Index | Comments and Contributions | previous:9.2 Einstein quotes
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March 11 "There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened." -- Douglas Adams
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"The creator of the universe works in mysterious ways. But he uses a base ten counting system and likes round numbers." Scott Adams
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From: edftz#NoSpam.aol.com (Ed Fitzgerald) At each stage [of the hierarchical structure of reality] entirely new laws, concepts and generalizations are necessary, requiring inspiration and creativity to just as great a degree as in the previous one. ... Psychology is not applied biology, nor is biology applied chemistry. -- Philip W. Anderson "More Is Different" Science magazine (1972)
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The world of mathematics and theoretical physics is hierarchical. That was my first exposure to it. There's a limit beyond which one cannot progress. The differences between the limiting abilities of those on successively higher steps of the pyramid are enormous. I have not seen described anywhere the shock a talented man experiences when he finds late in his academic life, that there are others enormously more talented than he. I have personally seen more tears shed by grown men and women over this discovery than I would have believed possible. Most of those men and women shift to fields where they can compete on more equal terms. The few who choose not to face reality have a difficult time. -- Luis W. Alvares (1911-1988, American physicist) in "Alvarez: adventures of a physicist (1987), 20.
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May 6 July 13 Hypotheses like professors, when they are seen not to work any longer in the laboratory, should disappear. -- Henry Edward Armstrong (1848-1937, British chemist) in Sir Harold Hartley, Studies in the history of chemistry (1971), 199
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From: (The Sanity Inspector) Through the mythology of Einstein, the world blissfully regained the image of knowledge reduced to a formula. -- Roland Barthes, Mythologies, 1957
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From: chollanamdo#NoSpam.mindspring.com (The Sanity Inspector) The history of science resembles a collection of ghosts remembering that once they too were gods. -- David Berlinsky, theoretical mathematician
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Sometimes I am a little unkind to all my many friends in education ... by
saying that from the time it learns to talk every child makes a dreadfull
nuisance of itself by asking "Why?". To stop this nuisance society has
invented a marvelous system called education which, for the majority of
people, brings to an end their desire to ask that question. The few
failures are known as scientists.
-- Hermann Bondi (Austrian/British mathematician/cosmologist,
1919-) in "Review of Cosmology", Montly Notices of the Royal
Astronomical Society, 1948 108,107.
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From: chrisbrown2643#NoSpam.my-deja.com It has often been said that 'nature is simple' - illusion! It is our mind which looks for simplicity to avoid effort. ~ L. Brillouin, in Scientific Uncertainty and Information
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From: Don Olivier <don#NoSpam.hsph.harvard.edu> My studies in Speculative Philosophy, metaphysics, and science are all summed up in the image of a mouse called man running in and out of every hole in the Cosmos hunting for the Absolute Cheese. -- Edmund Burke (?)
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December 4 June 18 From: John Rehling <rehling#NoSpam.cs.indiana.edu> Genius is a nuisance, and it is the duty of schools and colleges to abate it by setting genius traps in its way. -Samuel Butler
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An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less. -- Nicholas Murray Butler (1862-1947, President of Columbia University)(commencement address at Columbia University - attributed) From: "Rebus" <Rebusc#NoSpam.gatecom.com> An expert is someone who learns more and more about less and less, until he knows everything about nothing.
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From: "Atlantic" <atldental#NoSpam.ns.sympatico.ca> That reminded me of something one of my instructors once said. I'm not sure where the original quote came from, but it sounds like something has been paraphrased along the way. From Anil Sachdev in lecture (paraphrased): A specialist knows more and more about less and less until eventually he knows everything about nothing. A generalist know less and less about more and more until eventually he knows nothing about everything.
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dat1216:cover-up Special Category: Arthur C. Clarke From: samhobbs#NoSpam.mindspring.com (Sam Hobbs) In the long run, there are no secrets. in science. The universe will not cooperate in a cover-up. --- Arthur C. Clarke & Michael Kube-McDowell The Trigger, 1999, p. 124 (paperback edition)
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From: WINDERL#NoSpam.AgResearch.cri.nz (Louise Winder)
'Scientists are to journalists what rats are to scientists'
Victor Cohn, medical writer, Washington Post
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From: Don Westerheijden <d.f.westerheijden#NoSpam.cheps.utwente.nl> The present flood of publications hampers the progress of science. (Eric Evers, thesis in Ph.D. dissertation, Amsterdam --my translation, DFW)
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Special Category: Paul Ehrenfest
Januari 18
September 25
A thesis has to be presentable... but don't attach too much importance to
it. I you do succeed in the sciences, you will do later on better things
and then it will be of little moment. If you don't succeed in the
sciences, it does not matter at all.
-- Paul Ehrenfest, quoted in Leidraad (periodical of the University of
Leiden, 2, 1985.
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September 22 August 25 Special Category: Michael Faraday From: richard#NoSpam.milton.win-uk.net (Richard Milton) "Nothing is too wonderful to be true if it be consistent with the laws of nature." - Michael Faraday
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Special Category: Enrico Fermi
September 29
November 28
From: SteveMR200 <SteveMR200#NoSpam.aol.com>
Oh, anything with a probability of less than 20%.
--Enrico Fermi (1901-1954)
(When asked what he meant by a miracle)
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Special Category: Richard Feynman May 11 Februari 15 From: Graham J Weeks <weeks-g#NoSpam.dircon.co.uk> There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers. -- Richard Feynman
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Special Category: Richard Feynman May 11 Februari 15 From: Graham J Weeks <weeks-g#NoSpam.dircon.co.uk> I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy. -- Richard Feynmann
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Special Category: Definitions and terms Special Category: Richard Feynman May 11 Februari 15 From: Joe Fineman <jcf#NoSpam.TheWorld.com> Science is a way of trying not to fool ourselves. -- R. P. Feynman
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Februari 11 Januari 9 Toute la philosophie n'est fond़e sur deux choses: sur ce qu'on a l'esprit curieux et les yeux mauvais. Science originates from curiosity and bad eyesight. -- Bernard de Fontenell, Entretiens sur la Pluralit़ des Mondes Habit़s
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Edward Gibbon (1737-1793, English historian, author of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) About the university of Oxford in Memoirs of my life (1796): To the University of Oxford I acknowledge no obligation; and she will as cheerfully renounce me for a son, as I am willing to disclaim her for a mother. I spent fourteen months at Magdalen College: they proved the fourteen months the most idle and unprofitable of my whole life. On the dons at Oxford: Their dull and deep potations excused the intemperance of youth. Dr - well remembered that he had a salary to receive and only forgot that he had duties to perform.
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Special Category: Definitions and terms Special Category: Godfrey H. Hardy Februari 7 December 1 Hardy, Godfrey H. (1877 -1947) A science is said to be useful of its development tends to accentuate the existing inequalities in the distribution of wealth, or more directly promotes the destruction of human life. In: A Mathematician's Apology, London, Cambridge University Press, 1941.
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"If you feel that you have both feet planted on level ground, then the
university has failed you."
ROBERT GOHEEN
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From: edftz#NoSpam.aol.com (Ed Fitzgerald) 'There is no truth beyond magic' ... reality is strange. Many people think reality is prosaic. I don't. We don't explain things away in science. We get closer to the mystery. -- Brian Goodwin quoted by Roger Lewin in "Complexity" (1992)
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September 10 May 20 Special Category: Stephen Jay Gould From: edftz#NoSpam.aol.com (Ed Fitzgerald) Science is an integral part of culture. It's not this foreign thing, done by an arcane priesthood. It's one of the glories of human intellectual tradition. -- Stephen Jay Gould
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November 5
December 1
Special Category: John B. S. Haldane
From: Jane Vosk <justjane#NoSpam.u.washington.edu>
Now, my suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we
suppose, but queerer than we _can_ suppose. ... I suspect that there are
more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of, in any
philosophy.
[note] That is the reason why I have no philosophy for myself, and must be
my excuse for dreaming. J.B.S. Haldane, "Possible Worlds", in "Possible
worlds and other essays",
Chatto & Windus, London, 1927. On p286 of that edition. Haldane,
John Burdon Sanderson (British geneticist and writer, 1892-1964)
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Special Category: David Hilbert March 23 April 14 Januari 23 Februari 14 David Hilbert, on the proposed appointment of Emmy Noether as the first woman professor. Meine Herren, der Senat ist doch keine Badeanstalt. The faculty is not a pool changing room. Quoted in A L Mackay, Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (London 1994)
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From: Mark Gingrich <grinch#NoSpam.rahul.net> Science doesn't have a chance until people learn to carry their intelligence the way James Dean carried his cigarette.
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From: twp#NoSpam.panix.com (Tom Parsons)
Every cold empirick, when his heart is expanded by a successful experiment,
swells into a theorist.
--Johnson, Dr Samuel (1709-1784), Preface to Shakespeare
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From: chollanamdo#NoSpam.mindspring.com (The Sanity Inspector) I find the three major administrative problems on a campus are sex for the students, athletics for the alumni, and parking for the faculty. -- Clark Kerr, President of the University of California, _Time_, 17 Nov. 1958
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I've always wanted to be a scientist. That way, I could get a bunch of grants and do research into whether money can really buy happiness." - Kyannke.
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July 1 November 14 From: lstowell#NoSpam.pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Lon Stowell) "It is unworthy of excellent men to lose hours, like slaves, in the labors of calculation" -- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz (German mathematician and philosopher,1646-1716)
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August 29 October 28 From: locker#NoSpam.uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Jon Locker) It is one Thing, to show a Man that he is in an Error, and another, to put him in possession of Truth." - John Locke
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November 14 October 4 Robert L Moore (1882 - 1974) That student is best taught who is told the least. Quoted in D MacHale, Comic Sections (Dublin 1993)
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From: neve#NoSpam.up.univ-mrs.fr (Gabriel NEVE) "Scientific theories tell us what is possible; myths tell us what is desirable. Both are needed to guide proper action." - John Maynard Smith (Science and myth)
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Special Category: John von Neumann Februari 8 December 28 From: Casper Lans <cdlans#NoSpam.cs.ruu.nl> Who says nothing is impossible? Some people do it every day! --Alfred E. Neuman
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December 25
March 30
July 18
March 3
Special Category: Isaac Newton
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.
-
Isaac Newton (1642-1727) in: Letter to Robert Hooke, February 5, 1675/1676
In the sciences, we are now uniquely privileged to sit side by side with
the giants on whose shoulders we stand. -- Gerald Holton
If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing on
my shoulders. -- Hal Abelson
In computer science, we stand on each other's feet. -- Brian K. Reid
-- Holton, Gerald
From:liblanc1#NoSpam.nic.cerf.net (Bill Thomas)
-- Bartlett 16. Note: See Robert Burton. On the history and the
pseudo-history of this celebrated aphorism see Robert K. Merton, _On the
Shoulders of Giants_ [1965].
Robert Burton
1577-1640
A dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than a giant
himself.
_The Anatomy of Melancholy [1621-1651].
Decomocritus to the Reader_
From: aurator <goldisworth#NoSpam.20.orators>
"If I can't see as far as others, it's because I've got these darned
midgets standing on my shoulders wearing high heels and fishnet
stockings." -- aurator.
The following is for people who want to make comments about the Newton
quotation and not funny.
It is a post from news:alt.quotations.
From: wcw#NoSpam.math.psu.edu (William C Waterhouse)
In article <p_vE9.138658$1O2.10078@sccrnsc04>,
"Kevin G. Barkes" <kgb#NoSpam.kgb.com> writes:
> You lost something in your "translation":
>
> > "If I have seen farther than other men it is by standing on the
> > shoulders of giants."
> > --Isaac Newton, physicist
>
> "Pundits use this quote as the ultimate expression of humility in
> genius, but what they miss (and almost everyone else does too) is that
> Newton wrote that line to a *very very short man*, a hunchbacked
> fellow scientist with whom he was having a bitter feud.
>
> "Newton (1642-1727) was furious that Robert Hooke (1635-1703) was
> staking claim to many key discoveries in optics and calculus. (Hooke
> did in fact build the first reflecting telescope.)
>
> "Biographer John Aubrey, who was a personal friend of Robert Hooke,
> described him as "but of middling stature, something crooked, pale
> faced... head is large; his eye full and popping."
>
> "Newton wrote a long letter to Hooke on February 5, 1675, defending
> himself from charges of intellectual piracy, praising Hooke for
> trifles, and then Newton built to the famous "standing on the
> shoulders of giants" line. (Newton, by the way, adapted from a line
> about *pygmies* in a then-famous book called Anatomy of Melancholy).
>
> "You might translate Newton's sentiments: "While I admit to building
> on the work of my scientific predecessors, I certainly didn't learn
> anything from a dwarf like you."
>
> -from "An Underground Education" by Richard Zacks
>
> Excuse the outburst, but this "Quote of the Day and Translation"
> business has been irritating me for some time.
>...
I agree with the final sentiment. But the interpretation by Zacks
seems implausible to me. Someone else quoted it here a while ago,
and I'll repeat my comments.
--------
So far as I can tell, this idea was first invented by Frank
Manuel, in his book _A Portrait of Isaac Newton _(Harvard, 1968).
I have never seen any reason to believe it.
Here is the passage (from Newton's letter to Hooke, 5 Feb 1676);
I quote it from the standard biography, Westfall's _Never at Rest_ (1980).
The topic is optics:
What Des-Cartes did was a good step. You have added much several
ways, and especially in taking the colours of thin plates
into philosophical consideration. If I have seen further it
is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.
Westfall mentions Manuel's idea in a footnote but dismisses it.
Here are some reasons to doubt it:
1) Hooke showed no sign of unhappiness with Newton's letter;
and no one thought of giving it such an interpretation for
hundreds of years. That is not a guarantee, but certainly
we should be reluctant to suppose a letter had a meaning
quite different from what the people closer to its time
saw in it.
2) I do not see how "Giants" can be taken as anything but a
reference to the two people named immediately before that
sentence; and I do not see how it could be given a different
meaning for one than for the other.
3) When Newton writes in anger, he doesn't write
like this at all. Here for comparison is a bit of Newton
writing angrily somewhat earlier (also in Westfall):
"Mr Hook thinks himself concerned to reprehend me for
laying aside the thoughts of improving Optiques by
Refractions. But he knows well that it is not for one
man to prescribe Rules to the studies of another,
especially not without understanding the grounds on which
he proceeds."
As Newton wrote to Oldenberg then, he did not use "oblique and
glancing expressions," let alone subtle second meanings that
no one would detect for centuries.
William C. Waterhouse
Penn State
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October 15
August 25
From: SteveMR200 <SteveMR200#NoSpam.aol.com>
Science offends the modesty of all genuine women. They feel as if one were
trying to look under their skin--or worse! Under their clothes and finery.
--Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
_Beyond Good and Evil_ [1886], "Maxims and Interludes," No. 127
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Februari 15 Januari 8 From: ryank#NoSpam.westman.wave.ca (Ryan Klippenstine) "Alas, to wear the mantle of Galileo it is not enough that you be persecuted by an unkind establishment; you must also be right." -Robert Park, of the American Physical Society
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Special Category: Max Planck April 23 October 4 From: fcbaer#NoSpam.shentel.net (FRANK) Creative Quotations for Apr 23 from Max Planck On Foraging: Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and therefore part of the mystery that we are trying to solve. On Reflecting: Ego is the immediate dictate of human consciousness. On Adopting: Anybody who has been seriously engaged is scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: 'Ye must have faith.' It is a quality which the scientist cannot dispense with. On Nurturing: We have no right to assume that any physical laws exist, or if they have existed up until now, that they will continue to exist in a similar manner in the future. Max Planck (1858-1947) born on Apr 23 German physicist; He pioneered modern physics by proposing the quantum theory, 1900-01; won 1918 Nobel Prize.
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July 28 From: Don Westerheijden <d.f.westerheijden#NoSpam.cheps.utwente.nl> science is common sense `writ large' - Karl R. Popper (1902- ), Austrian philosopher of science. in: The Logic of Scientific Discovery, 1980 edn., p. 22
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July 28 From: samhobbs#NoSpam.mindspring.com (Sam Hobbs) Science may be described as the art of systematic oversimplification. --- Karl Popper
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May 18 Februari 2 The law of causality, I believe, like much that passes muster among philosophers, is a relic of a bygone age, surviving, like the monarchy, only because it is erroneously supposed to do no harm. -- Bertrand Russel (British mathematician, 1872-1970) in Mysticism and Logic (1918)
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Special Category: Ernest Rutherford August 30 October 19 From: cyp#NoSpam.Rrlyrae.Berkeley.EDU (Chien Peng) "The only posible conclusion the social sciences can draw is: some do, some don't." -- Ernest Rutherford, New Zealand physicist (1871-1937) More Rutherford in physics section.
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November 9 December 20 Special Category: Carl Sagan From: edftz#NoSpam.aol.com (Ed Fitzgerald) We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. -- Carl Sagan
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December 16 From: marlow#NoSpam.concentric.com (marlowe) Science is nothing but developed perception, interpreted intent, common sense rounded out and minutely articulated. -- George Santayana (1863-1952) [US philosopher]
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December 30
April 21
From: dok#NoSpam.fwi.uva.nl (Sir Hans)
@A: Twain, Mark (1835-1910)
@Q: In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower
Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That
is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year.
Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or an idiot, can see that
in the Old O\"olitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago next
November, the Lower Mississippi River was upward of one million three
hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like
a fishing-rod. And by the same token any person can see that seven
hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only
a mile and three-quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have
joined their streets together, and be plodding comfortably along under
a single mayor and a mutual board of alderman. There is something
fascinating about science. One gets such wholesome returns of
conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
@R: _Life on the Mississippi_ (1883) ch. 17
mathematics physics
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From: "Kerry L. Opel" <kopel#NoSpam.dragonbbs.com> The difference between math and physics is the difference between masturbation and sex.-- Paul Tomblin They're both messy, but physics can get you in much more trouble.--Malcom Ray
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From: mzintl#NoSpam.plasma.ps.uci.edu (Michael W. Zintl) December 30 April 21 "Scientists have odious manners, except when you prop up their theory; then you can borrow money from them." --Mark Twain
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April 3
May 13
From: Stefan Winkler <Stefan.Winkler#NoSpam.epfl.ch>
It is still an unending source of surprise for me how a few scribbles on a
blackboard or on a piece of paper can change the course of human affairs.
- Stanislaw Ulam
mathematics
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April 3 May 13 The infinite we shall do right away. The finite may take a little longer. -- Stanislaw Ulam Quoted in D MacHale, Comic Sections (Dublin 1993)
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October 21 Januari 9 From: sichase#NoSpam.csa5.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE) The question seems to be of such a character that if I should come to life after my death and some mathematician were to tell me that it had been definitely settled, I think I would immediately drop dead again." - Vandiver
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March 23 June 15 From: fcbaer#NoSpam.shentel.net (FRANK) Werner von Braun: Basic research is when I'm doing what I don't know I'm doing. I have learned to use the word "impossible" with the greatest caution. The best computer is a man, and it's the only one that can be mass-produced by unskilled labor. Crash programs fail because they are based on theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby a month. We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming. Wernher VonBraun (1912-1977) born on Mar 23 German-U.S. engineer; He pioneered all aspects of rocketry and space exploration, first in Germany and, after World War II, in the U.S.
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March 23 June 15 There is just one thing I can promise you about the outer-space program: your tax dollar will go farther. - Wernher von Braun.
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From: goble#NoSpam.infonaut.com (Clark Goble)
One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in contrast
to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of
scientists, a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and
dull, but also just stupid.
-- J. D. Watson _The Double Helix_
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Special Category: Definitions and terms Special Category: Norbert Wiener November 26 March 18 A professor is one who can speak on any subject -- for precisely fifty minutes.
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Februari 15 December 30 The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanation of complex facts. We are apt to fall into the error of thinking that the facts are simple because simplicity is the goal of our quest. The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be, "Seek simplicity and distrust it." ~ Alfred North Whitehead, in The Concept of Nature (1926)
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Februari 15
December 30
From: FCB <fbaer#NoSpam.mci.newscorp.com>
It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.
(in *Science and the Modern World*)
Februari 15
December 30
Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them. When the idea is new
its custodians have fervour, live for it, and, if need be, die for it.
- Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)
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Februari 15 December 30 From: charles#NoSpam.jolt.mpx.com.au (Charles Cave) Alfred North Whitehead We think in generalities, but we live in detail Source: Little Zen Companion, Schiller. The "silly question" is the first intimation of some totally new development. Source: Little Zen Companion, Schiller. Every really new idea looks crazy at first Source: The Art of Creative Thinking - book by Robert Olson (1986)
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