Physical Science Quotes

• Vanity of science. Knowledge of physical science will not console me for ignorance of morality in time of affliction, but knowledge of morality will always console me for ignorance of physical science.

  Blaise Pascal

  Time, Ignorance, Knowledge

  c.1654-1662 Pense es, no.23.

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• The most important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplemented in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote.

  Albert A. Michelson

  Discovery, Law, Important

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• Physical science has taught us to associate Deity with the normal rather than with the abnormal.

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky

  Taught Us, Abnormal, Deities

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• Without renouncing the support of physics, it is possible for the physiology of the senses, not only to pursue its own course of development, but also to afford to physical science itself powerful assistance.

  Ernst Mach

  Powerful, Support, Development

  Ernst Mach (1897). “Contributions to the Analysis of the Sensations”

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• I liked math - that was my favorite subject - and I was very interested in astronomy and in physical science.

  Sally Ride

  Math, Favorite Subject, Astronomy

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• Physical science is like simple addition: it is either infallible or it is false.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Simple, Infallible

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• The humanities need to be defended today against the encroachments of physical science, as they once needed to be against the encroachment of theology.

  Irving Babbitt

  Humanity, Needs, Today

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• But honestly, if you do a rigorous survey of my work, I'll bet you'll find that biology is a theme far more often than physical science.

  David Brin

  Honest, Biology, Theme

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• One aim of physical sciences had been to give an exact picture the material world. One achievement of physics in the twentieth century has been to prove that that aim is unattainable.

  Jacob Bronowski

  Science, Giving, Achievement

  Jacob Bronowski (1976). “The ascent of man”

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• I didn't mind studying. Obviously math and the physical science subjects interested me more than some of the more artistic subjects, but I think I was a pretty good student.

  Alan Shepard

  Math, Science, Thinking

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• Cell and tissue, shell and bone, leaf and flower, are so many portions of matter, and it is in obedience to the laws of physics that their particles have been moved, moulded and conformed. They are no exceptions to the rule that God always geometrizes. Their problems of form are in the first instance mathematical problems, their problems of growth are essentially physical problems, and the morphologist is, ipso facto, a student of physical science.

  D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson

  Flower, Math, Law

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• The great body of physical science, a great deal of the essential fact of financial science, and endless social and political problems are only accessible and only thinkable to those who have had a sound training in mathematical analysis, and the time may not be very remote when it will be understood that for complete initiation as an efficient citizen of one of the new great complex worldwide States that are now developing, it is as necessary to be able to compute, to think in averages and maxima and minima, as it is now to be able to read and write.

  H. G. Wells

  Writing, Thinking, Average

  H. G. Wells (2013). “Delphi Collected Works of H. G. Wells (Illustrated)”, p.8611, Delphi Classics

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• You know, there was a time, just before I started to study physical science, when astronomers thought that systems such as we have here in the solar system required a rare triple collision of stars

  Murray Gell-Mann

  Stars, Study, Astronomers

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• Applying the axioms of physical science to human life has something reprehensible to it.

  Albert Einstein

  Human Life, Humans, Axioms

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• Even mistaken hypotheses and theories are of use in leading to discoveries. This remark is true in all the sciences. The alchemists founded chemistry by pursuing chimerical problems and theories which are false. In physical science, which is more advanced than biology, we might still cite men of science who make great discoveries by relying on false theories.

  Claude Bernard

  Mistake, Science, Men

  "An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine".

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• Science does not know its debt to imagination.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Science, Imagination, Doe

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume VIII: Letters and Social Aims”, p.5, Harvard University Press

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• One of the things that got me transitioning from physical science to brain science was asking, Why do we understand so much about the universe?

  Edward Boyden

  Asking Why, Brain, Universe

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

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• Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world.

  Albert Einstein

  Science, Mind, Investing

  Albert Einstein, Leopold Infeld (1966). “Evolution of Physics”, p.31, Simon and Schuster

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• That our knowledge only illuminates a small corner of the Universe, that it is incomplete, approximate, tentative and merely probable need not concert us. It is genuine nevertheless. Physical science stands as one of the great achievements of the human spirit.

  Arthur David Ritchie

  Knowledge, Science, Achievement

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• The people has no definite disbelief in the temples of theology. The people has a very fiery and practical disbelief in the temples of physical science.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  People, Temples, Theology

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• Science is nothing but developed perception, interpreted intent, common sense rounded out and minutely articulated.

  George Santayana

  Science, Common Sense, Perception

  The Life of Reason: Reason in Science, Ch. 11

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• If you suppress laboratories, physical science will be stricken with barrenness and death.

  Louis Pasteur

  Laboratory, Ifs

  Some Reflections on Science in France Pt 1

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• In an information economy, entrepreneurs master the science of information in order to overcome the laws of the purely physical sciences. They can succeed because of the surprising power of the laws of information, which are conducive to human creativity. The central concept of information theory is a measure of freedom of choice. The principle of matter, on the other hand, is not liberty but limitation- it has weight and occupies space.

  George Gilder

  Creativity, Hands, Order

  George Gilder (2013). “Knowledge and Power: The Information Theory of Capitalism and How it is Revolutionizing our World”, p.20, Regnery Publishing

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• The fundamental concepts of physical science, it is now understood, are abstractions, framed by our mind, so as to bring order to an apparent chaos of phenomena.

  William Cecil Dampier

  Science, Order, Mind

  William Cecil Dampier Dampier-Whetham M.A., F.R.S. (1931). “A History of Science and its Relations with Philosophy & Religion”

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• In physical science a first essential step in the direction of learning any subject is to find principles of numerical reckoning and practicable methods for measuring some quality connected with it. I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely in your thoughts advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be.

  Lord Kelvin

  Numbers, Quality, Principles

  Popular Lectures and Addresses "Electrical Units of Measurement" (1889).

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