Quotes About Science

I was born in 1933 in New York City to Frederick and Eva Weinberg. My early inclination toward science received encouragement from my father, and by the time I was 15 or 16, my interests had focused on theoretical physics.

It is a test of true theories not only to account for but to predict phenomena.

Scientific research involves going beyond the well-trodden and well-tested ideas and theories that form the core of scientific knowledge. During the time scientists are working things out, some results will be right, and others will be wrong. Over time, the right results will emerge.

Theories pass. The frog remains.

Theories come and go, but fundamental data always remain the same.

You make observations, write theories to fit them, try experiments to disprove the theories and, if you can't, you've got something.

Physics has a history of synthesizing many phenomena into a few theories.

The overwhelming majority of theories are rejected because they contain bad explanations, not because they fail experimental tests.

Corporate America limits the world to consumerism. Science can limit it to the material world. Even religion limits it to a lot of theories that can explain everything. I think we need cinema to break that apart and remind us that we're not in control, and we don't understand as much as we think do.

Our empirical criterion for a series of theories is that it should produce new facts. The idea of growth and the concept of empirical character are soldered into one.

Extra dimensional theories are sometimes considered science fiction with equations. I think that's a wrong attitude. I think extra dimensions are with us, they are with us to stay, and they entered physics a long time ago. They are not going to go away.

A common misconception about how things such as space shuttles come to be is that engineers simply apply the theories and equations of science. But this cannot be done until the new thing-to-be is conceived in the engineer's mind's eye. Rather than following from science, engineered things lead it.

Today's preoccupation with physical theories of everything takes a wrong turn from the purpose of science - to question all things relentlessly. Modern physics has become like Swift's kingdom of Laputa, flying absurdly on an island above the earth and indifferent to what is beneath.

There's no such thing as 'facts of life'. Only standing theories that haven't been disproved as of yet.

I think philosophers can do things akin to theoretical scientists, in that, having read about empirical data, they too can think of what hypotheses and theories might account for that data. So there's a continuity between philosophy and science in that way.

Theories of evolution must provide for the creative acts which brought such theories into existence.

Science is based on the possibility of objectivity, on the possibility of different people checking out for themselves the observations made by others. Without that possibility, there is no empirical principle capable of deciding between different arguments and theories.

There are 15 main theories in physics, and we know all of them. If there weren't a finite number of theories, there would not be a point to physics.

You know what I'm intrigued by? Like, space and wormholes and Stephen Hawking's theories and Richard Dawkins's theories. That's what I care about.

String theory's biggest prediction is that gravity exists. That's good. That's a lot more than preceding theories could do.

If you wanted to travel backwards in time, you're out of luck. We have theories on how it might be possible to do so, but they all involve wormholes and black holes and other stuff that would probably kill you. If you want to travel forward in time, you just have to go really fast.

If Darwin's theories are true, then we have within us the physical memory of when we were fish or apes.

I want to get across that science is something that we all have ownership of and we can all take an interest in. We don't all have to understand complex theories, but we should have a working knowledge, like knowing your way round the engine of your car.

The theory of evolution, like the theory of gravity, is a scientific fact.