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.
|
22200
|
If you eliminate the impossible, the truth will remain, even if it is weird [Conan Doyle]
|
|
Full Idea:
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
|
|
From:
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Sign of Four [1890], Ch. 6)
|
|
A reaction:
A beautiful statement, by Sherlock Holmes, of Eliminative Induction. It is obviously not true, of course. Many options may still face you after you have eliminated what is actually impossible.
|
20644
|
Energy has progressed from a mere formula, to a principle pervading all nature [Kelvin]
|
|
Full Idea:
The name 'energy', first used by Thomas Young, has come into use after it was raised from a mere formula of mathematical dynamics to become a principle pervading all nature, and guiding every field of science.
|
|
From:
Lord Kelvin (Wm Thomson) (works [1881]), quoted by Peter Watson - Convergence 01 'Principle'
|
|
A reaction:
[bit compressed] As far as I can see energy behaves exactly as if it were a substance, like water conserved in rainfalls, and yet it isn't a stuff, and seems to result from a process of abstraction. I take it to be one of the biggest mysteries in physics.
|