reason and instinct alone can decide. If these things, in the end, should turn out to be true, I shall not be ashamed of being the last to believe them.

Thought experiment is in any case a necessary precondition for physical experiment. Every experimenter and inventor must have the planned arrangement in his head before translating it into fact.

He who attempts to draw any conclusion whatever as to the nation's wealth or poverty from the mere fact of a favorable or unfavorable Balance of Trade, has not grasped the first fundamental principle of Political Economy.

I believe that natural history has lost much by the vague general treatment that is so common.

[From uranium] there are present at least two distinct types of radiation one that is very readily absorbed, which will be termed for convenience the α radiation, and the other of a more penetrative character, which will be termed the β radiation.

I have watched all the work going on there, and the more I see of it the more I am convinced that Mendelism has nothing to do with evolution.

[Freud's] great strength, though sometimes also his weakness, was the quite extraordinary respect he had for the singular fact... When he got hold of a simple but significant fact he would feel, and know, that it was an example of something general or universal, and the idea of collecting statistics on the matter was quite alien to him.

For the scientific acquisition of knowledge is almost as tedious as the routine acquisition of wealth.

The self is the resultant of the interest of the genes.

Thought, then, is the execution of this computer code.

Meaning comes from the correspondence between the code and its execution, and the compact underlying structure of the world and its dynamics.

The mind is an evolved computer program.

From the sexual, or amatorial, generation of plants new varieties, or improvements, are frequently obtained; as many of the young plants from seeds are dissimilar to the parent, and some of them superior to the parent in the qualities we wish to possess... Sexual reproduction is the chef d'oeuvre, the master-piece of nature.

Computer assisted proofs are getting better and better and computers will play a bigger and bigger role in the future.

Bombieri's Law: of Finance: Profits are on paper, losses are in cash

I'm a huge science fiction fan...

'Arcturus' is his other name- I'd rather call him 'Star.' It's very mean of Science To go and interfere!

Man could not stay there forever. He was bound to spread to new regions, partly because of his innate migratory tendency and partly because of Nature's stern urgency.

I think at you have to do what your conscience tells you to do.