51 ideas
| 3600 | Slow and accurate thought makes the greatest progress [Descartes] |
| 3601 | Most things in human life seem vain and useless [Descartes] |
| 3602 | Almost every daft idea has been expressed by some philosopher [Descartes] |
| 3603 | Methodical thinking is cautious, analytical, systematic, and panoramic [Descartes, by PG] |
| 3612 | Clear and distinct conceptions are true because a perfect God exists [Descartes] |
| 3610 | Truth is clear and distinct conception - of which it is hard to be sure [Descartes] |
| 3605 | We can believe a thing without knowing we believe it [Descartes] |
| 1583 | In morals Descartes accepts the conventional, but rejects it in epistemology [Roochnik on Descartes] |
| 3607 | In thinking everything else false, my own existence remains totally certain [Descartes] |
| 3617 | I aim to find the principles and causes of everything, using the seeds within my mind [Descartes] |
| 3611 | Understanding, rather than imagination or senses, gives knowledge [Descartes] |
| 3606 | I was searching for reliable rock under the shifting sand [Descartes] |
| 3604 | When rebuilding a house, one needs alternative lodgings [Descartes] |
| 3618 | Only experiments can settle disagreements between rival explanations [Descartes] |
| 17405 | If a theory can be fudged, so can observations [Scerri] |
| 17397 | The periodic system is the big counterexample to Kuhn's theory of revolutionary science [Scerri] |
| 17393 | Scientists eventually seek underlying explanations for every pattern [Scerri] |
| 17403 | The periodic table suggests accommodation to facts rates above prediction [Scerri] |
| 3615 | Little reason is needed to speak, so animals have no reason at all [Descartes] |
| 3609 | I am a thinking substance, which doesn't need a place or material support [Descartes] |
| 3608 | I can deny my body and the world, but not my own existence [Descartes] |
| 3613 | Reason is universal in its responses, but a physical machine is constrained by its organs [Descartes] |
| 3616 | The soul must unite with the body to have appetites and sensations [Descartes] |
| 3614 | A machine could speak in response to physical stimulus, but not hold a conversation [Descartes] |
| 1581 | Greeks elevate virtues enormously, but never explain them [Descartes] |
| 17394 | Natural kinds are what are differentiated by nature, and not just by us [Scerri] |
| 17421 | If elements are natural kinds, might the groups of the periodic table also be natural kinds? [Scerri] |
| 16686 | God has established laws throughout nature, and implanted ideas of them within us [Descartes] |
| 17396 | The colour of gold is best explained by relativistic effects due to fast-moving inner-shell electrons [Scerri] |
| 17420 | The stability of nuclei can be estimated through their binding energy [Scerri] |
| 17411 | If all elements are multiples of one (of hydrogen), that suggests once again that matter is unified [Scerri] |
| 19384 | Space and time are the order of all possibilities, and don't just relate to what is actual [Leibniz] |
| 17409 | Does radioactivity show that only physics can explain chemistry? [Scerri] |
| 17415 | A big chemistry idea is that covalent bonds are shared electrons, not transfer of electrons [Scerri] |
| 17392 | How can poisonous elements survive in the nutritious compound they compose? [Scerri] |
| 17391 | Periodicity and bonding are the two big ideas in chemistry [Scerri] |
| 17404 | Chemistry does not work from general principles, but by careful induction from large amounts of data [Scerri] |
| 17407 | The electron is the main source of chemical properties [Scerri] |
| 17418 | It is now thought that all the elements have literally evolved from hydrogen [Scerri] |
| 17398 | 19th C views said elements survived abstractly in compounds, but also as 'material ingredients' [Scerri] |
| 17395 | Elements were ordered by equivalent weight; later by atomic weight; finally by atomic number [Scerri] |
| 17410 | Moseley showed the elements progress in units, and thereby clearly identified the gaps [Scerri] |
| 17412 | Elements are placed in the table by the number of positive charges - the atomic number [Scerri] |
| 17422 | The best classification needs the deepest and most general principles of the atoms [Scerri] |
| 17406 | Moseley, using X-rays, showed that atomic number ordered better than atomic weight [Scerri] |
| 17408 | Some suggested basing the new periodic table on isotopes, not elements [Scerri] |
| 17413 | Elements in the table are grouped by having the same number of outer-shell electrons [Scerri] |
| 17416 | Orthodoxy says the periodic table is explained by quantum mechanics [Scerri] |
| 17417 | To explain the table, quantum mechanics still needs to explain order of shell filling [Scerri] |
| 17419 | Since 99.96% of the universe is hydrogen and helium, the periodic table hardly matters [Scerri] |
| 17414 | Pauli explained the electron shells, but not the lengths of the periods in the table [Scerri] |