Theory Quotes - Page 21

• No generalizing beyond the data, no theory. No theory, no insight. And if no insight, why do research.

  Henry Mintzberg

  Science, Data, Research

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• On one occasion when [William] Smart found him engrossed with his fundamental theory, he asked Eddington how many people he thought would understand what he was writing-after a pause came the reply, 'Perhaps seven.'

  Arthur Eddington

  Smart, Writing, Science

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• Parkinson's Law is a purely scientific discovery, inapplicable except in theory to the politics of the day. It is not the business of the botanist to eradicate the weeds. Enough for him if he can tell us just how fast they grow.

  C. Northcote Parkinson

  Weed, Science, Discovery

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• Professors in every branch of the sciences, prefer their own theories to truth: the reason is that their theories are private property, but truth is common stock.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Science, Branches, Common

  Lacon: or many things in a few words (p. 189)

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• Propose theories which can be criticized. Think about possible decisive falsifying experiments-crucial experiments. But do not give up your theories too easily-not, at any rate, before you have critically examined your criticism.

  Karl Popper

  Giving Up, Science, Thinking

  Sir Karl Raimund Popper, Karl Raimund Popper (1974). “The Philosophy of Karl Popper”

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• Scarcely anyone who comprehends this theory can escape its magic.

  Albert Einstein

  Science, Magic

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• Schrödinger's wave-mechanics is not a physical theory, but a dodge - and a very good dodge too.

  Arthur Eddington

  Science, Dodge, Wave

  "The Nature of the Physical World" by Arthur Eddington, (Ch. 10), 1928.

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• Science has so accustomed us to devising and accepting theories to account for the facts we observe, however fantastic, that our minds must begin their manufacture before we are aware of it.

  Gene Wolfe

  Science, Mind, Facts

  Gene Wolfe (1997). “The Island of Dr. Death and Other Stories and Other Stories”, p.351, Macmillan

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• Scientists have odious manners, except when you prop up their theory; then you can borrow money off them.

  Mark Twain

  Money, Science, Scientist

  The Bee (published 1917)

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• Understanding a theory has, indeed, much in common with understanding a human personality. We may know or understand a man's system of dispositions pretty well; that is to say, we may be able to predict how he would act in a number of different situations. But since there are infinitely many possible situations, of infinite variety, a full understanding of a man's dispositions does not seem to be possible.

  Karl Popper

  Science, Men, Numbers

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• We can invent as many theories we like, and any one of them can be made to fit the facts. But that theory is always preferred which makes the fewest number of assumptions.

  Albert Einstein

  Science, Numbers, Facts

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• We may affirm of Mr. Buffon, that which has been said of the chemists of old; though he may have failed in attaining his principal aim, of establishing a theory, yet he has brought together such a multitude of facts relative to the history of the earth, and the nature of its fossil productions, that curiosity finds ample compensation, even while it feels the want of conviction.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Nature, Science, Curiosity

  Oliver Goldsmith (1847). “A history of the earth and animated nature, with an intr. view of the animal kingdom tr. from the Fr. of baron Cuvier, notes [and] a life of the author by W. Irving”, p.73

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• We must alter theory to adapt it to nature, but not nature to adapt it to theory.‎

  Claude Bernard

  Nature, Science, Natural

  Claude Bernard (2012). “An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine”, p.68, Courier Corporation

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• What I remember most clearly was that when I put down a suggestion that seemed to me cogent and reasonable, Einstein did not in the least contest this, but he only said, 'Oh, how ugly.' As soon as an equation seemed to him to be ugly, he really rather lost interest in it and could not understand why somebody else was willing to spend much time on it. He was quite convinced that beauty was a guiding principle in the search for important results in theoretical physics.

  Hermann Bondi

  Science, Guiding Principles, Theoretical Physics

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• When an investigator has developed a formula which gives a complete representation of the phenomena within a certain range, he may be prone to satisfaction. Would it not be wiser if he should say 'Foiled again! I can find out no more about Nature along this line.'

  Arthur Eddington

  Nature, Science, Giving

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• When someone admits one and rejects another which is equally in accordance with the appearances, it is clear that he has quitted all physical explanation and descended into myth.

  Epicurus

  Science, Appearance, Myth

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• Without theory, practice is but routine born of habit. Theory alone can bring forth and develop the spirit of invention. ... [Do not] share the opinion of those narrow minds who disdain everything in science which has not an immediate application. ... A theoretical discovery has but the merit of its existence: it awakens hope, and that is all. But let it be cultivated, let it grow, and you will see what it will become.

  Louis Pasteur

  Science, Discovery, Practice

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• [Gauss calculated the elements of the planet Ceres] and his analysis proved him to be the first of theoretical astronomers no less than the greatest of 'arithmeticians.'

  W. W. Rouse Ball

  Science, Analysis, Elements

  "Mathematica: The Philomath's Quotation Book". Book by Robert Édouard Moritz, p. 157, 1942.

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• [In mathematics] There are two kinds of mistakes. There are fatal mistakes that destroy a theory, but there are also contingent ones, which are useful in testing the stability of a theory.

  Gian-Carlo Rota

  Mistake, Science, Two

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• [Referring to Fourier's mathematical theory of the conduction of heat] ... Fourier's great mathematical poem.

  Lord Kelvin

  Science, Biographies, Heat

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• I worked on true Baconian principles, and without any theory collected facts.

  Charles Darwin

  Science, Principles, Facts

  Charles Darwin (2003). “On the Origin of Species”, p.438, Broadview Press

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• It took Einstein ten years of groping through the fog to get the theory of special relativity, and he was a bright guy.

  James C. Collins

  Perseverance, Fog, Years

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• As regards authority I so proceed. Boetius says in the second prologue to his Arithmetic, 'If an inquirer lacks the four parts of mathematics, he has very little ability to discover truth.' And again, 'Without this theory no one can have a correct insight into truth.' And he says also, 'I warn the man who spurns these paths of knowledge that he cannot philosophize correctly.' And Again, 'It is clear that whosoever passes these by, has lost the knowledge of all learning.'

  Roger Bacon

  Truth, Men, Path

  Roger Bacon (2016). “Opus Majus, Volumes 1 and 2”, p.117, University of Pennsylvania Press

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• Dissections daily convince us of our ignorance of the seats of diseases, and cause us to blush at our prescriptions. How often are we disappointed in our expectation from the most certain and powerful of our remedies, by the negligence or obstinacy of our patients! What mischief have we done under the belief of false facts and false theories! We have assisted in multiplying diseases. We have done more — we have increased their mortality.

  Benjamin Rush

  Truth, Ignorance, Convince Us

  "Medical Inquiries and Observations".

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• If any human being earnestly desire to push on to new discoveries instead of just retaining and using the old; to win victories over Nature as a worker rather than over hostile critics as a disputant; to attain, in fact, clear and demonstrative knowlegde instead of attractive and probable theory; we invite him as a true son of Science to join our ranks.

  Francis Bacon

  Science, Son, Winning

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