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It appears, from all that precedes, reasonably certain that if there be any relative motion between the earth and the luminiferous ether, it must be small; quite small enough entirely to refute Fresnel's explanation of aberration."
Albert Abraham Michelson, born
19 December 1852.
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The electron: may it never be of any use to anybody!"
J. J. Thomson, born
18 December 1856.
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Nothing is so fatal to the progress of the human mind as to suppose that our views of science are ultimate; that there are no mysteries in nature; that our triumphs are complete, and that there are no new worlds to conquer."
Humphry Davy, born
17 December 1778.
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When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."
Arthur C. Clarke, born
16 December 1917.
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There is no such thing as a unique scientific vision, any more than there is a unique poetic vision. Science is a mosaic of partial and conflicting visions. But there is one common element in these visions. The common element is rebellion against the restrictions imposed by the locally prevailing culture,..."
Freeman Dyson, born
15 December 1923.
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It is seen as the application of a systematic “scientific method” involving wearing a white coat and being dull. I feel that too many young people come into science with this view, and that too many fields degenerate into the kind of work which results: automatic crank-turning and data-collecting of the sort which Kuhn calls “normal science” and Rutherford “stamp-collecting”. In fact, the creation of new science is a creative act, literally, and people who are not creative are not very good at it."
Philip Warren Anderson, born
13 December 1923.
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Innovation is everything. When you're on the forefront, you can see what the next innovation needs to be. When you're behind, you have to spend your energy catching up."
Robert Noyce, born
12 December 1927.
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I am now convinced that theoretical physics is actually philosophy. It has revolutionized fundamental concepts, e.g., abut space and time (relativity), about causality (quantum theory), and about substance and matter (atomistics). It has taught us new methods of thinking (complimentarity), which are applicable far beyond physics."
Max Born, born
11 December 1882.
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Mathematics is the science of what is clear by itself."
Gustav Jacobi, born
10 December 1804.
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While science and technology play critical roles in sustaining modern civilization, they are not part of our culture in the sense that they are not commonly studied or well comprehended. Neither the potential nor the limitations of science are understood so that what can be achieved and what is beyond reach are not comprehended. The line between science and magic becomes blurred so that public judgments on technical issues can be erratic or badly flawed. It frequently appears that some people will believe almost anything. Thus judgments can be manipulated or warped by unscrupulous groups. Distortions or outright falsehoods can come to be accepted as fact."
Henry Way Kendall, born
9 December 1926.
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Perhaps our ultimate understanding of scientific topics is measured in terms of our ability to generate metaphoric pictures of what is going on. Maybe understanding is coming up with metaphoric pictures."
Per Bak, born
8 December 1948.
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God made the integers, all the rest is the work of man."
Leopold Kronecker, born
7 December 1823.
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Science is, on the whole, an informal activity, a life of shirt sleeves and coffee served in beakers."
George Porter, born
6 December 1920.
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We have to remember that what we observe is not nature herself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning."
Werner Heisenberg, born
5 December 1901.
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... elegant generalization is mathematically very appealing; but physics means facing facts. You should take up case by case."
K. S. Krishnan, born
4 December 1898.
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I may be a minority of one in advocating that one should NOT separate science and politics—partly because I am old enough to remember the Weimar Republic before 1934 ..."
Edwin Salpeter, born
3 December 1924.
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one of my complaints is that you've got far more scientists than ever before but the pace of discovery has not increased. Why? Because they're all busy just filling in the details of what they think is the standard story. And the youngsters, the people with different ideas have just as big a fight as ever and normally it takes decades for science to correct itself. But science does correct itself and that's the reason why science is such a glorious thing for our species."
Nigel Calder, born
2 December 1931.
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There is no branch of mathematics, however abstract, which may not some day be applied to phenomena of the real world."
Nikolai Lobachevsky, born
1 December 1792.
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As the Knowledge of Nature tends to enlarge the human Mind, and give us more noble, more grand, and exalted Ideas of the AUTHOR of Nature, and if well pursu'd, seldom fails producing something useful to Man."
Ebenezer Kinnersley, born
30 November 1711.
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There have been applied sciences throughout the ages. ... However this so-called practice was not much more than paper in nearly all of these cases, and the various applied sciences were only lacking a bagatelle, namely proper scientific practice. The applied sciences show the application of theoretic doctrines in existing events; but that is precisely what it does, it merely shows. Whereas the scientific practice autonomously puts to use these theories."
Christian Doppler, born
29 November 1803.
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The relationship between science and the humanities is two-way. Science changes our view of the world and our place in it. In the other direction, the humanities provide the store of ideas and images and language available to us in understanding the world. The exploding star of A.D. 1054, the Crab Nebula, was sighted and documented by the Chinese, but nowhere mentioned in the West, where the Aristotelian notion of the immortality of stars still held sway. We often do not see what we do not expect to see."
Alan Lightman, born
28 November 1948.
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It's unnecessary to introduce magic into the explanation of physical and biological phenomenon when in fact there is every likelihood that the continuation of research as it is now practiced will indeed fill all the gaps..."
John Maddox, born
27 November 1925.
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Physics is at present a mass of partial theories which no man has yet been able to render truly and clearly consistent. It has been well said that the modern physicist is a quantum theorist on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and a student of gravitational relativity theory on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. On Sunday he is praying. . . that someone will find the reconciliation between the two views."
Norbert Wiener, born
26 November 1894.
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Nature has put itself the problem of how to catch in flight light streaming to the Earth and to store the most elusive of all powers in rigid form. The plants take in one form of power, light; and produce another power, chemical difference."
Julius Robert von Mayer, born
25 November 1814.
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Above all, it's creative thinking that lies at the basis of discoveries. You must dare to think differently, see things from different sides, in order to come across fortuitous new ideas frequently. You should develop even the most stupid ideas and when you do this systematically, there will always come something useful out of it."
Simon van der Meer, born
24 November 1925.
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Every object in the Universe with a temperature above absolute zero radiates in the infrared, so this part of the spectrum contains a great deal of information."
Frank J. Low, born
23 November 1933.
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... in science, we often have predecessors much further back in time than we think a priori."
Louis Néel, born
22 November 1904.
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A single part of physics occupies the lives of many men, and often leaves them dying in uncertainty."
Voltaire, born
21 November 1694.
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Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure Science."
Edwin Hubble, born
20 November 1889.
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The difficulty, as in all this work, is to find a notation which is both concise and intelligible to at least two people of whom one may be the author."
Paul Matthews, born
19 November 1919.
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A physicist must be able to saw with a file and to file with a saw."
August Kundt, born
18 November 1839.
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In science, it is not speed that is the most important. It is the dedication, the commitment, the interest and the will to know something and to understand it — these are the things that come first."
Eugene Wigner, born
17 November 1902.
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Nothing is more incontestable than the existence of our sensations;"
Jean le Rond d'Alembert, born
16 November 1717.
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You can forget facts but you cannot forget understanding !"
Eric Mazur, born
14 November 1954.
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Facts are more mundane than fantasies, but a better basis for conclusions."
Amory Lovins, born
13 November 1947.
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... a young author who believes himself capable of great things would usually do well to secure the favourable recognition of the scientific world by work whose scope is limited, and whose value is easily judged, before embarking upon higher flights."
John Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh, born
12 November 1842.
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As an analogy one can imagine an intelligent amoeba with a good memory. As time progresses the amoeba is constantly splitting, each time the resulting amoebas having the same memories as the parent. Our amoeba hence does not have a life line, but a life tree."
Hugh Everett, born
11 November 1930.
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It is a fantastic letter. Very understated. He calls it an optical maser, it’s as if a maser was made to run in the optical. No flamboyant phrase, just straightforward science."
Peter Franken, born
10 November 1928.
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Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere."
Carl Sagan, born
9 November 1934.
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... electronics is a fascinating field that I continue to find fulfilling. The field is still growing rapidly, and the opportunities that are ahead are at least as great as they were when I graduated from college. My advice is to get involved and get started."
Jack Kilby, born
8 November 1923.
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Humanity needs practical men, who get the most out of their work, and, without forgetting the general good, safeguard their own interests. But humanity also needs dreamers, for whom the disinterested development of an enterprise is so captivating that it becomes impossible for them to devote their care to their own material profit. Without doubt, these dreamers do not deserve wealth, because they do not desire it. Even so, a well-organized society should assure to such workers the efficient means of accomplishing their task, in a life freed from material care and freely consecrated to research."
Marie Curie, born
7 November 1867.
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A patent is a legal analog of sticky fly paper: it attracts some of the lowest forms of life."
David L. Webster, born
6 November 1888.
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In scientific thought we adopt the simplest theory which will explain all the facts under consideration and enable us to predict new facts of the same kind. The catch in this criterion lies in the world "simplest." It is really an aesthetic canon such as we find implicit in our criticisms of poetry or painting. The layman finds such a law as dx/dt = K(d²x/dy²) much less simple than "it oozes," of which it is the mathematical statement. The physicist reverses this judgment, and his statement is certainly the more fruitful of the two, so far as prediction is concerned. It is, however, a statement about something very unfamiliar to the plainman, namely, the rate of change of a rate of change."
John Burdon Haldane, born
5 November 1892.
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If you really look at it, I was trying to sell a dream ... There was very little I could put in concrete to tell these people it was really real."
Charles K. Kao, born
4 November 1933.
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It is electromagnetism (EM) in all its many forms that has been so basic, that haunts us and guides us."
Nick Holonyak, born
3 November 1928.
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The beauty of physics lies in the extent to which seemingly complex and unrelated phenomena can be explained and correlated through a high level of abstraction by a set of laws which are amazing in their simplicity."
Melvin Schwartz, born
2 November 1932.
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... real understanding of a thing comes from taking it apart oneself, not reading about it in a book or hearing about it in a classroom. To this day I always insist on working out a problem from the beginning without reading up on it first, a habit that sometimes gets me into trouble but just as often helps me see things my predecessors have missed."
Robert B. Laughlin, born
1 November 1950.
