Pioneering Scientist Quotes

In the last four days I have got the (results) given by Tantalum, Chromium, Manganese, Iron , Nickel, Cobalt and Copper ... The chief result is that ... the result for any metal (is) quite easy to guess from the results for the others. This shews that the insides of all the atoms are very much alike, and from these results it will be possible to find out something of what the insides are made up of. ~ Henry Moseley

The American economy has been built and sustained by risk-taking entrepreneurs whose pioneering ideas and hard work gave birth to flourishing businesses. ~ Mike Pence

While I am not a scientist, and write primarily on economics, tax policy and budget issues, I have been fascinated over the years by Heartland's work on climate change. ~ Peter Ferrara

Nevertheless, just as I believe that the Book of Scripture illumines the pathway to God, so I believe that the Book of Nature, with its astonishing details-the blade of grass, the Conus cedonulli, or the resonance levels of the carbon atom-also suggest a God of purpose and a God of design. And I think my belief makes me no less a scientist. ~ Owen Gingerich

If I would be a young man again and had to decide how to make my living, I would not try to become a scientist or scholar or teacher. I would rather choose to be a plumber or a peddler in hope to find that modest degree of independence still available under present circumstances. ~ Albert Einstein

It is characteristic of science that the full explanations are often seized in their essence by the percipient scientist long in advance of any possible proof. ~ John Desmond Bernal

To take an example closer to home, consider the fact that every few years your body replaces most of the atoms that comprise you. In spite of this, you remain yourself in all the ways that matter to you. One atom is as good as any other if it's playing the same functional role in your molecular makeup. The same story should hold for the brain: if a mad scientist were to replace each of your neurons with a functionally equivalent micromachine replica, you should come out of the procedure feeling no less your own true self than you had at the outset. By this principle, an artificial system that used the same functional architecture as an intelligent, living brain should be likewise intelligent - and not just contrivedly so, but actually, truly intelligent. ~ Jeff Hawkins

The poet is intimate with truth, while the scientist approaches awkwardly. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda

In order to understand how engineers endeavor to insure against such structural, mechanical, and systems failures, and thereby also to understand how mistakes can be made and accidents with far-reaching consequences can occur, it is necessary to understand, at least partly, the nature of engineering design. It is the process of design, in which diverse parts of the 'given-world' of the scientist and the 'made-world' of the engineer are reformed and assembled into something the likes of which Nature had not dreamed, that divorces engineering from science and marries it to art. While the practice of engineering may involve as much technical experience as the poet brings to the blank page, the painter to the empty canvas, or the composer to the silent keyboard, the understanding and appreciation of the process and products of engineering are no less accessible than a poem, a painting, or a piece of music. Indeed, just as we all have experienced the rudiments of artistic creativity in the childhood masterpieces our parents were so proud of, so we have all experienced the essence of structual engineering in our learning to balance first our bodies and later our blocks in ever more ambitious positions. We have learned to endure the most boring of cocktail parties without the social accident of either our bodies or our glasses succumbing to the force of gravity, having long ago learned to crawl, sit up, and toddle among our tottering towers of blocks. If we could remember those earl ~ Henry Petroski

Most influential of all is the philosopher Stanley Cavell, and a younger generation of philosophers who have attempted to follow his pioneering work in thinking about literature philosophically. ~ Philip Kitcher

When a young person, even a gifted one, grows up without proximate living examples of what she may aspire to become
whether lawyer, scientist, artist, or leader in any realm
her goal remains abstract. Such models as appear in books or on the news, however inspiring or revered, are ultimately too remote to be real, let alone influential. But a role model in the flesh provides more than inspiration; his or her very existence is confirmation of possibilities one may have every reason to doubt, saying, 'Yes, someone like me can do this. ~ Sonia Sotomayor

The idea that there's good and evil knowledge ... well, that's strictly a religious point of view. Actions can be either moral or immoral, yes, but knowledge can't be labeled that way. To a scientist, to any educated man or woman, all knowledge is morally neutral. ~ Dean Koontz

I just take the Bible for what it is, I guess, and recognize that I am not a scientist, not trained to be a scientist. I'm not a deep thinker on all of this. I wish I was. I wish I was more knowledgeable, but I'm not a scientist. ~ Michele Bachmann

Here's another example that some overworked mothers might find inspiring. We saw in Chapter 2 that being the one who produces
the sperm doesn't dictate, by universal principle, that parenting is out of the portfolio. However, in the case of the rat (as with most
mammals), the balance of trade-offs make it more adaptive for males to leave parenting to the mothers. This might tempt us to take it for
granted that males, by virtue of their sex, therefore lack the capacity to care for pups. We might well assume that, through sexual selection, they lost or never acquired the biological capacity to parent: that it isn't "in" their genes, hormones, or neural circuits. That it isn't in their male nature. But bear in mind that one reliable feature of a male rat's developmental system is a female rat that does the child care. So what happens when a scientist, under controlled laboratory conditions, simulates a first-wave feminist rodent movement by placing males in cages with pups but no females? Before too long you will see the male "mothering" the infant, in much the same way that females do. Feminism: 1. Sexual selection: nil. ~ Cordelia Fine

The goal of scientists is you hope that the thing you're working on is bigger than the thing you're pipetting into that tube at that moment. ~ Bonnie Bassler

As the psychologist Jonathan Haidt put it, there are two ways to get at the truth: the way of the scientist and the way of the lawyer. ~ Leonard Mlodinow

The 'size' of science has doubled steadily every 15 years. In a century this means a factor of 100. For every single scientific paper or for every single scientist in 1670, there were 100 in 1770, 10,000 in 1870 and 1,000,000 in 1970. ~ John Ziman

Geology is part of that remarkable dynamic process of the human mind which is generally called science and to which man is driven by an inquisitive urge. By noticing relationships in the results of his observations, he attempts to order and to explain the infinite variety of phenomena that at first sight may appear to be chaotic. In the history of civilization this type of progressive scientist has been characterized by Prometheus stealing the heavenly fire, by Adam eating from the tree of knowledge, by the Faustian ache for wisdom. ~ Reinout Willem Van Bemmelen

Science makes people reach selflessly for truth and objectivity; it teaches people to accept reality, with wonder and admiration, not to mention the deep awe and joy that the natural order of things brings to the true scientist. ~ Lise Meitner

I think the hardest thing about making music now is being a great dad at the same time. There's an insanity that goes with writing - a mad scientist thing that you have to go through - and sacrificing a kid's upbringing to do that is not an option. ~ Eddie Vedder

No doubt it is true that science cannot study God, but it hardly follows that God had to keep a safe distance from everything that scientists want to study. ~ Phillip E. Johnson

The government-sponsored institution Fannie Mae, when I look at its risks, seems to be sitting on a barrel of dynamite, vulnerable to the slightest hiccup. But not to worry: their large staff of scientists deemed these events "unlikely." ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

It is not enough to say that we cannot know or judge because all the information is not in. The process of gathering knowledge does not lead to knowing. A child's world spreads only a little beyond his understanding while that of a great scientist thrusts outward immeasurably. An answer is invariably the parent of a great family of new questions. So we draw worlds and fit them like tracings against the world about us, and crumple them when they do not fit and draw new ones. ~ John Steinbeck

In a weird way scientists understand things on a higher level but it takes a lot of dedication and a lot of time. ~ Michael Pitt

Admittedly, the body of scientists, as a whole, does uphold the authority of science over the lay public. It controls thereby also the process by which young men are trained to become members of the scientific profession. ~ Michael Polanyi

If the tools are bad, nature's voice is muffled. If the tools are good, nature will give us a clear answer to a clear question. ~ Freeman Dyson

Poverty when coupled with creativeness is usually free of frustration. This is true of the poor artisan skilled in his trade and of the poor writer, artist, and scientist in the full possession of creative powers. Nothing so bolsters our self-confidence and reconciles us with ourselves as the continuous ability to create; to see things grow and develop under our hand, day in, day out. The decline of handicrafts in modern times is perhaps one of the causes for the rise of frustration and the increased susceptibility of the individual to mass movements. ~ Eric Hoffer

As a scientist, I don't believe anything. Science shouldn't use the word belief. There are things more likely and less likely. Science can say nothing with absolute certainty. ~ Lawrence M. Krauss

I'm not just a scientist. ~ Hasso Plattner

The real scientist is ready to bear privation and, if need be, starvation rather than let anyone dictate to him which direction his work must take. ~ Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

It is hardly surprising that to this day New England is considered to be the pie capital of America, whose inhabitants traditionally eat (sweet) pie for breakfast. Apple pies in particular became deeply embedded in the history of America - associated with the old country, the new country and the pioneering spirit, and indelibly identified with the sense of nationhood and patriotic sentiment. ~ Janet Clarkson

Creativity is piercing the mundane to find the marvelous. ~ Bill Moyers

Back in 1792, Dr. Benjamin Banneker, the famed African-American inventor and scientist in Washington, proposed a Department of Peace for the new Nation to his friends George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. His prophetic suggestion was not implemented; but now, more than 200 years later, the need for a Peace Department is too compelling to ignore. ~ John Conyers

All scientist are oglers, i suppose, the sensuousness is a sine quo non of modern technology ~ Aporva Kala

As a scientist, I clearly see the potential for harnessing the power of nature. ~ Craig Venter

I think it enriches you as a scientist to be able to see things in an artistic perspective and as an artist to see things in a scientific perspective. ~ Masi Oka

Don't put my faith in nobody, not even a scientist. ~ Bob Dylan

A scientist said, "The very best way to send an idea is to wrap it up in a person." That was what happened at Christmas. The idea of divine love was wrapped up in a Person. ~ Halford Luccock

Scientists have one thing in common with children: curiosity. To be a good scientist you must have kept this trait of childhood, and perhaps it is not easy to retain just one trait. A scientist has to be curious like a child; perhaps one can understand that there are other childish features he hasn't grown out of. ~ Otto Robert Frisch

I don't believe I can let this subject pass by leaving my own conflicted emotions unconfessed. When Carl Sagan won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction in 1978, I dismissed it as a minor achievement for a scientist, scarcely worth listing. When I won the same prize the following year, it wondrously became a major literary award of which scientists should take special note. ~ Edward O. Wilson

The same theme can be found in Carol Reed's pioneering The Stars Look Down, in which three classic avenue of escape from the working class are posited: crime, football and education. ~ Peter Wollen

A scientist is only a human being, a particle in the whole universe. How can the observations and logic of a particle measure the life and size of a phenomenon that is limitless? ~ Avtarjeet Singh Dhanjal

A good scientist must accept the challenge that one day everything he believes could be wrong. ~ Sam Hawksmoor

It is the political task of the social scientist - as of any liberal educator - continually to translate personal troubles into public issues, and public issues into the terms of their human meaning for a variety of individuals. It is his task to display in his work - and, as an educator, in his life as well - this kind of sociological imagination. And it is his purpose to cultivate such habits of mind among the men and women who are publicly exposed to him. To secure these ends is to secure reason and individuality, and to make these the predominant values of a democratic society. ~ C. Wright Mills

My father was the editor of an agricultural magazine called 'The Southern Planter.' He didn't think of himself as a writer. He was a scientist, an agronomist, but I thought of him as a writer because I'd seen him working at his desk. I just assumed that I was going to do that, that I was going to be a writer. ~ Tom Wolfe

Chefs think about what it's like to make food. Being a scientist in the kitchen is about asking why something works, and how it works. ~ Nathan Myhrvold