"Science still has many chasms, which interrupt the series of facts and often render it expremely difficult to reconcile them with each other [...]" (Antoine Lavoisier, "Elements of Chemistry: In a New Systematic Order; Containing All the Modern Discoveries", 1799)
"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, "Elements of Chemistry: In a New Systematic Order; Containing All the Modern Discoveries", 1799)
"The domain of physics is no proper field for mathematical pastimes. The best security would be in giving a geometrical training to physicists, who need not then have recourse to mathematicians, whose tendency is to despise experimental science. By this method will that union between the abstract and the concrete be effected which will perfect the uses of mathematical, while extending the positive value of physical science. Meantime, the uses of analysis in physics is clear enough. Without it we should have no precision, and no co-ordination; and what account could we give of our study of heat, weight, light, etc.? We should have merely series of unconnected facts, in which we could foresee nothing but by constant recourse to experiment; whereas, they now have a character of rationality which fits them for purposes of prevision." (Auguste Comte, "The Positive Philosophy", 1830)
"The earlier truths are not expelled but absorbed, not contradicted but extended; and the history of each science, which may thus appear like a succession of revolutions, is, in reality, a series of developements." (William Whewell, "History of the inductive sciences: from the earliest to the present times", 1837)
"[…] mathematical verities flow from a small number of self-evident propositions by a chain of impeccable reasonings; they impose themselves not only on us, but on nature itself. They fetter, so to speak, the Creator and only permit him to choose between some relatively few solutions. A few experiments then will suffice to let us know what choice he has made. From each experiment a number of consequences will follow by a series of mathematical deductions, and in this way each of them will reveal to us a corner of the universe. This, to the minds of most people, and to students who are getting their first ideas of physics, is the origin of certainty in science." (Henri Poincaré, "The Foundations of Science", 1913)
"The function of a mathematician, then, is simply to observe the facts about his own intricate system of reality, that astonishingly beautiful complex of logical relations which forms the subject-matter of his science, as if he were an explorer looking at a distant range of mountains, and to record the results of his observations in a series of maps, each of which is a branch of pure mathematics. […] Among them there perhaps none quite so fascinating, with quite the astonishing contrasts of sharp outline and shade, as that which constitutes the theory of numbers." (Godfrey H. Hardy, "The Theory of Numbers", Nature 1922)
"Common sense […] may be thought of as a series of concepts and conceptual schemes which have proved highly satisfactory for the practical uses of mankind. Some of those concepts and conceptual schemes were carried over into science with only a little pruning and whittling and for a long time proved useful. As the recent revolutions in physics indicate, however, many errors can be made by failure to examine carefully just how common sense ideas should be defined in terms of what the experimenter plans to do." (James B Conant, "Science and Common Sense", 1951)
"It is indeed wrong to think that the poetry of Nature’s moods in all their infinite variety is lost on one who observes them scientifically, for the habit of observation refines our sense of beauty and adds a brighter hue to the richly coloured background against which each separate fact is outlined. The connection between events, the relation of cause and effect in different parts of a landscape, unite harmoniously what would otherwise be merely a series of detached sciences." (Marcel Minnaert, "The Nature of Light and Colour in the Open Air", 1954)
"The organization of science into disciplines sets up a series of ghettos with remarkable distances of artificial social space between them." (Kenneth Boulding, "Image and Environment: Cognitive Mapping and Spatial Behavior", 1973)
"All revolutionary advances in science may consist less of sudden and dramatic revelations than a series of transformations, of which the revolutionary significance may not be seen (except afterwards, by historians) until the last great step. In many cases the full potentiality and force of a most radical step in such a sequence of transformations may not even be manifest to its author." (I Bernard Cohen, "The Newtonian Revolution", 1980)
"The view of science is that all processes ultimately run down, but entropy is maximized only in some far, far away future. The idea of entropy makes an assumption that the laws of the space-time continuum are infinitely and linearly extendable into the future. In the spiral time scheme of the timewave this assumption is not made. Rather, final time means passing out of one set of laws that are conditioning existence and into another radically different set of laws. The universe is seen as a series of compartmentalized eras or epochs whose laws are quite different from one another, with transitions from one epoch to another occurring with unexpected suddenness." (Terence McKenna, "True Hallucinations", 1989)
"Most people think of science as a series of steps forged in concrete, but it’s not. It’s a puzzle, and not all of the pieces will ever be firmly in place. When you’re able to fit some of the together, to see an answer, it’s thrilling." (Nora Roberts, "Homeport", 1998)
"Science is like photographing a series of close-ups with your back to the sun. No matter which way you move, your shadow always falls across the scene you photograph. No matter what you do, you can never efface yourself from the photographed scene." (F David Peat, "From Certainty to Uncertainty", 2002)
"A fact is not novel if it has an analogue which could have some interest. A fact which does not fit in with a series of known facts is a fact which deserves particular attention. If the mind had to retain all individual facts, it could not manage and science would not exist; but when these facts can be connected by general laws and by theories, when a large number of these facts can be represented by a single one, one can remember them more easily, one can generalise one’s ideas, one can compare one general fact with another general fact and discoveries can succeed each other. It is only when laws can be introduced into a science that it assumes the true character of science." (Joseph L Gay-Lussac)
"The sciences are now masked, but when the masks are lifted, they will be seen in their beauty. Upon inspecting the chain of the sciences, it will not appear more difficult to remember them than a series of numbers." (René Descartes)
No comments:
Post a Comment