## 9. MISCELLANY

#### Subsections

- 9. miscellany - general
- 9.1 poetry
- 9.2 Einstein quotes
- 9.3 other quotes
- 9.4 terms and definitions
- 9.5 The Nerd test and other tests.
- 9.6 Murphy's law
- 9.7 proof methods

### 9.3 OTHER QUOTES

Index | Comments and Contributions | previous page

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    "There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what
    the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be
    replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another
    theory which states that this has already happened."
     -- Douglas Adams

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    "The creator of the universe works in mysterious ways. But he uses a base
    ten counting system and likes round numbers."  Scott Adams

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    From: edftz@aol.com (Ed Fitzgerald)

    At each stage [of the hierarchical structure of reality] entirely new laws,
    concepts and generalizations are necessary, requiring inspiration and
    creativity to just as great a degree as in the previous one. ... Psychology
    is not applied biology, nor is biology applied chemistry.
     -- Philip W. Anderson "More Is Different" Science magazine (1972)

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    From: synapsid@hotmail.com (The Sanity Inspector)

    Through the mythology of Einstein, the world blissfully regained the
    image of knowledge reduced to a formula.
    -- Roland Barthes, Mythologies, 1957

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    From: chollanamdo@mindspring.com (The Sanity Inspector)

    The history of science resembles a collection of ghosts remembering that
    once they too were gods.
    	-- David Berlinsky, theoretical mathematician

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    From: chrisbrown2643@my-deja.com

     It has often been said that 'nature is simple' - illusion!  It is our mind
    which looks for simplicity to avoid effort.
      ~ L. Brillouin, in Scientific Uncertainty and Information

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    From: Don Olivier <don@hsph.harvard.edu>

     My studies in Speculative Philosophy, metaphysics, and science are all
    summed up in the image of a mouse called man running in and out of every
    hole in the Cosmos hunting for the Absolute Cheese.
     -- Edmund Burke (?)

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    From: John Rehling <rehling@cs.indiana.edu>
    Genius is a nuisance, and it is the duty of schools and colleges to abate
    it by setting genius traps in its way.
     -Samuel Butler

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less.
     -- Nicholas Murray Butler (1862-1947, President of Columbia
    University)(commencement address at Columbia University - attributed)

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    From: "Atlantic" <atldental@ns.sympatico.ca>

    That reminded me of something one of my instructors once said.  I'm not
    sure where the original quote came from, but it sounds like something has
    been paraphrased along the way.

    From Anil Sachdev in lecture (paraphrased):

    A specialist knows more and more about less and less until eventually he
    knows everything about nothing.

    A generalist know less and less about more and more until eventually he
    knows nothing about everything.

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    Special Category: Arthur C. Clarke
    From: samhobbs@mindspring.com (Sam Hobbs)

    In the long run, there are no secrets. in science. The universe will not
    cooperate in a cover-up.  --- Arthur C. Clarke & Michael Kube-McDowell The
    Trigger, 1999, p. 124 (paperback edition)

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    From: WINDERL@AgResearch.cri.nz (Louise Winder)

     'Scientists are to journalists what rats are to scientists'
           Victor Cohn, medical writer, Washington Post

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    From: Don Westerheijden <d.f.westerheijden@cheps.utwente.nl>

     The present flood of publications hampers the progress of science.  (Eric
    Evers, thesis in Ph.D. dissertation, Amsterdam --my translation, DFW)

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    Special Category: Michael Faraday
    From: richard@milton.win-uk.net (Richard Milton)
    "Nothing is too wonderful to be true if it be consistent with the laws of
    nature." - Michael Faraday

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    Special Category: Richard Feynman
    From: Graham J Weeks <weeks-g@dircon.co.uk>

    There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number.
    But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national
    deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should
    call them economical numbers. -- Richard Feynman

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    Special Category: Richard Feynman
    From: Graham J Weeks <weeks-g@dircon.co.uk>

    I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just
    as dumb as the next guy. -- Richard Feynmann

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    Special Category: Definitions and terms
    Special Category: Richard Feynman

    From: Joe Fineman <jcf@TheWorld.com>

    Science is a way of trying not to fool ourselves.     -- R. P. Feynman

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    Edward Gibbon (1737-1793, English historian, author of the Decline and Fall
    of the Roman Empire)

     About the university of Oxford in Memoirs of my life (1796): To the
    University of Oxford I acknowledge no obligation; and she will as
    cheerfully renounce me for a son, as I am willing to disclaim her for a
    mother.  I spent fourteen months at Magdalen College: they proved the
    fourteen months the most idle and unprofitable of my whole life.

    On the dons at Oxford: Their dull and deep potations excused the
    intemperance of youth.

    Dr - well remembered that he had a salary to receive and only forgot that he
    had duties to perform.

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    Special Category: Definitions and terms
    Special Category: Godfrey H. Hardy
     Hardy, Godfrey H. (1877 -1947)
    A science is said to be useful of its development tends to accentuate
    the existing inequalities in the distribution of wealth, or more directly
    promotes the destruction of human life.
    In: A Mathematician's Apology, London, Cambridge University Press, 1941.

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    God could cause us considerable embarrassment by revealing all the secrets
    of nature to us: we should not know what to do for sheer apathy and
    boredom.
      -- Goethe (Johann Wolfgang von; 1749-1832), German poet and dramatist.

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    From: edftz@aol.com (Ed Fitzgerald)
    'There is no truth beyond magic'

    ... reality is strange.  Many people think reality is prosaic.  I don't.
    We don't explain things away in science.  We get closer to the mystery.
     -- Brian Goodwin quoted by Roger Lewin in "Complexity" (1992)

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    Special Category: Stephen Jay Gould
    From: edftz@aol.com (Ed Fitzgerald)

    Science is an integral part of culture. It's not this foreign thing, done by
    an arcane priesthood.  It's one of the glories of human intellectual
    tradition.
     -- Stephen Jay Gould

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    Special Category: John B. S. Haldane
    From: Jane Vosk <justjane@u.washington.edu>

     Now, my suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we
    suppose, but queerer than we _can_ suppose. ... I suspect that there are
    more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of, in any
    philosophy.
     [note] That is the reason why I have no philosophy for myself, and must be
    my excuse for dreaming.  J.B.S. Haldane, "Possible Worlds", in "Possible
    worlds and other essays",
            Chatto & Windus, London, 1927. On p286 of that edition.  Haldane,
    John Burdon Sanderson (British geneticist and writer, 1892-1964)

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    From: Mark Gingrich <grinch@rahul.net>
     Science doesn't have a chance until people learn to carry their
    intelligence the way James Dean carried his cigarette.

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    From: twp@panix.com (Tom Parsons)
     Every cold empirick, when his heart is expanded by a successful experiment,
    swells into a theorist.
                    --Johnson, Dr Samuel (1709-1784), Preface to Shakespeare

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    From: chollanamdo@mindspring.com (The Sanity Inspector)

    I find the three major administrative problems on a campus are sex for the
    students, athletics for the alumni, and parking for the faculty.
    -- Clark Kerr, President of the University of California, _Time_, 17
    Nov. 1958

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    I've always wanted to be a scientist. That way, I could get a bunch of
    grants and do research into whether money can really buy happiness."
     - Kyannke.

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    From: lstowell@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Lon Stowell)

    "It is unworthy of excellent men to lose hours, like slaves, in the labors
    of calculation"
      -- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz (German mathematician and
    philosopher,1646-1716)

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    From: locker@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Jon Locker)
      It is one Thing, to show a Man that he is in an Error, and another, to
    put him in possession of Truth." - John Locke

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    From: neve@up.univ-mrs.fr (Gabriel NEVE)

    "Scientific theories tell us what is possible; myths tell us what is
    desirable. Both are needed to guide proper action."

     - John Maynard Smith (Science and myth)

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    From: Casper Lans <cdlans@cs.ruu.nl>

     Who says nothing is impossible? Some people do it every day!
     --Alfred E. Neuman

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    Special Category: Isaac Newton

    If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.
      -
    Isaac Newton (1642-1727) in: Letter to Robert Hooke, February 5, 1675/1676

    In the sciences, we are now uniquely privileged to sit side by side with
    the giants on whose shoulders we stand. -- Gerald Holton

    If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing on
    my shoulders. -- Hal Abelson

    In computer science, we stand on each other's feet. -- Brian K. Reid
            -- Holton, Gerald

    From:liblanc1@nic.cerf.net (Bill Thomas)

     -- Bartlett 16. Note: See Robert Burton. On the history and the
     pseudo-history of this celebrated aphorism see Robert K. Merton, _On the
     Shoulders of Giants_ [1965].

     Robert Burton
     1577-1640

     A dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than a giant
     himself.
                            _The Anatomy of Melancholy [1621-1651].
                            Decomocritus to the Reader_

    From: aurator <goldisworth@20.orators>
    "If I can't see as far as others, it's because I've got these darned
    midgets standing on my shoulders wearing high heels and fishnet
    stockings."  -- aurator.

    The following is not for people who want to make comments about the  Newton
    quotation.
    It is a post from news:alt.quotations.
    From: wcw@math.psu.edu (William C Waterhouse)

    In article <p_vE9.138658$1O2.10078@sccrnsc04>,
    "Kevin G. Barkes" <kgb@kgb.com> writes:
    > You lost something in your "translation":
    >
    > > "If I have seen farther than other men it is by standing on the
    > > shoulders of giants."
    > > --Isaac Newton, physicist
    >
    > "Pundits use this quote as the ultimate expression of humility in
    > genius, but what they miss (and almost everyone else does too) is that
    > Newton wrote that line to a *very very short man*, a hunchbacked
    > fellow scientist with whom he was having a bitter feud.
    >
    > "Newton (1642-1727) was furious that Robert Hooke (1635-1703) was
    > staking claim to many key discoveries in optics and calculus. (Hooke
    > did in fact build the first reflecting telescope.)
    >
    > "Biographer John Aubrey, who was a personal friend of Robert Hooke,
    > described him as "but of middling stature, something crooked, pale
    > faced... head is large; his eye full and popping."
    >
    > "Newton wrote a long letter to Hooke on February 5, 1675, defending
    > himself from charges of intellectual piracy, praising Hooke for
    > trifles, and then Newton built to the famous "standing on the
    > shoulders of giants" line. (Newton, by the way, adapted from a line
    > about *pygmies* in a then-famous book called Anatomy of Melancholy).
    >
    > "You might translate Newton's sentiments: "While I admit to building
    > on the work of my scientific predecessors, I certainly didn't learn
    > anything from a dwarf like you."
    >
    > -from "An Underground Education" by Richard Zacks
    >
    > Excuse the outburst, but this "Quote of the Day and Translation"
    > business has been irritating me for some time.
    >...

    I agree with the final sentiment. But the interpretation by Zacks
    seems implausible to me.  Someone else quoted it here a while ago,
    and I'll repeat my comments.

    --------

    So far as I can tell, this idea was first invented by Frank
    Manuel, in his book _A Portrait of Isaac Newton _(Harvard, 1968).
    I have never seen any reason to believe it.

    Here is the passage (from Newton's letter to Hooke, 5 Feb 1676);
    I quote it from the standard biography, Westfall's _Never at Rest_ (1980).
    The topic is optics:

        What Des-Cartes did was a good step. You have added much several
        ways, and especially in taking the colours of thin plates
        into philosophical consideration. If I have seen further it
        is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.

    Westfall mentions Manuel's idea in a footnote but dismisses it.

    Here are some reasons to doubt it:

    1) Hooke showed no sign of unhappiness with Newton's letter;
       and no one thought of giving it such an interpretation for
       hundreds of years. That is not a guarantee, but certainly
       we should be reluctant to suppose a letter had a meaning
       quite different from what the people closer to its time
       saw in it.

    2) I do not see how "Giants" can be taken as anything but a
       reference to the two people named immediately before that
       sentence; and I do not see how it could be given a different
       meaning for one than for the other.

    3) When Newton writes in anger, he doesn't write
       like this at all.  Here for comparison is a bit of Newton
       writing angrily somewhat earlier (also in Westfall):

         "Mr Hook thinks himself concerned to reprehend me for
          laying aside the thoughts of improving Optiques by
          Refractions.  But he knows well that it is not for one
          man to prescribe Rules to the studies of another,
          especially not without understanding the grounds on which
          he proceeds."

       As Newton wrote to Oldenberg then, he did not use "oblique and
       glancing expressions," let alone subtle second meanings that
       no one would detect for centuries.

    William C. Waterhouse
    Penn State

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    From: SteveMR200 <SteveMR200@aol.com>

    Science offends the modesty of all genuine women.  They feel as if one were
    trying to look under their skin--or worse!  Under their clothes and finery.
         --Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
          _Beyond Good and Evil_ [1886], "Maxims and Interludes," No. 127

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    From: ryank@westman.wave.ca (Ryan Klippenstine)
    "Alas, to wear the mantle of Galileo it is not enough that you be
    persecuted by an unkind establishment; you must also be right."

       -Robert Park, of the American Physical Society

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    Special Category: Max Planck

    From: fcbaer@shentel.net (FRANK)
     Creative Quotations for Apr 23 from Max Planck

    On Foraging: Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that
    is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and
    therefore part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.

    On Reflecting: Ego is the immediate dictate of human consciousness.

    On Adopting: Anybody who has been seriously engaged is scientific work of
    any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of
    science are written the words: 'Ye must have faith.' It is a quality which
    the scientist cannot dispense with.

    On Nurturing: We have no right to assume that any physical laws exist, or
    if they have existed up until now, that they will continue to exist in a
    similar manner in the future.

    Max Planck (1858-1947) born on Apr 23 German physicist; He pioneered modern
    physics by proposing the quantum theory, 1900-01; won 1918 Nobel Prize.

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    From: historius
    "A scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and
    making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually
    die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."

    -Maxwell Planck, A scientific Autobiography, 1494.

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    From: Don Westerheijden <d.f.westerheijden@cheps.utwente.nl>
     science is common sense `writ large'
     - Karl R. Popper (1902- ), Austrian philosopher of science.  in: The Logic
    of Scientific Discovery, 1980 edn., p. 22

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    From: samhobbs@mindspring.com (Sam Hobbs)

     Science may be described as the art of systematic oversimplification.
      --- Karl Popper

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    The law of causality, I believe, like much that passes muster among
    philosophers, is a relic of a bygone age, surviving, like the monarchy,
    only because it is erroneously supposed to do no harm.  -- Bertrand Russel
    (British mathematician, 1872-1970) in Mysticism and Logic (1918)

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    Special Category: Ernest Rutherford

    From: cyp@Rrlyrae.Berkeley.EDU (Chien Peng)
     "The only posible conclusion the social sciences can draw is: some do,
     some don't."
      -- Ernest Rutherford, New Zealand physicist (1871-1937) More Rutherford
    in physics section.

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    Special Category: Carl Sagan
    From: edftz@aol.com (Ed Fitzgerald)
     We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in
    which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.
     -- Carl Sagan

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    From: marlow@concentric.com (marlowe)

     Science is nothing but developed perception, interpreted intent, common
    sense rounded out and minutely articulated.
      -- George Santayana (1863-1952) [US philosopher]

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    From: dok@fwi.uva.nl (Sir Hans)
     @A: Twain, Mark (1835-1910)

     @Q: In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower
        Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles.  That
        is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year.
        Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or an idiot, can see that
        in the Old O\"olitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago next
        November, the Lower Mississippi River was upward of one million three
        hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like
        a fishing-rod.  And by the same token any person can see that seven
        hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only
        a mile and three-quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have
        joined their streets together, and be plodding comfortably along under
        a single mayor and a mutual board of alderman.  There is something
        fascinating about science.  One gets such wholesome returns of
        conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
      @R: _Life on the Mississippi_ (1883) ch. 17

mathematics physics
[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    From: "Kerry L. Opel" <kopel@dragonbbs.com>
     The difference between math and physics is the difference between
    masturbation and sex.-- Paul Tomblin

    They're both messy, but physics can get you in much more trouble.--Malcom
    Ray

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    From: mzintl@plasma.ps.uci.edu (Michael W. Zintl)

    "Scientists have odious manners, except when you prop up their theory; then
    you can borrow money from them."  --Mark Twain

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    From: Stefan Winkler <Stefan.Winkler@epfl.ch>
     It is still an unending source of surprise for me how a few scribbles on a
    blackboard or on a piece of paper can change the course of human affairs.
         - Stanislaw Ulam

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    From: sichase@csa5.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE)

    The question seems to be of such a character that if I should come to life
    after my death and some mathematician were to tell me that it had been
    definitely settled, I think I would immediately drop dead again."
      - Vandiver

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    From: fcbaer@shentel.net (FRANK)

    Werner von Braun:

    Basic research is when I'm doing what I don't know I'm doing.

    I have learned to use the word "impossible" with the greatest caution.

    The best computer is a man, and it's the only one that can be mass-produced
    by unskilled labor.

    Crash programs fail because they are based on theory that, with nine women
    pregnant, you can get a baby a month.

    We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.

    Wernher VonBraun (1912-1977) born on Mar 23 German-U.S. engineer; He
    pioneered all aspects of rocketry and space exploration, first in Germany
    and, after World War II, in the U.S.

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    There is just one thing I can promise you about the outer-space program:
    your tax dollar will go farther. - Wernher von Braun.

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    From: goble@infonaut.com (Clark Goble)

    One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in contrast
    to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of
    scientists, a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and
    dull, but also just stupid.
                -- J. D. Watson _The Double Helix_

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    Special Category: Definitions and terms
    Special Category: Norbert Wiener
    A professor is one who can speak on any subject -- for precisely fifty
    minutes.

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanation of complex facts. We
    are apt to fall into the error of thinking that the facts are simple
    because simplicity is the goal of our quest.  The guiding motto in the life
    of every natural philosopher should be, "Seek simplicity and distrust it."
      ~ Alfred North Whitehead, in The Concept of Nature (1926)

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    From: FCB <fbaer@mci.newscorp.com>
     It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.
    (in *Science and the Modern World*)

    Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them. When the idea is new
    its custodians have fervour, live for it, and, if need be, die for it.
                  - Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)

[Top of page] [Bottom of page] [Index] [Send comment]

    From: charles@jolt.mpx.com.au (Charles Cave)

    Alfred North Whitehead We think in generalities, but we live in detail
     Source: Little Zen Companion, Schiller.

    The "silly question" is the first intimation of some totally new
    development.
     Source: Little Zen Companion, Schiller.

    Every really new idea looks crazy at first
     Source: The Art of Creative Thinking - book by Robert Olson (1986)

next page | Index | Comments and Contributions

#### Subsections

- 9. miscellany - general
- 9.1 poetry
- 9.2 Einstein quotes
- 9.3 other quotes
- 9.4 terms and definitions
- 9.5 The Nerd test and other tests.
- 9.6 Murphy's law
- 9.7 proof methods

Member of the Science Humor Net Ring
[ Previous 5 Sites | Previous | Next | Next 5 Sites ]
[ Random Site | List Sites ]

Hit Statistics