Science and Reason

Nothing is accidental in the universe -- this is one of my Laws of Physics -- except the entire universe itself, which is Pure Accident, pure divinity.

I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies but not the madness of people.

If you demand my authorities for this and that, I must reply that only those who have never hunted up the authorities as I have believe that there is any authority who is not contradicted flatly by some other authority.

From the results so far obtained it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the long-range atoms arising from collision of *3 particles with nitrogen are not nitrogen atoms but probably atoms of hydrogen, or atoms of mass 2. If this be the case, we must conclude that the nitrogen atom is disintegrated under the intense forces developed in a close collision with a swift *3 particle, and that the hydrogen atom which is liberated formed a constituent part of the nitrogen nucleus.

[ After Randolph Churchill’s lung was removedand found not to have malignancies :] A typicaltriumph of modern science to find the onlypart of Randolph that was not malignant andremove it.

My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.

Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est.

Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. Lucky is he who has been able to understand the causes of things.

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.

The scientist is possessed by a sense of universal causation… His religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection… It is beyond question closely akin to that which has possessed the religious geniuses of all ages.

We are unknown to ourselves, we men of knowledge--and with good reason. We have never sought ourselves--how could it happen that we should ever find ourselves?

Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.

In order to explain these and other results, it is necessary to assume that the electrified particle passes through an intense electric field within the atom. The scattering of the electrified particles is considered for a type of atom which consists of a central electric charge concentrated at a point and surrounded by a uniform spherical distribution of opposite electricity equal in amount.

If you can’t explain your physics to a barmaid, it is probably not very good physics.

To come very near to a true theory, and to grasp its precise application, are two very differentthings, as the history of a science teaches us. Everything of importance has been said before by somebody who did not discover it.

The greatest invention of the nineteenth century was the invention of the method of invention.

If we find the answer to that [why it is that we and the universe exist], it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason—for then we would know the mind of God.

 

Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man's upper chamber, if he has common sense on the ground floor.

All sciences are vain and full of errors that are not born of Experience, the mother of all Knowledge.

We must think things not words, or at least we must constantly translate our words into the facts for which they stand, if we are to keep the real and the true.

Principles for the Development of a Complete Mind: Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Develop your 9 senses- especially learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.

The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

When I find myself in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a drawing room full of dukes.

Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a prime mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.