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2 ideas
22363 | You have only begun to do real science when you can express it in numbers [Kelvin] |
Full Idea: When you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be. | |
From: Lord Kelvin (Wm Thomson) (works [1881]), quoted by Reiss,J/Spreger,J - Scientific Objectivity 4.1 | |
A reaction: [Popular Lectures 1 p.73] Clearly the writer is a physicist! Astronomers discover objects, geologists discover structures, biologists reveal mechanisms. |
17503 | Theories can never represent accurately, because their components are abstract [Cartwright,N, by Portides] |
Full Idea: Cartwright objects that the claim that theories represent what happens in actual situations is to overlook that the concepts used in them (such as 'force functions' and 'Hamiltonians') are abstract. | |
From: report of Nancy Cartwright (The Dappled World [1999]) by Demetris Portides - Models 'Current' | |
A reaction: I'm not convinced by this. The term 'abstract' is too loose. In a sense most words are abstract because they are universals. If I say 'that's a cat', that is a very accurate remark, despite the generality of 'cat'. |