Lord Kelvin Quotes - Page 2

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• When you cannot measure, your knowledge is meager and unsatisfactory.

  Lord Kelvin

  10 Copy quote

• Nothing can be more fatal to progress than a too confident reliance on mathematical symbols; for the student is only too apt to take the easier course, and consider the formula not the fact as the physical reality.

  Lord Kelvin

  Reality, Progress, Facts

  "Treatise on Natural Philosophy". Book by Lord Kelvin and Peter Guthrie Tait, quod.lib.umich.edu. 1867.

  21 Copy quote

• We all confidently believe that there are at present, and have been from time immemorial, many worlds of life besides our own. . . . [This] may seem wild, and visionary; all I maintain is that it is not unscientific.

  Lord Kelvin

  Believe, Moon, Visionaries

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• To live among friends is the primary essential of happiness.

  Lord Kelvin

  Essentials, Primaries

  "Lord Kelvin, Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Glasgow 1846-1899" by George F. Fitzgerald, 1899.

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• The atheistic idea is so nonsensical that I do not see how I can put it in words.

  Lord Kelvin

  Ideas, Nonsensical, Atheistic

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• Let nobody be afraid of true freedom of thought. Let us be free in thought and criticism; but, with freedom, we are bound to come to the conclusion that science is not antagonistic to religion, but a help to it.

  Lord Kelvin

  Freedom, Criticism, Helping

  8 Copy quote

• Mathematics is the only good metaphysics.

  Lord Kelvin

  Math, Numbers, Metaphysics

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• I can never satisfy myself until I can make a mechanical model of a thing. If I can make a mechanical model, I can understand it. As long as I cannot make a mechanical model all the way through I cannot understand.

  Lord Kelvin

  Acceptance, Science, Long

  9 Copy quote

• Overwhelmingly strong proofs of intelligent and benevolent design lie around us... the atheistic idea is so nonsensical that I cannot put it into words.

  Lord Kelvin

  Strong, Lying, Intelligent

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• The fact that mathematics does such a good job of describing the Universe is a mystery that we don't understand. And a debt that we will probably never be able to repay.

  Lord Kelvin

  Jobs, Doe, Debt

  19 Copy quote

• Quaternions came from Hamilton after his really good work had been done, and though beautifully ingenious, have been an unmixed evil to those who have touched them in any way.

  Lord Kelvin

  Evil, Done, Way

  "Energy and Empire : A Biographical Study of Lord Kelvin" by Crosbie Smith and M. Norton Wise, 1892.

  9 Copy quote

• The life and soul of science is its practical application, and just as the great advances in mathematics have been made through the desire of discovering the solution of problems which were of a highly practical kind in mathematical science, so in physical science many of the greatest advances that have been made from the beginning of the world to the present time have been made in the earnest desire to turn the knowledge of the properties of matter to some purpose useful to mankind.

  Lord Kelvin

  Knowledge, Science, Soul

  Lecture on "Electrical Units of Measurement" (3 May 1883) in "The Life of Lord Kelvin" by Silvanus Phillips Thompson, 1910.

  52 Copy quote

• Suppose that you could mark the molecules in a glass of water; then pour the contents of the glass into the ocean and stir the latter throughly so as to distribute the marked molecules uniformly throughout the seven seas; if then you took a glass of water anywhere out of the ocean, you would find in it about a hundred of your marked molecules.

  Lord Kelvin

  Ocean, Glasses, Sea

  31 Copy quote

• I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning, or of the expectation of good results from any of the trials we heard of. So you will understand that I would not care to be a member of the Aeronautical Society.

  Lord Kelvin

  Future, Expectations, Molecules

  "The Experts Speak : The Definitive Compendium of Authoritative Misinformation" by Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky, (p. 236), 1984.

  4 Copy quote

• Vortices of pure energy can exist and, if my theories are right, can compose the bodily form of an intelligent species.

  Lord Kelvin

  Intelligent, Energy, Form

  13 Copy quote

• I have no satisfaction in formulas unless I feel their numerical magnitude.

  Lord Kelvin

  Satisfaction, Magnitude, Formulas

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• I need scarcely say that the beginning and maintenance of life on earth is absolutely and infinitely beyond the range of all sound speculation in dynamical science. The only contribution of dynamics to theoretical biology is absolute negation of automatic commencement or automatic maintenance of life.

  Lord Kelvin

  Sound, Needs, Maintenance

  "The Life of Lord Kelvin" by Silvanus Phillips, Volume 2, (p. 866), 2005.

  23 Copy quote

• Scientific wealth tends to accumulate according to the law of compound interest. Every addition to knowledge of the properties of matter supplies the physical scientist with new instrumental means for discovering and interpreting phenomena of nature, which in their turn afford foundations of fresh generalisations, bringing gains of permanent value into the great storehouse of natural philosophy.

  Lord Kelvin

  Philosophy, Mean, Law

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• The only census of the senses, so far as I am aware, that ever before made them more than five, was the Irishman's reckoning of seven senses. I presume the Irishman's seventh sense was common sense; and I believe that the possession of that virtue by my countrymen-I speak as an Irishman.

  Lord Kelvin

  Believe, Science, Common Sense

  9 Copy quote

• At what time does the dissipation of energy begin?

  Lord Kelvin

  Time, Doe, Energy

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• Fourier is a mathematical poem.

  Lord Kelvin

  Math, Poetry, Fourier

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• Symmetrical equations are good in their place, but ' vector ' is a useless survival, or offshoot from quaternions, and has never been of the slightest use to any creature.

  Lord Kelvin

  Survival, Use, Vectors

  "A History of Vector Analysis : The Evolution of the Idea of a Vectorial System" by Michael J. Crowe, (p. 120), 1994.

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• I have not had a moment's peace or happiness in respect to electromagnetic theory since November 28, 1846. All this time I have been liable to fits of ether dipsomania, kept away at intervals only by rigorous abstention from thought on the subject.

  Lord Kelvin

  November, Fit, Moments

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• Simplification of modes of proof is not merely an indication of advance in our knowledge of a subject, but is also the surest guarantee of readiness for farther progress.

  Lord Kelvin

  Knowledge, Science, Progress

  Lord Kelvin, LL.D., D.C.L., F.R.S. and Peter Guthrie Tait, M.A. (1912). “Elements of Natural Philosophy”

  7 Copy quote

• Although mechanical energy is indestructible, there is a universal tendency to its dissipation, which produces throughout the system a gradual augmentation and diffusion of heat, cessation of motion and exhaustion of the potential energy of the material Universe

  Lord Kelvin

  Energy, Heat, Tendencies

  4 Copy quote

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