Essler Science Quotes

I believe that this Nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth. ~ John F. Kennedy

A good scenario doesn't make a good science fiction story - but it's a setting within which a good science fiction story might be told. ~ Jamais Cascio

We shouldn't let anti-science zealotry shut down the ability to produce low-cost, quality food for billions across the globe. ~ Ted Cruz

Wisdom is not knowledge, but lies in the use we make of knowledge. ~ Nilakanta Sri Ram

. . .a scientific theory is just a mathematical model we make to describe our observations: it exists only in our minds. So it is meaningless to ask: which is real, "real" or "imaginary" time? It is simply a matter of which is the more useful description. ~ Stephen Hawking

Evolution endowed us with intuition only for those aspects of physics that had survival value for our distant ancestors, such as the parabolic orbits of flying rocks (explaining our penchant for baseball). A cavewoman thinking too hard about what matter is ultimately made of might fail to notice the tiger sneaking up behind and get cleaned right out of the gene pool. Darwin's theory thus makes the testable prediction that whenever we use technology to glimpse reality beyond the human scale, our evolved intuition should break down. We've repeatedly tested this prediction, and the results overwhelmingly support Darwin. At high speeds, Einstein realized that time slows down, and curmudgeons on the Swedish Nobel committee found this so weird that they refused to give him the Nobel Prize for his relativity theory. At low temperatures, liquid helium can flow upward. At high temperatures, colliding particles change identity; to me, an electron colliding with a positron and turning into a Z-boson feels about as intuitive as two colliding cars turning into a cruise ship. On microscopic scales, particles schizophrenically appear in two places at once, leading to the quantum conundrums mentioned above. On astronomically large scales… weirdness strikes again: if you intuitively understand all aspects of black holes [then you] should immediately put down this book and publish your findings before someone scoops you on the Nobel Prize for quantum gravity… [also,] the leading theory for wha ~ Max Tegmark

Reason, Observation and Experience - the Holy Trinity of Science - have taught us that happiness is the only good; that the time to be happy is now, and the way to be happy is to make others so. This is enough for us. In this belief we are content to live and die. If by any possibility the existence of a power superior to, and independent of, nature shall be demonstrated, there will then be time enough to kneel. Until then, let us stand erect. ~ Robert G. Ingersoll

Indeed, I would feel that an appreciation of the arts in a conscious, disciplined way might help one to do science better. ~ Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar

harmonialism" - a belief that spiritual, physical, and even economic well-being flow from a person's connection with metaphysical forces of the cosmos - manifested itself in such new forms of thought as Spiritualism, Christian Science, New Thought, and Theosophy. ~ George Pendle

It is only by introducing the young to great literature, drama and music, and to the excitement of great science that we open to them the possibilities that lie within the human spirit -- enable them to see visions and dream dreams. ~ Eric Anderson

It must be understood that prime matter, and form as well, is neither generated nor corrupted, because every generation is from something to something. Now that from which generation proceeds is matter, and that to which it proceeds is form. So that, if matter or form were generated, there would be a matter for matter and a form for form, endlessly. Whence, there is generation only of the composite, properly speaking. ~ Thomas Aquinas

I believe in rendering to science the things that belong to science. I have no problem with evolution or discussions of the age of the Earth, for I don't believe that we come anywhere near comprehending the mind of God or the workings of the universe. Science can explain a lot, but it cannot give us faith, and I think we need both. ~ Brandon Sanderson

Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress. When I get fed up with one, I spend the night with the other ~ Anton Chekhov

Everything which has a beginning has an End. ~ Oracle

Science condemns itself to failure when, yielding to the infatuation of the serious, it aspires to attain being, to contain it, and to possess it; but it finds its truth if it considers itself as a free engagement of thought in the given, aiming, at each discovery, not at fusion with the thing, but at the possibility of new discoveries; what the mind then projects is the concrete accomplishment of its freedom. ~ Simone De Beauvoir

Of course it was always a friendly debate though sometimes I got too loud. ~ Lawrence Shepp

He [William Harvey] did not care for chymistrey, and was wont to speake against them with an undervalue. ~ John Aubrey

You hang your heroes. That way they'll never disappoint you.' It also brought to mind his own retort: 'But what about your enemies? What about the
villains? What do we do with those? ~ Dean F. Wilson

Gin a body meet a body
Flyin' through the air,
Gin a body hit a body,
Will it fly? and where? ~ James Clerk Maxwell

Tolstoi has given the simplest answer, with the words: 'Science is meaningless because it gives no answer to our question, the only question important for us: "What shall we do and how shall we live?"' That science does not give an answer to this is indisputable. The only question that remains is the sense in which science gives 'no' answer, and whether or not science might yet be of use to the one who puts the question correctly. ~ Max Weber

[Audubon's works are] the most splendid monuments which art has erected in honor of ornithology. ~ Georges Cuvier

Embryonic stem cell research is at the leading edge of a series of moral hazards. ~ George W. Bush

I hear them marvel at my work
my indignant science. I hear them call out in fear of what they see. And there are some gentlemen who doubt what I will tell them. They call me a liar and a charlatan or a quack. But in time the methods of science that I now employ to convince people will surely set them free
alas, this I cannot explain to the angry fools. (Spencer Black) ~ E.B. Hudspeth

Science doesn't have all the answers, but it is good at spotting the important questions when they are camouflaged against a background of common sense. ~ Richard Dawkins

I enjoyed the freedom they gave me - to write about almost any damned thing that came into my mind, whether it was crime, science fiction, western, fantasy or sports. ~ Norbert Davis

Science is not a boy's game, it's not a girl's game. It's everyone's game. It's about where we are and where we're going. Space travel benefits us here on Earth. And we ain't stopped yet. There's more exploration to come. ~ Nichelle Nichols

Belief in an external world independent of the perceiving subject is the basis of all natural science. ~ Albert Einstein

I graduated from the University of Delaware with a double major in history and political science. ~ Joe Biden

Curiosity is a vice that has been stigmatized in turn by Christianity, by philosophy, and even by a certain conception of science. Curiosity is seen as futility. However, I like the word; it suggests something quite different to me. It evokes "care"; it evokes the care one takes of what exists and what might exist; a sharpened sense of reality, but one that is never immobilized before it; a readiness to find what surrounds us strange and odd; a certain determination to throw off familiar ways of thought and to look at the same things in a different way; a passion for seizing what is happening now and what is disappearing; a lack of respect for the traditional hierarchies of what is important and fundamental. I dream of a new age of curiosity. ~ Michel Foucault

Science does not stand still, and neither does philosophy, although the latter has a tendency to walk in circles. ~ Peter Singer