Discovery in Physics (1900-1949)

"The science of physics does not only give us [mathematicians] an opportunity to solve problems, but helps us also to discover the means of solving them, and it does this in two ways: it leads us to anticipate the solution and suggests suitable lines of argument." (Henri Poincaré, "La valeur de la science" ["The Value of Science"], 1905)

"It behooves us always to remember that in physics it has taken great men to discover simple things." (D'Arcy W Thompson, "On Growth and Form", 1917)

"The aim of physics, consciously or unconsciously, has always been to discover what we may call the causal skeleton of the world." (Bertrand Russell, "The Analysis of Matter", 1927)

"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, "An Outline of Philosophy", 1927)

"The discoveries in physical science, the triumphs in invention, attest the value of the process of trial and error. In large measure, these advances have been due to experimentation." (Louis Brandeis, "Judicial opinions", 1932)

"[…] 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." (Ernest Rutherford, 1932)

"Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas. One seeks the most general ideas of operation which will bring together in simple, logical and unified form the largest possible circle of formal relationships. In this effort toward logical beauty spiritual formulas are discovered necessary for the deeper penetration into the laws of nature." (Albert Einstein, [Obituary for Emmy Noether], 1935)

"It will probably be the new mathematical discoveries which are suggested through physics that will always be the most important, for, from the beginning Nature has led the way and established the pattern which mathematics, the Language of Nature, must follow." (George D Birkhoff, "Mathematical Nature of Physical Theories" American Scientific Vol. 31 (4), 1943)