Lord Kelvin Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• Questions of personal priority, however interesting they may be to the persons concerned, sink into insignificance in the prospect of any gain of deeper insight into the secrets of nature.

  Lord Kelvin

  Nature, Science, Interesting

  4 Copy quote

• It is conceivable that animal life might have the attribute of using the heat of surrounding matter, at its natural temperature, as a source of energy for mechanical effect . . . .The influence of animal or vegetable life on matter is infinitely beyond the range of any scientific enquiry hitherto entered on. Its power of directing the motions of moving particles, in the demonstrated daily miracle of our human free-will, and in the growth of generation after generation of plants from a single seed, are infinitely different from any possible result of the fortuitous concurrence of atoms.

  Lord Kelvin

  Moving, Animal, Vegetables

  "The Life of Lord Kelvin, Volume 2" by Silvanus Phillips, (2005 edition, p. 1093), 1910.

  11 Copy quote

• Mathematics is the only true metaphysics.

  Lord Kelvin

  Mathematics, Metaphysics

  "The Life of William Thomson, Baron Kelvin of Largs, Volume 2" by Silvanus Phillips Thompson, (p. 1124), 1910.

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• Science is bound, by the everlasting vow of honour, to face fearlessly every problem which can be fairly presented to it.

  Lord Kelvin

  Faces, Problem, Vow

  7 Copy quote

• [Of the ether] it is no greater mystery at all events than the shoemakers' wax.

  Lord Kelvin

  Events, Mystery, Greater

  4 Copy quote

• There cannot be a greater mistake than that of looking superciliously upon practical applications of science. The life and soul of science is its practical application.

  Lord Kelvin

  Mistake, Soul, Application

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

  4 Copy quote

• Fourier's theorem is not only one of the most beautiful results of modern analysis, but it may be said to furnish an indispensable instrument in the treatment of nearly every recondite question in modern physics.

  Lord Kelvin

  Beautiful, Analysis, May

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

  4 Copy quote

• The vortex theory [of the atom] is only a dream. Itself unproven, it can prove nothing, and any speculations founded upon it are mere dreams about dreams.

  Lord Kelvin

  Dream, Science, Atoms

  7 Copy quote

• [Referring to Fourier's mathematical theory of the conduction of heat] ... Fourier's great mathematical poem.

  Lord Kelvin

  Science, Biographies, Heat

  4 Copy quote

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