Nomenclature Quotes - Page 2

[Pitchblende] consists of a peculiar, distinct, metallic substance. Therefore its former denominations, Pechblende, pitch-iron-ore, &c. are no longer applicable, and must be supplied by another more appropriate name. I have chosen that of Uranium, as a kind of memorial, that the chemical discovery of this new metal happened in the period of astronomical discovery of the new planet Uranus.

Martin Heinrich Klaproth

Science, Discovery, Names

"Analytical Essays towards Promoting the Chemical Knowledge of Mineral Substances" by Martin Heinrich Klaproth, London: Cadell & Davies, 1801.

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The mathematics clearly called for a set of underlying elementary objects-at that time we needed three types of them-elementary objects that could be combined three at a time in different ways to make all the heavy particles we knew. ... I needed a name for them and called them quarks, after the taunting cry of the gulls, "Three quarks for Muster mark," from Finnegan's Wake by the Irish writer James Joyce.

Murray Gell-Mann

Science, Names, Different

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There is a reference in Aristotle to a gnat produced by larvae engendered in the slime of vinegar. This must have been Drosophila.

Alfred Sturtevant

Science, Gnats, Vinegar

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This constitution we designate by the word genotype. The word is entirely independent of any hypothesis; it is fact, not hypothesis that different zygotes arising by fertilisation can thereby have different qualities, that, even under quite similar conditions of life, phenotypically diverse individuals can develop.

Wilhelm Johannsen

Independent, Science, Diversity

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My amateur interest in astronomy brought out the term "magnitude," which is used for the brightness of a star.

Charles Richet

Stars, Science, Brightness

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There is always the danger in scientific work that some word or phrase will be used by different authors to express so many ideas and surmises that, unless redefined, it loses all real significance.

Gilbert N. Lewis

Real, Science, Ideas

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It was a reaction from the old idea of "protoplasm", a name which was a mere repository of ignorance.

John B. S. Haldane

Ignorance, Science, Names

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There can never be two or more equivalent electrons in an atom, for which in a strong field the values of all the quantum numbers n, k1, k2 and m are the same. If an electron is present, for which these quantum numbers (in an external field) have definite values, then this state is 'occupied.'

Wolfgang Pauli

Strong, Science, Two

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One [idea] was that the Universe started its life a finite time ago in a single huge explosion, and that the present expansion is a relic of the violence of this explosion. This big bang idea seemed to me to be unsatisfactory even before detailed examination showed that it leads to serious difficulties.

Fred Hoyle

Life, Science, Ideas

Fred Hoyle (1960). “The nature of the universe”

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Reagents are regarded as acting by virtue of a constitutional affinity either for electrons or for nuclei... the terms electrophilic (electron-seeking) and nucleophilic (nucleus-seeking) are suggested... and the organic molecule, in the activation necessary for reaction, is therefore required to develop at the seat of attack either a high or low electron density as the case may be.

Christopher Kelk Ingold

Science, Acting, Molecules

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Phylogeny and ontogeny are, therefore, the two coordinated branches of morphology. Phylogeny is the developmental history [Entwickelungsgeschichte] of the abstract, genealogical individual; ontogeny, on the other hand, is the developmental history of the concrete, morphological individual.

Ernst Haeckel

Science, Hands, Two

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For in disease the most voluntary or most special movements, faculties, etc., suffer first and most, that is in an order the exact opposite of evolution. Therefore I call this the principle of Dissolution.

John Hughlings Jackson

Science, Opposites, Order

John Hughlings Jackson, James Taylor, Sir Gordon Holmes (1931). “Selected Writings of John Hughlings Jackson: On Epilepsy and epileptiform convulsions”

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Earlier theories ... were based on the hypothesis that all the matter in the universe was created in one big bang at a particular time in the remote past. [Coining the "big bang" expression.]

Fred Hoyle

Science, Past, Expression

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We define organic chemistry as the chemistry of carbon compounds.

August Kekule

Science, Chemistry, Carbon

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Scientists often invent words to fill the holes in their understanding.These words are meant as conveniences until real understanding can be found. ... Words such as dimension and field and infinity ... are not descriptions of reality, yet we accept them as such because everyone is sure someone else knows what the words mean.

Scott Adams

Real, Mean, Acceptance

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That small word "Force," they make a barber's block, Ready to put on Meanings most strange and various, fit to shock Pupils of Newton.... The phrases of last century in this Linger to play tricks- Vis viva and Vis Mortua and Vis Acceleratrix:- Those long-nebbed words that to our text books still Cling by their titles, And from them creep, as entozoa will, Into our vitals. But see! Tait writes in lucid symbols clear One small equation; And Force becomes of Energy a mere Space-variation.

James Clerk Maxwell

Block, Book, Writing

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Plasticity, then, in the wide sense of the word, means the possession of a structure weak enough to yield to an influence, but strong enough not to yield all at once. Each relatively stable phase of equilibrium in such a structure is marked by what we may call a new set of habits.

William James

Strong, Mean, Science

William James (2012). “The Principles of Psychology”, p.105, Courier Corporation

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I propose to distinguish these bodies by calling those anions which go to the anode of the decomposing body; and those passing to the cathode, cations; and when I have occasion to speak of these together, I shall call them ions.

Michael Faraday

Science, Ions, Together

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (1834)

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Now, as Mandelbrot points out, ... Nature has played a joke on the mathematicians. The 19th-century mathematicians may not have been lacking in imagination, but Nature was not. The same pathological structures that the mathematicians invented to break loose from 19th-century naturalism turn out to be inherent in familiar objects all around us.

Freeman Dyson

Science, Imagination, May

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A schism has taken place among the chemists. A particular set of them in France have undertaken to remodel all the terms of the science, and to give every substance a new name, the composition, and especially the termination of which, shall define the relation in which it stands to other substances of the same family.

Thomas Jefferson

Taken, Science, Names

Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, 2: Correspondence and Private Papers”, p.454

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It really is worth the trouble to invent a new symbol if we can thus remove not a few logical difficulties and ensure the rigour of the proofs. But many mathematicians seem to have so little feeling for logical purity and accuracy that they will use a word to mean three or four different things, sooner than make the frightful decision to invent a new word.

Gottlob Frege

Mean, Science, Decision

Gottlob Frege (1952). “Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege”

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It is clear that there is some difference between ends: some ends are energeia [energy], while others are products which are additional to the energeia.

Aristotle

Hard Work, Science, Differences

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To discover the laws of operative power in material productions, whether formed by man or brought into being by Nature herself, is the work of a science, and is indeed what we more especially term Science.

William Whewell

Science, Men, Law

William Whewell (1856). “Lectures on the Progress of Arts and Science, Resulting from the Great Exhibition in London ...”, p.6

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Wherefore no name can be found for a new fossil [element] which indicates its peculiar and characteristic properties (in which position I find myself at present), I think it is best to choose such a denomination as means nothing of itself and thus can give no rise to any erroneous ideas. In consequence of this, as I did in the case of Uranium, I shall borrow the name for this metallic substance from mythology, and in particular from the Titans, the first sons of the earth. I therefore call this metallic genus TITANIUM.

Martin Heinrich Klaproth

Mean, Son, Science

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We need a name for the new replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation. 'Mimeme' comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like 'gene'. I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I abbreviate mimeme to meme. If it is any consolation, it could alternatively be thought of as being related to 'memory', or to the French word même. It should be pronounced to rhyme with 'cream'.

Richard Dawkins

Memories, Science, Names

Richard Dawkins (2016). “The Selfish Gene: 40th Anniversary edition”, p.249, Oxford University Press

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