Physical Science Quotes

Physical science is like simple addition: it is either infallible or it is false. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

If and when all the laws governing physical phenomena are finally discovered, and all the empirical constants occurring in these laws are finally expressed through the four independent basic constants, we will be able to say that physical science has reached its end, that no excitement is left in further explorations, and that all that remains to a physicist is either tedious work on minor details or the self-educational study and adoration of the magnificence of the completed system. At that stage physical science will enter from the epoch of Columbus and Magellan into the epoch of the National Geographic Magazine! ~ George Gamow

So you're an atheist and you say, "Well how do you know there's a God?" So what is there, nothing? So nothing created you? So you believe in nothing? Therefore, you believe in something – but that's nothing. You believe in nothingness. I believe in God. That's all. How can you believe in nothingness? How is it possible to believe in nothingness? How can something come from nothing? It's a violation of all the laws of physics! Something cannot come from nothing. It violates physical science, biological science, and theological science. It violates all the laws of reason! It violates all the laws of nonreason. ~ Michael Savage

The social sciences, like much of biology but unlike most fields of the physical sciences, have to deal with structures of essential complexity, i.e. with structures whose characteristic properties can be exhibited only by models made up of relatively large numbers of variables. ~ Friedrich August Von Hayek

Newton supposed that the case of the planet was similar to that of [a ball spun around on the end of an elastic string]; that it was always pulled in the direction of the sun, and that this attraction or pulling of the sun produced the revolution of the planet, in the same way that the traction or pulling of the elastic string produces the revolution of the ball. What there is between the sun and the planet that makes each of them pull the other, Newton did not know; nobody knows to this day; and all we are now able to assert positively is that the known motion of the planet is precisely what would be produced if it were fastened to the sun by an elastic string, having a certain law of elasticity. Now observe the nature of this discovery, the greatest in its consequences that has ever yet been made in physical science: -

I. It begins with an hypothesis, by supposing that there is an analogy between the motion of a planet and the motion of a ball at the end of a string.

II. Science becomes independent of the hypothesis, for we merely use it to investigate the properties of the motion, and do not trouble ourselves further about the cause of it. ~ William Kingdon Clifford

The people has no definite disbelief in the temples of theology. The people has a very fiery and practical disbelief in the temples of physical science. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

But however mysterious is nature , however ignorant the doctor, however imperfect the present state of physical science , the patronage and the success of quacks and quackeries are infinitely more wonderful than those of honest and laborious men of science and their careful experiments. ~ P.T. Barnum

The sages are often ignorant of physical science, because they read the wrong book-the book within; and the scientists are too often ignorant of religion, because they too read the wrong book-the book outside. ~ Swami Vivekananda

The stricter standards and independent, often conclusive, evidence in the physical sciences cannot be generalized to intellectual activity as a whole, even though the aura of scientific processes and results is often appropriated by other intellectuals. ~ Thomas Sowell

Within the last fifty years, the extraordinary growth of every department of physical science has spread among us mental food of so nutritious and stimulating a character that a new ecdysis seems imminent. ~ Thomas Huxley

The world is given to me only once, not one existing and one perceived. Subject and object are only one. ~ Erwin Schrodinger

I think we're all fascinated and a little mystified by how the brain works. One of the most mysterious of the physical sciences is neurological science. ~ Alexis Denisof

Cell and tissue, shell and bone, leaf and flower, are so many portions of matter, and it is in obedience to the laws of physics that their particles have been moved, moulded and conformed. They are no exceptions to the rule that God always geometrizes. Their problems of form are in the first instance mathematical problems, their problems of growth are essentially physical problems, and the morphologist is, ipso facto, a student of physical science. ~ D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson

Physical science has taught us to associate Deity with the normal rather than with the abnormal. ~ William Edward Hartpole Lecky

What quantum physics teaches us is that everything we thought was physical is not physical. ~ Bruce H. Lipton

While Occam's razor is a useful tool in the physical sciences, it can be a very dangerous implement in biology. It is thus very rash to use simplicity and elegance as a guide in biological research. ~ Francis Crick

The impossibility of separating the nomenclature of a science from the science itself, is owing to this, that every branch of physical science must consist of three things; the series of facts which are the objects of the science, the ideas which represent these facts, and the words by which these ideas are expressed. Like three impressions of the same seal, the word ought to produce the idea, and the idea to be a picture of the fact. ~ Antoine Lavoisier

While it is never safe to affirm that the future of Physical Science has no marvels in store even more astonishing than those of the past, it seems probable that most of the grand underlying principles have been firmly established and that further advances are to be sought chiefly in the rigorous application of these principles to all the phenomena which come under our notice. ~ Robert S. Mulliken

The fundamental concepts of physical science, it is now understood, are abstractions, framed by our mind, so as to bring order to an apparent chaos of phenomena. ~ William Cecil Dampier

One factor that has remained constant through all the twists and turns of the history of physical science is the decisive importance of the mathematical imagination. ~ Freeman Dyson

Physical science enjoys the distinction of being the most fundamental of the experimental sciences, and its laws are obeyed universally, so far as is known, not merely by inanimate things, but also by living organisms, in their minutest parts, as single individuals, and also as whole communities. It results from this that, however complicated a series of phenomena may be and however many other sciences may enter into its complete presentation, the purely physical aspect, or the application of the known laws of matter and energy, can always be legitimately separated from the other aspects. ~ Frederick Soddy

As the Nation's primary supporter of research in the physical sciences, the DOE Office of Science led the way in creating a unique system of large-scale, specialized, often one-of-a-kind facilities for scientific discovery. ~ Judy Biggert

I liked math - that was my favorite subject - and I was very interested in astronomy and in physical science. ~ Sally Ride

The best road to correct reasoning is by physical science; the way to trace effects to causes is through physical science; the only corrective, therefore, of superstition is physical science. ~ Frances Wright

Mathematics is the means by which we deduce the consequences of physical principles. More than that, it is the indispensable language in which the principles of physical science are expressed. ~ Steven Weinberg

For the truth of the conclusions of physical science, observation is the supreme Court of Appeal. ~ Arthur Eddington

You know, there was a time, just before I started to study physical science, when astronomers thought that systems such as we have here in the solar system required a rare triple collision of stars. ~ Murray Gell-Mann

There are a multitude of allied branches of knowledge connected with mans condition; the relation of these to political economy is analogous to the connexion of mechanics, astronomy, optics, sound, heat, and every other branch more or less of physical science, with pure mathematics. ~ William Stanley Jevons

The humanities need to be defended today against the encroachments of physical science, as they once needed to be against the encroachment of theology. ~ Irving Babbitt

Physics is mathematical not because we know so much about the physical world, but because we know so little; it is only its mathematical properties that we can discover. ~ Bertrand Russell

Consciousness is the most conspicuous obstacle to a comprehensive naturalism that relies only on the resources of physical science. The existence of consciousness seems to imply that the physical description of the universe, in spite of its richness and explanatory power, is only part of the truth, and that the natural order is far less austere than it would be if physics and chemistry accounted for everything. If we take this problem seriously, and follow out its implications, ~ Thomas Nagel

The existence of consciousness is both one of the most familiar and one of the most astounding things about the world. No conception of the natural order that does not reveal it as something to be expected can aspire even to the outline of completeness. And if physical science, whatever it may have to say about the origin of life, leaves us necessarily in the dark about consciousness, that shows that it cannot provide the basic form of intelligibility for this world. There must be a very different way in which t hings as they are make sense, and that includes the physical world, since the problem cannot be quarantined in the mind. ~ Thomas Nagel

The first generation of biotech physically cut and pasted from one organism to another. You learned that taxol helped cure cancer, then you found the source organism and extracted the genes to make your drug. Now physical science is becoming information science. ~ Steve Jurvetson

Physical science, through the medium of inventions, is useful to innumerable people who are wholly ignorant of it; thus the study of physical science is to be recommended, not only, or primarily, because of the effect on the student, but rather because of the effect on mankind in general. Thus utility does not belong to philosophy. If the study of philosophy has any value at all for others than students of philosophy, it must be only indirectly, through its effects upon the lives of those who study it. ~ Bertrand Russell

The phenomena in these exhausted tubes reveal to physical science a new world-a world where matter may exist in a fourth state, where the corpuscular theory of light may be true, and where light does not always move in straight lines, but where we can never enter, and with which we must be content to observe and experiment from the outside. ~ William Crookes

The more progress physical sciences make, the more they tend to enter the domain of mathematics, which is a kind of centre to which they all converge. We may even judge the degree of perfection to which a science has arrived by the facility with which it may be submitted to calculation. ~ Adolphe Quetelet

Instruction in academia did not emphasize what I thought of as essential points. I was interested in the broad range of interrelated connections within the physical sciences, but formal studies isolated each branch of science. I feel that I have advantages greater than Da Vinci's such as access to more information, materials, and methods. ~ Jacque Fresco

objective physical science methodology will never permit us to know a man; that such methodology limits us merely to knowing about a man. ~ Mark Clifton

I think a strong claim can be made that the process of scientific discovery may be regarded as a form of art. This is best seen in the theoretical aspects of Physical Science. The mathematical theorist builds up on certain assumptions and according to well understood logical rules, step by step, a stately edifice, while his imaginative power brings out clearly the hidden relations between its parts. A well constructed theory is in some respects undoubtedly an artistic production. A fine example is the famous Kinetic Theory of Maxwell ... The theory of relativity by Einstein, quite apart from any question of its validity, cannot but be regarded as a magnificent work of art. ~ Ernest Rutherford

While, on the one hand, the end of scientific investigation is the discovery of laws, on the other, science will have reached its highest goal when it shall have reduced ultimate laws to one or two, the necessity of which lies outside the sphere of our cognition. These ultimate laws-in the domain of physical science at least-will be the dynamical laws of the relations of matter to number, space, and time. The ultimate data will be number, matter, space, and time themselves. When these relations shall be known, all physical phenomena will be a branch of pure mathematics. ~ William Mitchinson Hicks

The truth, I am convinced, is that there is no longer a poetical audience among the higher class of minds, that moral, political, and physical science have entirely withdrawn from poetry the attention of all whose attention is worth having; and that the poetical reading public being composed of the mere dregs of the intellectual community, the most sufficing passport to their favour must rest on the mixture of a little easily-intelligible portion of mawkish sentiment with an absolute negation of reason and knowledge. ~ Thomas Love Peacock

The most important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplemented in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote. ~ Albert A. Michelson

All my mind was centered on my studies, which, especially at the beginning, were difficult. In fact, I was insufficiently prepared to follow the physical science course at the Sorbonne, for, despite all my efforts, I had not succeeded in acquiring in Poland a preparation as complete as that of the French students following the same course. ~ Marie Curie

The world,' he said, 'grows hourly more and more sceptical of all that lies beyond its own narrow radius; and our men of science foster the fatal tendency. They condemn as fable all that resists experiment. They reject as false all that cannot be brought to the test of the laboratory or the dissecting-room. Against what superstition have they waged so long and obstinate a war, as against the belief of apparitions? And yet what superstition has maintained its hold upon the minds of men so long and so firmly? Show me any fact in physics, in history, in archaeology, which is supported by testimony so wide and so various. Attested by all races of men, in all ages, and in all climates, by the soberest sages of antiquity, by the rudest savage of today, by the Christian, the Pagan, the Pantheist, the Materialist, this phenomenon is treated as a nursery tale by the philosophers of our century. Circumstantial evidence weighs with them as a feather in the balance. The comparison of causes with effects, however valuable in physical science, is put aside as worthless and unreliable. The evidence of competent witnesses, however conclusive in a court of justice, counts for nothing. He who pauses before he pronounces is condemned as a trifler. He who believes, is a dreamer or a fool. ~ Amelia B. Edwards

It is certain that the labors of these early workers in the field of natural knowledge were brought to a standstill by the decay and disruption of the Roman Empire, the consequent disorganisation of society, and the diversion of men's thoughts from sublunary matters to the problems of the supernatural world suggested by Christian dogma in the Middle Ages. And, notwithstanding sporadic attempts to recall men to the investigation of nature, here and there, it was not until the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that physical science made a new start, founding itself, at first, altogether upon that which had been done by the Greeks. Indeed, it must be admitted that the men of the Renaissance, though standing on the shoulders of the old philosophers, were a long time before they saw as much as their forerunners had done. ~ Thomas Henry Huxley

A logical theory may be tested by its capacity for dealing with puzzles, and it is a wholesome plan, in thinking about logic, to stock the mind with as many puzzles as possible, since these serve much the same purpose as is served by experiments in physical science. ~ Bertrand Russell

[When thinking about the new relativity and quantum theories] I have felt a homesickness for the paths of physical science where there are ore or less discernible handrails to keep us from the worst morasses of foolishness. ~ Arthur Eddington

In every department of physical science there is only so much science, properly so-called, as there is mathematics. ~ Immanuel Kant

It has been a fortunate fact in the modern history of physical science that the scientist constructing a new theoretical system has nearly always found that the mathematics ... required ... had already been worked out by pure mathematicians for their own amusement ... The moral for statesmen would seem to be that, for proper scientific "planning", pure mathematics should be endowed fifty years ahead of scientists. ~ R. B. Braithwaite

Applying the axioms of physical science to human life has something reprehensible to it. ~ Albert Einstein

The words 'theory' and 'practice' are of Greek origin; they carry our thoughts back to the ancient philosophers by whom they were contrived, and by whom they were also contrasted and placed in opposition, as denoting two mutually conflicting and mutually inconsistent ideas ... [this fallacy] based on a double system of natural laws retarded for centuries the development of physical science, notably mechanics. ~ William John Macquorn Rankine

It seems perfectly clear that Economy, if it is to be a science at all, must be a mathematical science. There exists much prejudice against attempts to introduce the methods and language of mathematics into any branch of the moral sciences. Most persons appear to hold that the physical sciences form the proper sphere of mathematical method, and that the moral sciences demand some other method-I know not what. ~ William Stanley Jevons

The new mathematics is a sort of supplement to language, affording a means of thought about form and quantity and a means of expression,more exact,compact, and ready than ordinary language. The great body of physical science, a great deal of the essential facts of financial science, and endless social and political problems are only accessible and thinkable to those who have had a sound training in mathematical analysis, and the time may not be very remote when it will be understood that for complete initiation as an efficient citizen of one of the new great complex world wide states that are now developing, it is as necessary to be able to compute, to think in averages and maxima and minima, as it is now to be able to read and write. ~ H.G.Wells

It would not become physical science to see in its self created, changeable, economical tools, molecules and atoms, realities behind phenomena ... The atom must remain a tool for representing phenomena. ~ Ernst Mach

If you suppress laboratories, physical science will be stricken with barrenness and death. ~ Louis Pasteur

The world is devoted to physical science, because it believes theses discoveries will increase its capacity of luxury and self-indulgence. But the pursuit of science only leads to the insoluble. ~ Benjamin Disraeli

That our knowledge only illuminates a small corner of the Universe, that it is incomplete, approximate, tentative and merely probable need not concert us. It is genuine nevertheless. Physical science stands as one of the great achievements of the human spirit. ~ Arthur David Ritchie

Vanity of science. Knowledge of physical science will not console me for ignorance of morality in time of affliction, but knowledge of morality will always console me for ignorance of physical science. ~ Blaise Pascal

It may just be," he added, "that there is something fundamentally unworkable about government itself. As long as Homo sapiens terra is a wild animal, which he has always been and always will be until he evolves into something different in a million or so years, maybe a workable system of government is a political science impossibility, just as transmutation of elements was a physical-science impossibility as long as they tried to do it by chemical means. ~ H. Beam Piper

There are things that science as presently conceived does not help us to understand, and which we can see, from the internal features of physical science, that it is not going to explain. They seem to call for a more uncompromisingly mentalistic or even normative form of understanding. ~ Thomas Nagel

In the world of human thought generally, and in physical science particularly, the most important and fruitful concepts are those to which it is impossible to attach a well-defined meaning. ~ Hans Kramers

Unlike the position that exists in the physical sciences , in economics and other disciplines that deal with essentially complex phenomena, the aspects of the events to be accounted for about which we can get quantitative data are necessarily limited and may not include the important ones. ~ Friedrich August Von Hayek

I didn't mind studying. Obviously math and the physical science subjects interested me more than some of the more artistic subjects, but I think I was a pretty good student. ~ Alan Shepard

Since coming to Congress, I have been advocating for increased resources for research in the physical sciences and for the Department of Energy Office of Science in particular. ~ Judy Biggert

Statistical science is indispensable to modern statesmanship. In legislation as in physical science it is beginning to be understood that we can control terrestrial forces only by obeying their laws. The legislator must formulate in his statutes not only the national will, but also those great laws of social life revealed by statistics. ~ James A. Garfield

In less than eight years "The Origin of Species" has produced conviction in the minds of a majority of the most eminent living men of science. New facts, new problems, new difficulties as they arise are accepted, solved, or removed by this theory; and its principles are illustrated by the progress and conclusions of every well established branch of human knowledge. ~ Alfred Russel Wallace

He felt as though he were a prism, gathering up God's love like white light and scattering it in all directions, and the sensation was nearly physical, as he caught and repeated as much of what everyone said to him as he could, soaking up the music and cadence, the pattern of phonemes on the fly, gravely accepting and repeating Askama's quiet corrections when he got things wrong. ~ Mary Doria Russell

In every walk of life, you do have the freedom to choose, but that freedom is based on the perception of the world and yourself which you have gained until that moment of life. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Broader and deeper we must write our annals, from an ethical reformation, from an influx of the ever new, ever sanative conscience, if we would trulier express our central and wide-related nature, instead of this old chronology of selfishness and pride to which we have too long lent our eyes. Already that day exists for us, shines in on us at unawares, but the path of science and of letters is not the way into nature. The idiot, the Indian, the child, and unschooled farmer's boy, stand nearer to the light by which nature is to be read, than the dissector or the antiquary. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Qur'an sought to reform, not to destroy and start from scratch, to
salvage what was useful and then to modify and build on it. The task was
to get the Arabs to think about religion in a novel way, to inculcate in them a new conceptual frame of reference, to transfer them from one worldview to another, and higher, one. This process of transformation took them from traditionalism to individualism, from impulsiveness to discipline, from supernaturalism to science, from intuition to conscious reasoning and, in the end, ideally, harmonized the whole. ~ Jeffrey Lang

I was working with stem cells as part of a NASA programme. We realised that the science of stem-cell proliferation was also fundamental to cancer cells when cancer enters the phase of metastasis. ~ Patrick Soon-Shiong

My mother showed me that when tin or zinc was bent it uttered a special 'cry'. 'It's due to deformation of the crystal structure,' she said, forgetting that I was five, and could not understand her - and yet her words fascinated me, made me want to know more. ~ Oliver Sacks

In this century, not only has science changed the world faster than ever, but in new and different ways. Targeted drugs, genetic modification, artificial intelligence, perhaps even implants into our brains - may change human beings themselves. ~ Martin Rees

When I think about myself as a writer, for sure I am a science fiction writer. The tools of extrapolation, the tools of anticipating the future - those are science fictional questions. ~ Paolo Bacigalupi

We can all benefit by learning to express and meet out physical needs in a loving, caressing and compassionate way ~ David Bresler

This preservation of favourable variations and the rejection of injurious variations, I call Natural Selection. ~ Charles Darwin

As a child, I had no interest in science whatsoever - then I started writing and recognized how relevant it was. My first book about science and medicine captured the world of organ transplantation in 1989 from the points of view of all of the participants - scientists, surgeons, social workers, organ recipients and even donor families. ~ Lee Gutkind

Thus we conclude, that the strata both primary and secondary, both those of ancient and those of more recent origin, have had their materials furnished from the ruins of former continents, from the dissolution of rocks, or the destruction of animal or vegetable bodies, similar, at least in some respects, to those that now occupy the surface of the earth. ~ John Playfair

All science, even the divine science, is a sublime detective story. Only it is not set to detect why a man is dead; but the darker secret of why he is alive. ~ G.K. Chesterton

The truth is that computer science is not really about the computer. It is just a tool to help you see ideas more clearly. ~ Carlos Bueno

Eighty-two percent of Australia's bird species and two thirds of Australia's mammal species can be found on our (Australian Wildlife Conservancy) reserves. We put teams of people on the frontline in the battle against feral animals, wildfires and noxious weeds. Science underpins everything we do. ~ Kristy Hinze

It is remarkable, Hardin, how the religion of science has grabbed hold. ~ Isaac Asimov

Then the one called Raltariki is really a demon?" asked Tak.

"Yes - and no," said Yama, "If by 'demon' you mean a malefic, supernatural creature, possessed of great powers, life span and the ability to temporarily assume virtually any shape - then the answer is no. This is the generally accepted definition, but it is untrue in one respect."

"Oh? And what may that be?"

"It is not a supernatural creature."

"But it is all those other things?"

"Yes."

"Then I fail to see what difference it makes whether it be supernatural or not - so long as it is malefic, possesses great powers and life span and has the ability to change its shape at will."

"Ah, but it makes a great deal of difference, you see. It is the difference between the unknown and the unknowable, between science and fantasy - it is a matter of essence. The four points of the compass be logic, knowledge, wisdom and the unknown. Some do bow in that final direction. Others advance upon it. To bow before the one is to lose sight of the three. I may submit to the unknown, but never to the unknowable. ~ Roger Zelazny

In that context, I find theistic evolution, or BioLogos, to be by far the most scientifically consistent and spiritually satisfying of the alternatives. This position will not go out of style or be disproven by future scientific discoveries. It is intellectually rigorous, it provides answers to many otherwise puzzling questions, and it allows science and faith to fortify each other like two unshakable pillars, holding up a building called Truth. ~ Francis S. Collins

Science has eliminated distance. ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Dogbert: So, Since Columbus is dead, you have no evidence that the earth is round. Dilbert: Look. You can Ask Senator John Glenn. He orbited the earth when he was an astronaut. Dogbert: So, your theory depends on the honesty of politicians. Dilbert: Yes ... no, wait ... ~ Scott Adams

A hint of - dare I say? - animism has entered into the scientific worldview. The physical world is no longer either dead or passively obedient to the laws. ~ Barbara Ehrenreich

We could use up two Eternities in learning all that is to be learned about our own world and the thousands of nations that have arisen and flourished and vanished from it. Mathematics alone would occupy me eight million years. ~ Mark Twain

At the rate science proceeds, rockets and missiles will one day seem like buffalo - slow, endangered grazers in the black pasture of outer space. ~ Bernard Cooper

In the light of fuller day,
Of purer science, holier laws. ~ Charles Kingsley

The less knowledgeable a nation is, the more 'miracles' the nation has. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Tears are supposed to relieve the pain, but sometimes, they do worsen the pain, particularly the physical pain, the pain of the hurt pride, and the psychological pain that is accompanied by the continual waves of tears. ~ Noha Alaa El-Din

There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance-that principle is contempt prior to investigation. ~ Herbert Spencer

It turned out that salt was a microcosm for one of the oldest concepts of nature and the order of the universe. From the fourth-century-B.C. Chinese belief in the forces of yin and yang, to most of the world's religions, to modern science, to the basic principles of cooking, there has always been a belief that two opposing forces find completion - one receiving a missing part and the other shedding an extra one. A salt is a small but perfect thing. ~ Mark Kurlansky

'Why are we here?' 'What is our purpose? 'Is there an afterlife?' 'Is there a God?' 'Is it all about science?' Those are big questions, and usually, TV is a little scared to go there. ~ Evangeline Lilly

(does not dream; is only dreamed of) ~ Franny Choi

For some years, I've been very interested in the relationship between science and art. ~ Simon McBurney

The great scientific achievements are research programmes which can be evaluated in terms of progressive and degenerative problemshifts; and scientific revolutions consist of one research programme superceding (overtaking in progress) another. This methodology offers a new rational reconstruction of science. ~ Imre Lakatos

There was a growing conviction that religion had to become as rational as modern science. ~ Karen Armstrong

Creative geniuses are a slap-happy lot. Treat Them with respect. ~ James A. Michener