Quotes About Science

As the writer Arthur Koestler astutely observed, "Johannes Kepler became enamored with the Pythagorean dream, and on this foundation of fantasy, by methods of reasoning equally unsound, built the solid edifice of modern astronomy. It is one of the most astonishing episodes in the history of thought, and an antidote to the pious belief that the Progress of Science is governed by logic.

Whenever some aspect of nature doesn't care about direction, circles are bound to appear.

What I've just described is called a system of differential equations. Such equations arise whenever we have rules for speeds depending on current positions.

determinism does not imply predictability.

The solution to Schrödinger's equation shows that a small portion of the electron probability wave exists on the far side of an impenetrable barrier.

All of calculus, and hence all of theoretical physics, hinges on this assumption of continuous space and time. That assumption of continuity has been resoundingly successful so far.

There are various ideas about the mechanism of synchronization, but the best guess is that it has something to do with pheromones: unidentified, odorless chemicals that somehow convey a synchronizing signal.

that raises a profound mystery: Scientists have long been baffled by the existence of spontaneous order in the universe. The laws of thermodynamics seem to dictate the opposite, that nature should inexorably degenerate toward a state of greater disorder, greater entropy. Yet all around us we see magnificent structures—galaxies, cells, ecosystems, human beings—that have somehow managed to assemble themselves.

and out comes another empirical truth, possibly a new one, a fact about the universe that nobody knew before (like the existence of electromagnetic waves).

So he used calculus not only to predict the existence of electromagnetic waves but also to solve an age-old mystery: What was the nature of light? Light, he realized, was an electromagnetic wave.

Infinity lies at the heart of so many of our dreams and fears and unanswerable questions: How big is the universe? How long is forever? How powerful is God? In every branch of human thought, from religion and philosophy to science and mathematics, infinity has befuddled the world's finest minds for thousands of years. It has been banished, outlawed, and shunned. It's always been a dangerous idea.

Nature—cue the theme from The Twilight Zone—somehow knows calculus.

Yes, we humans are more than merely biological creatures. We appreciate beauty, we struggle with ethical conflicts, and we strive to make sense of our purpose in the universe, asking questions that science cannot answer. And yet, our sense of aesthetics, our moral sensibilities, and our search for meaning may themselves be intricately connected to the fabric of the cosmos.

What is crucial here, however, is this anthropological point: that contemporary science is as cultural as shamanism, opera, Catholicism, or the Boy Scouts. It does not stand outside of culture in a space of perfect objectivity.

Scientists are people, and they are subject to the influences of their times. Theories explaining the world change diachronically or vary synchronically not only because of variation in the available data, but because of change and variation in the people producing the theories. Objectivity itself is culturally constituted.

The more we know about science, the more we know culture and cosmos are connected, to such an extent that we can now see that the cosmos is inextricably intertwined with human destiny, both in the short term and the long-term, impinging on (and arguably essential to) questions normally reserved for religion and philosophy.

GPS on the molecular level.

Darwin was constantly rereading his notes, discovering new implications.

This is why reading the scriptures as a scientific text can do violence to their purpose. They are designed to connect us subjectively, consciously, and spiritually to richer truths and meaning.

Arthur Clarke once remarked that the best technology was indistinguishable from magic.

Come on, Rory! It isn't rocket science, it's just quantum physics! -The Doctor (Matt Smith)

Engineering is merely the slow younger brother of physics.

Disgust is intuitive microbiology

In mathematical modeling, as in all of science, we always have to make choices about what to stress and what to ignore. The art of abstraction lies in knowing what is essential and what is minutia, what is signal and what is noise, what is trend and what is wiggle. It's an art because such choices always involve an element of danger; they come close to wishful thinking and intellectual dishonesty.