Quotes About Scientists

The sensation of flight was novel and delightful, and the fact of accomplishing what several eminent scientists have 'proved' impossible gave an added satisfaction.

Scientists say that...gender bending may keep fish from reproducing because, with so many in sexual limbo, there's just no real push to procreate. Oh, if only deer, squirrels, and Kardashians would acquire this particular affliction. I'm just kidding. I don't really have anything against deer. Or squirrels.

We know that mathematicians care no more for logic than logicians for mathematics. The two eyes of exact science are mathematics and logic: the mathematical sect puts out the logical eye, the logical sect puts out the mathematical eye; each believing that it sees better with one eye than with two. The consequences are ludicrous.

Learning is not a product of teaching. Kids are born learning. They learn how to walk, how to talk. They're basically little scientists. If we don't stop that process, it will continue.

Science in the twenty-first century does NOT encourage scientists to take risks in their pursuit of "the facts"—particularly when those facts call into question long-established notions

after centuries of observation scientists are still not exactly sure why the Amazon—unlike other forests, where leaves turn brown during the dry season—grows green and lush when the rain stops or how this reversed pattern of photosynthesis contributes to the broader seasonal distribution of water throughout the region.

Scientists make these deductions by examining a rat, or your landlord who won't cut the rent, and what do they find? Asparagus.

SINCE EUCLIDEAN MEASUREMENTS—length, depth, thickness—failed to capture the essence of irregular shapes, Mandelbrot turned to a different idea, the idea of dimension. Dimension is a quality with a much richer life for scientists than for non-scientists.

In theory the World War II atomic bomb project was a problem in nuclear physics. In reality the nuclear physics had been mostly solved before the project began, and the business that occupied the scientists assembled at Los Alamos was a problem in fluid dynamics.

I whirled around and saw no one. No psychotic mad scientists, anyway. Jackpot, Max! Jackpot! It was was Fang, and he was giggling hysterically. For those of you just joining us, Fang doesn't giggle. Especially hysterically. So for a second, this seemed like one of the weirder dreams of recent days.

Fang snorted in disbelief. On one hand, we have a mythical nice family that wants to adopt me. On the other, we have a gang of insane scientists desperate to do genetic experiments on innocent children. Guess which hand I get dealt?

Uh-huh, I said. Because all you mad, evil scientists sit around whipping up batches of Pillsbury's finest during your coffee breaks. I mean, this is pathetic.

I just wish I could walk into my Senator's office and say, "Senator Dude, Um, we have a problem with these sicko scientists…" But then again, I don't think we have a Senator, do we? Is there a state where mutant freaks are represented? If so, let me know.

The thing is, the "scientists" back at the School had been playing with risky stuff, combining human and nonhuman DNA. Basically, the spliced genes started to unravel after a while, and the organisms tended to, well, self-destruct. The flock and I had seen it happen a million times: The rabbit-dog combo had been such bad news. Same with the sheep-macaque monkey splice. The mouse-cat experiment had produced a huge, hostile mouse with great balance and an inability to digest either

We scientists have an obsession with unification, a grand synthesis. And dark matter is an irritating missing piece.

Mushrooms are miniature pharmaceutical factories, and of the thousands of mushroom species in nature, our ancestors and modern scientists have identified several dozen that have a unique combination of talents that improve our health.

A lot of high-level scientists are in fact people of almost universal interest.

There is an almost universal experience in physicists, at least of my generation, which is home-made pyrotechnics.

Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.

I felt the question of the afterlife was the black hole of the personal universe: something for which substantial proof of existence had been offered but which had not yet been explored in the proper way by scientists and philosophers.

The age of the Earth is a hotly debated issue among evangelicals. Old Earthers believe, like most scientists, that the universe is billions of years old. Young Earthers measure the age of the universe in terms of thousands of years.

Scientists say, 'There is no such thing as time; gravity is a dust from another universe, and outside our own universe are many, many universes in all directions.' They speculate that attached to these universes are probably 6,000 planets identical to Earth. So are there things living out there? Animals, people, anything?

There are two - parallel - universes of science. One is the actual day-to-day work of scientists, patiently researching into all parts of the world and sometimes making amazing discoveries. The other is the role science plays in the public imagination - the powerful effect it has in shaping how millions of ordinary people see the world.

Scientists are not these guys in lab coats deep in the inner bowels of universities and hospitals with their Bunsen burners. They're the people molding the culture that we live in, the future of our culture, and the technology we rely on every day.