Saturday, December 5, 2009

Physics Quote of the Day (November 29 - December 5)

"We have to remember that what we observe is not nature herself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning." Werner Heisenberg, born 5 December 1901.

"... elegant generalization is mathematically very appealing; but physics means facing facts. You should take up case by case." K. S. Krishnan, born 4 December 1898.

"I may be a minority of one in advocating that one should NOT separate science and politics—partly because I am old enough to remember the Weimar Republic before 1934 ..." Edwin Salpeter, born 3 December 1924.

"one of my complaints is that you've got far more scientists than ever before but the pace of discovery has not increased. Why? Because they're all busy just filling in the details of what they think is the standard story. And the youngsters, the people with different ideas have just as big a fight as ever and normally it takes decades for science to correct itself. But science does correct itself and that's the reason why science is such a glorious thing for our species." Nigel Calder, born 2 December 1931.

"There is no branch of mathematics, however abstract, which may not some day be applied to phenomena of the real world." Nikolai Lobachevsky, born 1 December 1792.

"As the Knowledge of Nature tends to enlarge the human Mind, and give us more noble, more grand, and exalted Ideas of the AUTHOR of Nature, and if well pursu'd, seldom fails producing something useful to Man." Ebenezer Kinnersley, born 30 November 1711.

"There have been applied sciences throughout the ages. ... However this so-called practice was not much more than paper in nearly all of these cases, and the various applied sciences were only lacking a bagatelle, namely proper scientific practice. The applied sciences show the application of theoretic doctrines in existing events; but that is precisely what it does, it merely shows. Whereas the scientific practice autonomously puts to use these theories." Christian Doppler, born 29 November 1803.

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