Theory Quotes - Page 26

• Langmuir is a regular thinking machine. Put in facts, and you get out a theory.

  Saul Dushman

  Science, Thinking, Machines

  4 Copy quote

• Since religion intrinsically rejects empirical methods, there should never be any attempt to reconcile scientific theories with religion. An infinitely old universe, always evolving, may not be compatible with the Book of Genesis. However, religions such as Buddhism get along without having any explicit creation mythology and are in no way contradicted by a universe without a beginning or end. Creatio ex nihilo, even as religious doctrine, only dates to around AD 200. The key is not to confuse myth and empirical results, or religion and science.

  Hannes Alfven

  Religious, Book, Science

  "Hannes Alfvén: Dean of the Plasma Dissidents". Book by Anthony L. Peratt, p. 196, 1998.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Since the beginning of physics, symmetry considerations have provided us with an extremely powerful and useful tool in our effort to understand nature. Gradually they have become the backbone of our theoretical formulation of physical laws.

  Tsung-Dao Lee

  Nature, Powerful, Science

  "Particle Physics and Introduction to Field Theory: Revised and Updated First Edition". Book by Tsung-Dao Lee, 1981.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• The most dangerous tendency of the modern world is the way in which bogus theories are given the force of dogma.

  Jean Danielou

  Science, World, Way

  10 Copy quote

• The theory of probabilities is basically only common sense reduced to a calculus. It makes one estimate accurately what right-minded people feel by a sort of instinct, often without being able to give a reason for it.

  Pierre-Simon Laplace

  Science, People, Common Sense

  Pierre-Simon Laplace (2012). “Pierre-Simon Laplace Philosophical Essay on Probabilities: Translated from the fifth French edition of 1825 With Notes by the Translator”, p.124, Springer Science & Business Media

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• This incomparable Author having at length been prevailed upon to appear in public, has in this Treatise given a most notable instance of the extent of the powers of the Mind; and has at once shown what are the Principles of Natural Philosophy, and so far derived from them their consequences, that he seems to have exhausted his Argument, and left little to be done by those that shall succeed him.a

  Edmond Halley

  Philosophy, Science, Mind

  11 Copy quote

• This theory [the oxygen theory] is not as I have heard it described, that of the French chemists, it is mine (elle est la mienne); it is a property which I claim from my contemporaries and from posterity.

  Antoine Lavoisier

  Science, Oxygen, Biographies

  17 Copy quote

• Traditional dinosaur theory is full of short circuits. Like the antiquated wiring in an old house, the details sputter and burn out when specific parts are tested.

  Robert T. Bakker

  Science, House, Details

  8 Copy quote

• Twenty years ago many chemists would have defended the theory of bond arms as a satisfactory explanation because they had become accustomed to thinking of it as unique and as ultimate.

  Henry Margenau

  Science, Unique, Thinking

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  24 Copy quote

• Wallace's sales agent, back in London, heard mutterings from some naturalists that young Mr. Wallace ought to quit theorizing and stick to gathering facts. Besides expressing their condescension toward him in particular, that criticism also reflected a common attitude that fact-gathering, not theory, was the proper business of all naturalists.

  David Quammen

  Attitude, Criticism, Gathering

  David Quammen (1996). “The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions”, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• [Theory is] an explanation that has been confirmed to such a degree, by observation and experiment, that knowledgeable experts accept it as fact. That's what scientists mean when they talk about a theory: not a dreamy and unreliable speculation, but an explanatory statement that fits the evidence. They embrace such an explanation confidently but provisionally - taking it as their best available view of reality, at least unil some severely conflicting data or some better explanation might come along.

  David Quammen

  Mean, Reality, Views

  4 Copy quote

• Hygiene is the corruption of medicine by morality. It is impossible to find a hygienist who does not debase his theory of the healthful with a theory of the virtuous. ... The aim of medicine is surely not to make men virtuous; it is to safeguard them from the consequences of their vices.

  H. L. Mencken

  Science, Men, Hygiene

  H. L. Mencken (2009). “Prejudices: Third Series”, p.269, Cosimo, Inc.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Science gains from it [the pendulum] more than one can expect. With its huge dimensions, the apparatus presents qualities that one would try in vain to communicate by constructing it on a small [scale], no matter how carefully. Already the regularity of its motion promises the most conclusive results. One collects numbers that, compared with the predictions of theory, permit one to appreciate how far the true pendulum approximates or differs from the abstract system called 'the simple pendulum'.

  Leon Foucault

  Science, Simple, Numbers

  6 Copy quote

• An announcement of [Christopher] Zeeman's lecture at Northwestern University in the spring of 1977 contains a quote describing catastrophe theory as the most important development in mathematics since the invention of calculus 300 years ago.

  Stephen Smale

  Spring, Science, Years

  Stephen Smale, Roderick Wong (2000). “The Collected Papers of Stephen Smale”, p.814, World Scientific

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is now a feeling that the pieces of physics are falling into place, not because of any single revolutionary idea or because of the efforts of any one physicist, but because of a flowering of many seeds of theory, most of them planted long ago.

  Steven Weinberg

  Fall, Science, Long Ago

  7 Copy quote

• I will simply express my strong belief, that that point of self-education which consists in teaching the mind to resist its desires and inclinations, until they are proved to be right, is the most important of all, not only in things of natural philosophy, but in every department of dally life.

  Michael Faraday

  Strong, Philosophy, Teaching

  Michael Faraday (1859). “Experimental researches in Chemistry and Physics ... Reprinted from the Philosophical Transactions of 1821-1857; the Journal of the Royal Institution ... and other publications”, p.477

  62 Copy quote

  Show source

• The carefully fostered theory that schoolwork can be made easy and enjoyable breaks down as soon as anything, however trivial, has to be learned.

  Agnes Repplier

  Education, Teaching, Easy

  Agnes Repplier (2015). “Americans and Others”, p.38, Sheba Blake Publishing

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• One must either accept some theory or else believe one's own instinct or follow the world's opinion.

  Gertrude Stein

  Believe, World, Opinion

  Gertrude Stein (2016). “Three Lives”, p.287, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• If he [Thomas Edison] had a needle to find in a haystack, he would not stop to reason where it was most likely to be, but would proceed at once with the feverish diligence of a bee, to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search. ... [J]ust a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety percent of his labor.

  Nikola Tesla

  Science, Ust, Littles

  15 Copy quote

• Philosophy is not a theory but an activity.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Philosophy, Reality, Phylosophy

  Ludwig Wittgenstein (2014). “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: German and English”, p.9, Routledge

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• There are many examples of old, incorrect theories that stubbornly persisted, sustained only by the prestige of foolish but well-connected scientists... Many of these theories have been killed off only when some decisive experiment exposed their incorrectness... Thus the yeoman work in any science, and especially physics, is done by the experimentalist, who must keep the theoreticians honest.

  Michio Kaku

  Honesty, Example, Yeoman

  "Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimension". Book by Michio Kaku, March 24, 1994.

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• My choice of colors does not rest on any scientific theory, it is based on observation, on feeling, on the experience of my sensibility.

  Henri Matisse

  Color, Choices, Feelings

  Henri Matisse, Jack D. Flam (1995). “Matisse on Art”, p.41, Univ of California Press

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• But what I attach great importance to is observation of the movement of colors. It is only in this way that I have found the laws of complementary contrast and the simultaneity of those colors that nourish the rhythm of my vision. There I find the representative essence — which does not arise from a system or an a priori theory.

  Robert Delaunay

  Essence, Color, Doe

  "The New Art of Color: The Writings of Robert and Sonia Delaunay".

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Art has the lovely habit of ruining all artistic theories.

  Marcel Duchamp

  Art, Lovely, Habit

  35 Copy quote