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Fundamentals Quotes

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Fundamentals Quotes

“In a sense Shapley's telling me that space was transparent, which I shouldn't have believed, illustrates a fundamental problem in science, believing what people tell you. Go and find it out for yourself. That same error has persisted in my life and in many other people's. Authorities are not always authorities on everything; they often cling to their own mistakes.”

People Believe Problem Science Space Mistake Authority Accounts Fundamentals Errors Transparent

Author:Jesse L. Greenstein

“It is an old saying, abundantly justified, that where sciences meet there growth occurs. It is true moreover to say that in scientific borderlands not only are facts gathered that [are] often new in kind, but it is in these regions that wholly new concepts arise. It is my own faith that just as the older biology from its faithful studies of external forms provided a new concept in the doctrine of evolution, so the new biology is yet fated to furnish entirely new fundamental concepts of science, at which physics and chemistry when concerned with the non-living alone could never arrive.”

“We lay down a fundamental principle of generalization by abstraction: The existence of analogies between central features of various theories implies the existence of a general theory which underlies the particular theories and unifies them with respect to those central features.”

Science Existence Principles Particular Theory Mathematics Fundamentals Lays Various Math Mathematical Features Abstraction Analogies Generalization Fundamental Principles

Author:E. H. Moore

“I think that physics is the most important-indeed the only-means we have of finding out the origins and fundamentals of our universe, and this is what interests me most about it. I believe that as science advances religion necessarily recedes, and this is a process I wish to encourage, because I consider that, on the whole, the influence of religion is malign.”

Thinking Believe Mean Important Whole Science Universe I Believe Wish Process Interest Influence Findings Fundamentals Physics

Author:William B. Bonnor

“The fundamental laws of the universe which correspond to the two fundamental theorems of the mechanical theory of heat. 1. The energy of the universe is constant. 2. The entropy of the universe tends to a maximum.”

Two Law Science Universe Energy Theory Fundamentals Constant Heat Maximum Theorems Entropy Energy Of The Universe

Book:The Mechanical Theory of Heat: With Its Applications to the Steam-engine and to the Physical Properties of Bodies

Source: The Mechanical Theory of Heat: With Its Applications to the Steam-engine and to the Physical Properties of Bodies

“The fundamental characteristic of the scientific method is honesty. In dealing with any question, science asks no favors. ... I believe that constant use of the scientific method must in the end leave its impress upon him who uses it. ... A life spent in accordance with scientific teachings would be of a high order. It would practically conform to the teachings of the highest types of religion. The motives would be different, but so far as conduct is concerned the results would be practically identical.”

“The advances of biology during the past 20 years have been breathtaking, particularly in cracking the mystery of heredity. Nevertheless, the greatest and most difficult problems still lie ahead. The discoveries of the 1970's about the chemical roots of memory in nerve cells or the basis of learning, about the complex behavior of man and animals, the nature of growth, development, disease and aging will be at least as fundamental and spectacular as those of the recent past.”

“Frequently, I have been asked if an experiment I have planned is pure or applied science; to me it is more important to know if the experiment will yield new and probably enduring knowledge about nature. If it is likely to yield such knowledge, it is, in my opinion, good fundamental research; and this is more important than whether the motivation is purely aesthetic satisfaction on the part of the experimenter on the one hand or the improvement of the stability of a high-power transistor on the other.”

“The physiological combustion theory takes as its starting point the fundamental principle that the amount of heat that arises from the combustion of a given substance is an invariable quantity-i.e., one independent of the circumstances accompanying the combustion-from which it is more specifically concluded that the chemical effect of the combustible materials undergoes no quantitative change even as a result of the vital process, or that the living organism, with all its mysteries and marvels, is not capable of generating heat out of nothing.”

“Typical of the fundamental scientific problems whose solution should lead to important industrial consequences are, for example, the release of atomic energy, which experiment has shown to exist in quantities millions of times greater than is liberated by combustion.”

Should Important Problem Science Energy Millions Greater Example Solutions Consequence Fundamentals Experiments Release Quantity Typical Liberated Combustion Atomic Energy

Author:Arthur Compton

“It is evident, therefore, that one of the most fundamental problems of psychology is that of investigating the laws of mental growth. When these laws are known, the door of the future will in a measure be opened; determination of the child's present status will enable us to forecast what manner of adult he will become.”

Children Problem Law Science Growth Known Psychology Doors Future Adults Determination Fundamentals Evident Forecasts Investigating

Book:The Intelligence of School Children: How Children Differ in Ability, the Use of Mental Tests in School Grading and the Proper Education of Exceptional Children

Source: The Intelligence of School Children: How Children Differ in Ability, the Use of Mental Tests in School Grading and the Proper Education of Exceptional Children

“The more we split and pulverise matter artificially, the more insistently it proclaims its fundamental unity.”

Matter Science Fundamentals Unity Splits

Book:The Phenomenon of Man

Source: The Phenomenon of Man

“To endow animals with human emotions has long been a scientific taboo. But if we do not, we risk missing something fundamental, about both animals and us.”

Ifs Humans Long Science Nature Animal Emotion Risk Missing Fundamentals Taboo Endowment Human Emotions Missing Something Kindness To Animals

Author:Frans de Waal