Best quotes from Scientists

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cannot said:
The theory of relativity he described as "a mass of error and deceptive ideas violently opposed to the teachings of great men of science of the past and even to common sense." "The theory, "he said, "wraps all these errors and fallacies and clothes them in magnificent mathematical garb which fascinates, dazzles and makes people blind to the underlying errors. The theory is like a beggar clothed in purple whom ignorant people take for a king. Its exponents are very brilliant men, but they are metaphysicists rather than scientists. Not a single one of the relativity propositions has been proved."

1935
The New York Times,
Tesla
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Tesla was an awesome engineer, but was completely wrong here.
Relativity has been proven correct time and time again.
 
All attributed to the great Albert Einstein except the very last one below.

“I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university.”


“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”


“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvellous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day."


“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”


“Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.”


“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”



"If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't understood it yet. - Niels Bohr
 

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"Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree many years ago".
 
Werewolf said:
"If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants" - Isaac Newton
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sataris said:
I think that was a sledge at Leibnitz.
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Probably Hooke.
In one of the great quirks of historical irony, the most popular quote attributed to Newton — "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants" — might actually have been the mother of all passive-aggressive swipes at Robert Hooke. While it's generally viewed as an eloquent demonstration of scientific humility on Newton's part, the quote comes from a 1676 letter to Hooke, at a point where the pair were already arguing over proper credit for some work in optics. Hooke was commonly described as very short, even hunchbacked, and one theory is that Newton's mention of "giants" was his way of saying Hooke had no influence on his work. It's a fascinating to think that such an iconic, seemingly inspiring quote could have such petty, personal origins, but of course it's totally impossible to prove either way.
 
FredLeDeux said:
Probably Hooke.
In one of the great quirks of historical irony, the most popular quote attributed to Newton — "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants" — might actually have been the mother of all passive-aggressive swipes at Robert Hooke. While it's generally viewed as an eloquent demonstration of scientific humility on Newton's part, the quote comes from a 1676 letter to Hooke, at a point where the pair were already arguing over proper credit for some work in optics. Hooke was commonly described as very short, even hunchbacked, and one theory is that Newton's mention of "giants" was his way of saying Hooke had no influence on his work. It's a fascinating to think that such an iconic, seemingly inspiring quote could have such petty, personal origins, but of course it's totally impossible to prove either way.
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Given that other records from the time seem to indicate that Newton was a twat seem to place probability in one camp rather than the other...
 
sataris said:
Given that other records from the time seem to indicate that Newton was a twat seem to place probability in one camp rather than the other...
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Yes, though Hooke was reportedly every bit as "difficult", and had numerous priority disputes with others as well as Newton.
Who knows the truth of it?
 
“I’m not a philosopher… however, I am rather… dazzled… by the fact that many of the basic mysteries that we find in string theory and the theory of everything, seem to be mirrored in the Zohar and in the Kabbalah” (Michio Kaku, Professor of Theoretical Physics at the City College of New York. Author of three New York Times Best Sellers: Physics of the Impossible (2008), Physics of the Future (2011), and The Future of the Mind):

:thumbsdown:
 
Kant wasn't as such a scientist, but certainly a philosopher of science:

"Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life."
 

“I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. I want to grow really old with my wife, Annie, whom I dearly love. I want to see my younger children grow up and to play a role in their character and intellectual development. I want to meet still unconceived grandchildren. There are scientific problems whose outcomes I long to witness—such as the exploration of many of the worlds in our Solar System and the search for life elsewhere. I want to learn how major trends in human history, both hopeful and worrisome, work themselves out: the dangers and promise of our technology, say; the emancipation of women; the growing political, economic, and technological ascendancy of China; interstellar flight. If there were life after death, I might, no matter when I die, satisfy most of these deep curiosities and longings. But if death is nothing more than an endless dreamless sleep, this is a forlorn hope. Maybe this perspective has given me a little extra motivation to stay alive. The world is so exquisite, with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better, it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look Death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.”

― Carl Sagan, Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium
 
Blaze Storm said:
The remark which I read somewhere, that science is all right as long as it doesn't attack religion, was the clue I needed to understand the problem. As long as it doesn't attack religion it need not be paid attention to and nobody has to learn anything. So it can be cut off from society except for its applications, and thus be isolated. And then we have this terrible struggle to try to explain things to people who have no reason to want to know. But if they want to defend their own point of view, they will have to learn what yours is a little bit. So I suggest, maybe correctly and perhaps wrongly, that we are too polite.

-Richard Feynman

Also: "Hell, if I could explain it to the average person, it wouldn't have been worth the Nobel prize."
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One of the principles of the Bahai Faith is the harmony of science and religion. Interesting concept. If science and religion disagree, then it is religion that is wrong.
 

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grumbleguts said:
One of the principles of the Bahai Faith is the harmony of science and religion. Interesting concept. If science and religion disagree, then it is religion that is wrong.
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The Dalai Lama said something similar recently. That science works in the physical realm and religion in the inner realm (of the mind, spirit, etc...). If something in science contradicts something in religion, then religion must reassess their view to be made consistent with the provable truth.
 
Abasi said:
The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it - Neil deGrasse Tyson.
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I know this isn't quite what he was getting at, but I always thought truth belonged more in religion than science.

Science is measurements and observations, and models that fit them. The only thing that could be remotely considered a truth is that the measurements were recorded as what they were recorded as. The models are just a best description to date usually chosen in a form that is intuitive to humans. Who knows what reality or the truth really is.

This also leads to the mistake of calling some things impossible, when they just don't fit the models. If you call the model a truth you ignore all the assumptions underpinning it, and give it an infallibility that it can never have. Even the application of human logic to the underlying mechanics of the universe is an assumption that it always follows the logical rules humans have developed.

As we get better measurements and observations, we realise new assumptions and the models change, but it is unlikely that the truth (whatever it is) changes with our models.
 
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Chrizzt said:
Can't stand that pompous ******. He's in the field of science education and communication and chooses to insult and belittle those who most need to understand science.
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no, he belittles idiots who dont try to understand it and instead counter it with conspiracy or religious bullshit.

the kinds of people he belittles are the kind who wont change their mind no matter what evidence they are presented with. the flat-earthers, climate-conspiracists, alien conspiracists, religious types he has to contend with deserve belittlement. the best way to allow some ridiculous theory is to gain traction is by acknowledging it as anything other than what it is, ridiculous.
 
Loonerty said:
Ernest Rutherford: "All science is either physics or stamp collecting"
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Ha, sounds kinda mean, but it's pretty true. If a science is not derived from physics then it is ontological classification.

Which these days is far more important than physics.
 
"You have no idea how much poetry there is in a table of logarithms." - Carl Friedrich Gauss

And to honor this truly great mans humility:

"If others would but reflect on mathematical truths as deeply and as continuously as I have, they would make my discoveries." - Carl Friedrich Gauss
 
"and the moderator just kept interjecting right when I was about to make my point" - Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss regarding ABC's Tony Jones on Q&A.
 
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