Maxwell Quotes

• A successful person finds the right place for himself. But a successful leader finds the right place for others. By John Maxwell

  John C. Maxwell

  Leadership, Successful, Persons

  John C. Maxwell (2011). “The Maxwell Daily Reader: 365 Days of Insight to Develop the Leader Within You and Influence Those Around You”, Thomas Nelson

  51 Copy quote

  Show source

• I was appalled to find that the mathematical notation on which I had been raised failed to fill the needs of the courses I was assigned, and I began work on extensions to notation that might serve. In particular, I adopted the matrix algebra used in my thesis work, the systematic use of matrices and higher-dimensional arrays (almost) learned in a course in Tensor Analysis rashly taken in my third year at Queen's, and (eventually) the notion of Operators in the sense introduced by Heaviside in his treatment of Maxwell's equations.

  Kenneth E. Iverson

  Queens, Taken, Years

  "Kenneth E. Iverson with Donald B. McIntyre". Autobiographical sketch from an unfinished work, keiapl.info. (ca. 2004).

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• The special theory of relativity owes its origins to Maxwell's equations of the electromagnetic field.

  Albert Einstein

  Special, Fields, Theory

  Albert Einstein, Stephen W. Hawking (2007). “A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion: The Essential Scientific Works of Albert Einstein”, p.367, Running Press

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• From the outset Maxwell's theory excelled all others in elegance and in the abundance of the relations between the various phenomena which it included.

  Heinrich Hertz

  Abundance, Elegance, Theory

  Heinrich Hertz (1893). “Electric Waves: Being Researches on the Propagation of Electric Action with Finite Velocity Through Space”

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• Maxwell is the physicist's physicist.

  Stephen Hawking

  Physicist

  5 Copy quote

• You haven't yet seen me be rude. When I am it's unmistakable. - Michelle Maxwell.

  David Baldacci

  Rude, Havens

  7 Copy quote

• If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations - then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation - well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.

  Arthur Eddington

  Hope, Science, Errors

  "The Nature of the Physical World" by Arthur Eddington, (Ch. 4), 1928.

  28 Copy quote

  Show source

• Maxwell is serious, dedicated, awkward, forgetful, pompous to a certain degree, sentimental.

  Don Adams

  Awkward, Degrees, Sentimental

  7 Copy quote

• The most evil person I ever met was a toss-up between Pablo Picasso and the publisher-crook Robert Maxwell.

  Paul Johnson

  Evil, Crooks, Toss

  8 Copy quote

• Now, since the time of Newton there had been a debate about whether light was a wave - that is, a traveling disturbance in some background medium - or a particle, which travels regardless of the presence of a background medium. The observation of Maxwell that electromagnetic waves must exist and that their speed was identical to that of light ended the debate: light was an electromagnetic wave.

  Lawrence M. Krauss

  Light, Debate, Speed

  "The Physics of Star Trek". Book by Lawrence M. Krauss, 1995.

  51 Copy quote

  Show source

• I count Maxwell and Einstein, Eddington and Dirac, among "real" mathematicians. The great modern achievements of applied mathematics have been in relativity and quantum mechanics, and these subjects are at present at any rate, almost as "useless" as the theory of numbers.

  G. H. Hardy

  Real, Science, Numbers

  56 Copy quote

• The aether: Invented by Isaac Newton, reinvented by James Clerk Maxwell. This is the stuff that fills up the empty space of the universe. Discredited and discarded by Einstein, the aether is now making a Nixonian comeback. It's really the vacuum, but burdened by theoretical, ghostly particles.

  Leon M. Lederman

  Science, Space, Clerks

  Leon M. Lederman, Dick Teresi (1993). “The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, what is the Question?”, p.13, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• I just finished writing an essay about William Maxwell, an American writer whose work I admire very much.

  Donna Tartt

  Writing, Literature, Admire

  7 Copy quote

• If you have bought one of those T-shirts with Maxwell's equations on the front, you may have to worry about its going out of style, but not about its becoming false. We will go on teaching Maxwellian electrodynamics as long as there are scientists.

  Steven Weinberg

  Teaching, Long, Worry

  Steven Weinberg (2003). “Facing Up”, p.198, Harvard University Press

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Willard Gibbs did for statistical mechanics and for thermodynamics what Laplace did for celestial mechanics and Maxwell did for electrodynamics, namely, made his field a well-nigh finished theoretical structure.

  Robert Andrews Millikan

  Fields, Mechanic, Structure

  8 Copy quote

• I listen to everything from, you know, Buddha Bar groove music to international music, Italian music, like Eros. I like very sexy, funky music like Maxwell, Angie Stone, R&B...In my CD player, I've probably got Maxwell, Beyonce, Enrique Iglesias, and kid music...maybe some AC/DC. I mean a little bit of everything. It depends on what I'm doing.

  Brooke Burke

  Sexy, Mean, Kids

  3 Copy quote

• One scientific epoch ended and another began with James Clerk Maxwell.

  Albert Einstein

  Clerks, Epoch

  "Britain's most important historic laboratory is under threat" by Boris Jardine, www.theguardian.com. September 1, 2015.

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• It would of course be a great step forward if we succeeded in combining the gravitational field and the electromagnetic field into a single structure. Only so could the era in theoretical physics inaugurated by Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell be brought to a satisfactory close.

  Albert Einstein

  Theoretical Physics, Clerks, Eras

  3 Copy quote

• A scientist's life, the author says, is indeed conflictual, formed by battles, defeats, and victories: but the adversary is always and only the unknown, the problem to be solved, the mystery to be clarified. It is never a matter of civil war; even though of different opinions, or of different political leanings, scientists dispute each other, they compete, but they do not battle: they are bound together by a strong alliance, by the common faith "in the validity of Maxwell's or Boltzmann's equations," and by the common acceptance of Darwinism and the molecular structure of DNA.

  Primo Levi

  Strong, War, Acceptance

  28 Copy quote

• Elder Neal A. Maxwell suggests that the prime reason the Savior personally acts as the gatekeeper of the celestial kingdom is not to exclude people, but to personally welcome and embrace those who have made it back home.

  Tad R. Callister

  Jesus, Home, People

  11 Copy quote

• Our challenge is to unselfishly sacrifice all that we have been given, including our will. Elder Neal A. Maxwell rightly said: “The submission of one’s will is really the only uniquely personal thing we have to place on God’s altar. The many other things we ‘give’ … are actually the things He has already given or loaned to us.

  Robert K. Dellenbach

  Sacrifice, Giving, Challenges

  3 Copy quote

• A. E. Maxwell wrote one of the smartest, most consistent PI series in recent memory. Big plots, great villains, and a kickass private eye with plenty of humanity. The toughness of Robert B. Parker's early Spenser novels blended with the wry humor and scope of Ross Thomas. Wholly original, endlessly entertaining. The books of A. E. Maxwell are a forgotten treasure.

  Tim Maleeny

  Memories, Book, Eye

  3 Copy quote

• But as with Maxwell's Demon, so now. Either she could not communicate, or he did not exist.

  Thomas Pynchon

  Demon, Communicate

  Thomas Pynchon (2012). “The Crying of Lot 49”, p.76, Penguin

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Goats," said Maxwell Hyde, "are a special case. Mad as hatters, all of them.

  Diana Wynne Jones

  Mad, Special, Goats

  4 Copy quote

• Do you remember that old TV series, Get Smart? Do you remember at the beginning where Maxwell Smart is walking down the secret corridor and there are all of those doors that open sideways, and upside down and gateways and stuff? I think that everyone keeps a whole bunch of doors just like this between themselves and the world. But when you're in love, all of your doors are open, and all of their doors are open. And you roller-skate down your halls together.

  Douglas Coupland

  Smart, Thinking, Doors

  6 Copy quote