Ludwig Boltzmann Quotes

• Bring forward what is true, Write it so that it is clear, Defend it to your last breath!

  Ludwig Boltzmann

  Writing, Lasts, Clear

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• Nothing is more practical than a good theory.

  Ludwig Boltzmann

  Theory, Practicals

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• Available energy is the main object at stake in the struggle for existence and the evolution of the world.

  Ludwig Boltzmann

  Struggle, Science, Engineering

  "Ludwig Edward Boltzmann" by S. Rajasekar, September 7, 2006.

  50 Copy quote

• The life contest is primarily a competition for available energy.

  Ludwig Boltzmann

  Competition, Energy, Contests

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• Thermodynamics, correctly interpreted, does not just allow Darwinian evolution; it favors it.

  Ludwig Boltzmann

  Religion, Atheism, Doe

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• The general struggle for existence of animate beings is not a struggle for raw materials, these for organisms are air water & soil, all abundantly available, nor for energy which exists in plenty in the sun and any hot body in the form of heat, but rather a struggle for entropy, which becomes available through the transition of energy from the hot sun to the cold earth.

  Ludwig Boltzmann

  Struggle, Air, Water

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• Philosophy gets on my nerves. If we analyze the ultimate ground of everything, then everything finally falls into nothingness. But I have decided to resume my lectures again and look the Hydra of doubt straight into the eye, and it be quite ominous if one values one's life.

  Ludwig Boltzmann

  Philosophy, Fall, Eye

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• It must be splendid to command millions of people in great national ventures, to lead a hundred thousand to victory in battle. But it seems to me greater still to discover fundamental truths in a very modest room with very modest means - truths that will still be foundations of human knowledge when the memory of these battles is painstakingly preserved only in the archives of the historian.

  Ludwig Boltzmann

  Memories, Mean, People

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• A mathematician will recognise Cauchy, Gauss, Jacobi or Helmholtz after reading a few pages, just as musicians recognise, from the first few bars, Mozart, Beethoven or Schubert.

  Ludwig Boltzmann

  Reading, Musician, Bars

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• Which is more remarkable fact about America: that millionaires are idealists or idealists become millionaires.

  Ludwig Boltzmann

  America, Facts, Millionaire

  "Ludwig Edward Boltzmann". Book by S. Rajasekar and N. Athavan, 2006.

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• Since a given system can never of its own accord go over into another equally probable state but into a more probable one, it is likewise impossible to construct a system of bodies that after traversing various states returns periodically to its original state, that is a perpetual motion machine.

  Ludwig Boltzmann

  Machines, Body, Return

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• The most ordinary things are to philosophy a source of insoluble puzzles. With infinite ingenuity it constructs a concept of space or time and then finds it absolutely impossible that there be objects in this space or that processes occur during this time . . . the source of this kind of logic lies in excessive confidence in the so-called laws of thought.

  Ludwig Boltzmann

  Time, Philosophy, Lying

  "Ludwig Edward Boltzmann" by S. Rajasekar, September 7, 2006.

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• In my view all salvation for philosophy may be expected to come from Darwin's theory

  Ludwig Boltzmann

  Philosophy, Views, May

  Ludwig Boltzmann, J.T. Blackmore (1995). “Ludwig Boltzmann His Later Life and Philosophy, 1900–1906: Book One: A Documentary History”, p.142, Springer Science & Business Media

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• Who ... is not familiar with Maxwell's memoirs on his dynamical theory of gases? ... from one side enter the equations of state; from the other side, the equations of motion in a central field. Ever higher soars the chaos of formulae. Suddenly we hear, as from kettle drums, the four beats 'put n=5.' The evil spirit v vanishes; and ... that which had seemed insuperable has been overcome as if by a stroke of magic ... One result after another follows in quick succession till at last ... we arrive at the conditions for thermal equilibrium together with expressions for the transport coefficients.

  Ludwig Boltzmann

  Science, Expression, Evil

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• To go straight to the deepest depth, I went for Hegel; what unclear thoughtless flow of words I was to find there! My unlucky star led me from Hegel to Schopenhauer . . . Even in Kant there were many things that I could grasp so little that given his general acuity of mind I almost suspected that he was pulling the reader's leg or was even an imposter.

  Ludwig Boltzmann

  Hope, Stars, Mind

  26 Copy quote

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