Quotes About Science

There was something ghost-like and insubstantial about gases to these early chemists. They called liquids that turned into gases easily, spirits. Methyl alcohol, they called wood spirit; ethyl alcohol, wine spirit. Even today, alcoholic beverages are frequently referred to as spirits. (Modern Arabs, from whose language the word alcohol was taken, call ethyl alcohol spirit from the English. This is a queer exchange.)

Some readers may realize that this story, first published in 1956, has been overtaken by events. In 1965, astronomers discovered that Mercury does not keep one side always to the Sun, but has a period of rotation of about fifty-four days, so that all parts of it are exposed to the sunlight at one time or another. Well, what can I do except say that I wish astronomers would get things right to begin with? And I certainly refuse to change the story to suit their whims.

Logical but not reasonable. Wasn't that the definition of a robot?

During the century after Newton , it was still possible for a man of unusual attainments to master all fields of scientific knowledge. But by 1800, this had become entirely impracticable.

For it is the chief characteristic of the religion of science that it works

A simple aspect of science may be defined as one which, through good fortune, I happen to understand.

If you think that those who are left, with practically no knowledge of the elements of science, or worse, still, with the distorted knowledge the priests receive, can penetrate at a bound to nuclear power, to electronics, to the theory of the hyperwarp – you have a very romantic and very foolish idea of science. It takes lifetimes of training and an excellent brain to get that far.

even the purest and most high-minded scientist finds it expedient sometimes to assault the fortress of truth with the blunt weapon of trail and error. sometimes it works beautifully.

You are a military man and should know better. If there is one science into which man has probed continuously and successfully, it is that of military technology. No potential weapon would remain unrealized for ten thousand years.

Now tell me what happened—in words. I want your translation of the mathematics.

And AC said, LET THERE BE LIGHT! And there was light --

Look heah, now, I've got the wuhks of all the old mastahs—the gweat ahchaeologists of the past. I wigh them against each othah—balance the disagweements—analyze the conflicting statements—decide which is pwobably cowwect—and come to a conclusion. That is the scientific method. At least"—patronizingly—"as I see it.

no matter how sure scientists think they are, nature has a way of surprising them.

Science is constructed out of approximations that gradually approach the truth

Re the temperature of Venus's surface No one had expected such a hot Venus

La verdad científica está más allá de toda lealtad y deslealtad.

There's no way we can raise a positronic brain one inch above the level of perfect materialism. "We can't, damn it, we can't. Not as long as we don't understand what makes our own brains tick. Not as long as things exist that science can't measure. What is beauty, or goodness, or art, or love, or God? We're forever teetering on the brink of the unknowable, and trying to understand what can't be understood. It's what makes us men.

Nowadays, of course, we are taught that the flat-Earth theory is wrong; that it is all wrong, absolutely. But it isn't. The curvature of the Earth is nearly 0 per mile, so that although the flat-Earth theory is wrong, it happens to be nearly right. That's why the theory lasted so long.

And then again, in a society given over, as that of the First Empire was, to the physical sciences and inanimate technology, there was a vague but mighty sociological push away from the study of the mind. It was less respectable because less immediately useful; and it was poorly financed since it was less profitable.

it could be considered that science, as science, had failed the outer worlds. To be reaccepted it would have to present itself in another guise—and it has done just that. It works out beautifully." "Interesting!" The mayor placed his arms around his

superluminal velocities

Science doesn't purvey absolute truth. Science is a mechanism. It's a way of trying to improve your knowledge of nature. It's a system for testing your thoughts against the universe and seeing whether they match.

Eventually, it had to be accepted that God had created invisible stars and this was the very first hint that perhaps the Universe had not been created with human welfare as its primary object (a point I have never seen stressed in histories of science)

The Scientist - with capital letters and no smile.