"But in no case is there any question of time flowing backward, and in fact the concept of backward flow of time seems absolutely meaningless. […] If it were found that the entropy of the universe were decreasing, would one say that time was flowing backward, or would one say that it was a law of nature that entropy decreases with time?" (Percy W Bridgman,"Reflections of a Physicist", 1950)
"Every bit of knowledge we gain and every conclusion we draw about the universe or about any part or feature of it depends finally upon some observation or measurement. Mankind has had again and again the humiliating experience of trusting to intuitive, apparently logical conclusions without observations, and has seen Nature sail by in her radiant chariot of gold in an entirely different direction." (Oliver J Lee, "Measuring Our Universe: From the Inner Atom to Outer Space", 1950)
"Perhaps the most majestic feature of our whole existence is that while our intelligences are powerful enough to penetrate deeply into the evaluation of this quite incredible Universe, we still have not the smallest clue to our own fate." (Sir Fred Hoyle, "The Nature of the Universe", 1950)
"[…] the characteristic tendency of entropy is to increase. As entropy increases, the universe, and all closed systems in the universe, tend naturally to deteriorate and lose their distinctiveness, to move from the least to the most probable state, from a state of organization and differentiation in which distinctions and forms exist, to a state of chaos and sameness." (Norbert Wiener, "The Human Use of Human Beings", 1950)
"'World view' differs from culture, ethos, mode of thought, and national character. It is the picture the members of a society have of the properties and characters upon their stage of action. While 'national character' refers to the way these people look to the outsider looking in on them, 'world view' refers to the way the world looks to that people looking out. Of all that is connoted by 'culture', 'world view' attends especially to the way a man, in a particular society, sees himself in relation to all else. It is the properties of existence as distinguished from and related to the self. It is, in short, a man's idea of the universe. It is that organization of ideas which answers to a man the questions: Where am I? Among what do I move? What are my relations to these things?" (Robert Redfield, "The Primitive World View", 1952)
"The laws of science are the permanent contribution to knowledge - the individual pieces which are fitted together attempt to form a picture of the physical universe in action." (Edwin P Hubble, "The Nature of Science and Other Lectures", 1954)
"A system is any portion of the universe set aside for certain specified purposes. For our concern, a system is set aside from the universe in a manner that will enable this system to be built without having to consider the total universe. Therefore, the system is set aside from the universe by its inputs and outputs - its boundaries. The system may be said to be in operation when its inputs are being transformed into the required outputs. (Incidently, we are not here concerned with completely closed systems.) The systems that do concern us all have a number of components within their boundaries which together effect the transformation of the inputs to the required outputs." (Kay Inaba et al, "A rational method for applying behavioral technology to man-machine system design", 1956)
"Mathematicians who build new spaces and physicists who find them in the universe can profit from the study of pictorial and architectural spaces conceived and built by men of art." (György Kepes, "The New Landscape In Art and Science", 1956)
"Two possible approaches to the organization of general systems theory suggest themselves, which are to be thought of as complementary rather than competitive, or at least as two roads each of which is worth exploring. The first approach is to look over the empirical universe and to pick out certain general phenomena which are found in many different disciplines, and to seek to build up general theoretical models relevant to these phenomena. The second approach is to arrange the empirical fields in a hierarchy of complexity of organization of their basic 'individual' or unit of behavior, and to try to develop a level of abstraction appropriate to each." (Kenneth E. Boulding, General Systems Theory - The Skeleton of Science, Management Science Vol. 2 (3), 1956)
"We dissect nature along the lines laid down by our native languages. The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds - and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds. […] We are thus introduced to a new principle of relativity, which holds that all observers are not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the universe, unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar or can in some way be calibrated." (Benjamin L Whorf, 1956)
"The progress of science has always been the result of a close interplay between our concepts of the universe and our observations on nature. The former can only evolve out of the latter and yet the latter is also conditioned greatly by the former. Thus in our exploration of nature, the interplay between our concepts and our observations may sometimes lead to totally unexpected aspects among already familiar phenomena." (Tsung-Dao Lee, "Weak Interactions and Nonconservation of Parity", [Nobel lecture] 1957)
"[…] observation and theory are woven together, and it is futile to attempt their complete separation. Observation always involve theory. Pure theory may be found in mathematics, but seldom in science. Mathematics, it has been said, deals with possible worlds - logically consistent systems. Science attempts to discover the actual world we inhabit. So in cosmology, theory presents an infinite array of possible universes, and observation is eliminating them, class by class, until now the different types among which our particular universe must be included have become increasingly comprehensible." (Edwin P Hubble, "The Realm of the Nebulae", 1958)
"If simple perfect laws uniquely rule the universe, should not pure thought be capable of uncovering this perfect set of laws without having to lean on the crutches of tenuously assembled observations? True, the laws to be discovered may be perfect, but the human brain is not. Left on its own, it is prone to stray, as many past examples sadly prove. In fact, we have missed few chances to err until new data freshly gleaned from nature set us right again for the next steps. Thus pillars rather than crutches are the observations on which we base our theories; and for the theory of stellar evolution these pillars must be there before we can get far on the right track." (Erwin Schrödinger & Martin Schwarzschild, "Structure and Evolution of the Stars", 1958)
"In fact, it is empirically ascertainable that every event is actually produced by a number of factors, or is at least accompanied by numerous other events that are somehow connected with it, so that the singling out involved in the picture of the causal chain is an extreme abstraction. Just as ideal objects cannot be isolated from their proper context, material existents exhibit multiple interconnections; therefore the universe is not a heap of things but a system of interacting systems." (Mario Bunge, "Causality: The place of the casual principles in modern science", 1959)
"The time has come to realise that an interpretation of the universe - even a positive one - remains unsatisfying unless it covers the interior as well as the exterior of things; mind as well as matter. The true physics is that which will, one day, achieve the inclusion of man in his wholeness in a coherent picture of the world." (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, "The Phenomenon of Man", 1959)
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