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If error is corrected whenever it is recognized as such, the path of error is the path of truth."
Hans Reichenbach, born
26 September 1891.
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If you want to move mountains, you just go move mountains. If you don't have a big enough shovel, you get some friends to help you. If you have the enthusiasm to charge ahead, you can do all sorts of things. Some things you can't do. You can't invent a perpetual motion machine. You've got to select your targets. But people can do so much more than they realize."
Paul MacCready, born
25 September 1925.
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The greatest advantage in gambling lies in not playing at all."
Gerolamo Cardano, born
24 September 1501.
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There were a significant number of questions I had asked myself and, as you know, when you really ask yourself the questions, you give better answers than if we merely read the conventional answers."
Albert Messiah, born
23 September 1921.
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Nature is our kindest friend and best critic in experimental science if we only allow her intimations to fall unbiassed on our minds. Nothing is so good as an experiment which whilst it sets an error right gives us a reward for our humility in being refreshed by an absolute advancement in knowledge."
Michael Faraday, born
22 September 1791.
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Physics is a wrong tool to describe living systems."
Donald Glaser, born
21 September 1926.
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All scientists must communicate their work, for what is the point of learning new things about how the world works if you don't tell anyone about them?"
Jim Al-Khalili, born
20 September 1962.
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... conferences with open attendance are very important for the stimulation of young people or other people who are new in the field."
Victor Weisskopf, born
19 September 1908.
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Above all, we must be accurate, and it is an obligation which we intend to fulfil scrupulously."
Léon Foucault, born
18 September 1819.
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The Earth is the cradle of mind, but one cannot live in a cradle forever."
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, born
17 September 1857.
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Thus the questions (and the quest) go on."
George Sudarshan, born
16 September 1931.
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While many questions about quantum mechanics are still not fully resolved, there is no point in introducing needless mystification where in fact no problem exists. Yet a great deal of recent writing about quantum mechanics has done just that."
Murray Gell-Mann, born
15 September 1929.
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Our imagination is struck only by what is great; but the lover of natural philosophy should reflect equally on little things."
Alexander von Humboldt, born
14 September 1769.
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Science knows no boundaries, and efforts to create barriers – whether to keep new ideas within or to prevent new ones from entering from the outside – have universally proved harmful to progress."
Sidney Drell, born
13 September 1926.
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Most probably some law hitherto undiscovered exists."
Arthur Schuster, born
12 September 1851.
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There are no surprising facts, only models that are surprised by facts; and if a model is surprised by the facts, it is no credit to that model."
Eliezer Yudkowsky, born
11 September 1979.
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The benefits of science are not only material ones. The truths that science teaches are of common interest the world over. The language of science is universal, and is a powerful force in bringing the peoples of the world closer together."
Arthur Compton, born
10 September 1892.
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To see worlds in an electron."
Hans Dehmelt, born
9 September 1922.
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Those who always take the same paths, usually see the same objects; it is rare that upon following different routes, one won't discover new topics worthy of our most serious attention. Similarly, various attempts give us a greater amount of knowledge. By trying different keys, we can hope to finally find some that open secure paths, short and easy, leading to the wealth of physics."
Pierre Polinière, born
8 September 1671.
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Scientific collaborations are akin to marriages, or temporary marriages. Their breakup is not unlike a divorce and rarely avoids acrimony."
Peter Freund, born
7 September 1936.
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No longer was light analogous to the discharge of a blunderbuss, but rather to the pulsating flight of birds."
Banesh Hoffmann, born
6 September 1906.
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So long as you live and in whatever circumstances the kaleidoscope of life may place you, think for yourself and act in accordance with the conclusions of that thinking; avoid so far as possible drifting with the current of the mob or being too easily influenced by the outward manifestation of things. Take your own look beneath the surface and don't trust others to look for you. If you will follow this rule consistently, I am sure you will keep out of much trouble, will make the most out of your life and, what is more, will contribute most of value to the community life."
Frank B. Jewett, born
5 September 1879.
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The progress of science is tremendously disorderly, and the motivations that lead to this progress are tremendously varied, and the reasons why scientists go into science, the personal motivations, are tremendously varied. I have said ... that science is a haven for freaks, that people go into science because they are misfits, and that it is a sheltered place where they can spin their own yarn and have recognition, be tolerated and happy, and have approval for it."
Max Delbrück, born
4 September 1906.
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The atom can't be seen, yet its existence can be proved. And it is simple to prove that it can't ever be seen. It has to be studied by indirect evidence – and the technical difficulty has been compared to asking a man who has never seen a piano to describe a piano from the sound it would make falling downstairs in the dark."
Carl Anderson, born
3 September 1905.
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Chemistry has been termed by the physicist as the messy part of physics, but that is no reason why the physicists should be permitted to make a mess of chemistry when they invade it. "
Frederick Soddy, born
2 September 1877.
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I see a tremendous amount of intricacy in the world and we have probably only begun to scratch at the surface of its intricacy."
Roy Glauber, born
1 September 1925.
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... science is the most revolutionary force in the world."
George Sarton, born
31 August 1884.
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To see the world for a moment as something rich and strange is the private reward of many a discovery."
Edward Mills Purcell, born
30 August 1912.
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You need only a sheet of paper and so mathematics starts."
Guido Beck, born
29 August 1903.
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Everything on earth has to function in harmony as a system, and it is only in such a system that humanity can flourish."
M.G.K. Menon, born
28 August 1928.
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You have to get a little untrapped from too much prior knowledge."
Norman Ramsey, born
27 August 1915.
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... equations that really work in describing nature with the most generality and the greatest simplicity are very elegant and subtle."
Edward Witten, born
26 August 1951.
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Whenever I came to him (Fritz Sauter) with a pure physics idea, he would invariably say, with slight sarcasm: "But Mr. Kroemer, you ought to be able to formulate this mathematically! " If I came to him with a math formulation, I would get, in a similar tone: "But Mr. Kroemer, that is just math, what is the physics?" After a few encounters of this kind, you got the idea: You had to be able to go back and forth with ease. Yet, in the last analysis, concepts took priority over formalism, the latter was simply an (indispensable) means to an end."
Herbert Kroemer, born
25 August 1928.
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... one of the most detrimental (and least discussed) effects of the crisis in science education in the world today is that we are creating a population increasingly unable to think skeptically about a wide range of issues."
Andrew Fraknoi, born
24 August 1948.
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In science, conjecture drives both experiment and theory for it is only by forming conjectures (hypotheses) that we can make the direction of our experiments and theories informed. If such and such is true, then I should be able to do this experiment and look for this particular result or I should be able to find this theoretical formulation. Conversely, experiment and theory drive conjecture. One makes a startling observation or has a sudden insight and begins to speculate on its significance and implications and to draw possible conclusions (conjecture)."
Robert Curl, born
23 August 1933.
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Science doesn’t give authentically access to the Real in the ontological meaning of the word, but only to the links between phenomena."
Bernard d'Espagnat, born
22 August 1921.
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... very often the laws derived by physicists from a large number of observations are not rigorous, but approximate."
Augustin Louis Cauchy, born
21 August 1789.
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... mathematicians progress only by doubt, through humble and constant attempts to impinge on the immense domain of the unknown."
Leopold Infeld, born
20 August 1898.
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Mathematical physics represents the purest image that the view of nature may generate in the human mind; this image presents all the character of the product of art;..."
Théophile de Donder, born
19 August 1872.
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Acid rain is a short-hand term that covers a set of highly complex and controversial environmental problems. It is a subject in which emotive and political judgements tend to obscure the underlying scientific issues which are fairly easily stated but poorly understood."
Basil John Mason, born
18 August 1923.
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... the progress of science still depends on "a few people of vision"."
Lewis M. Branscomb, born
17 August 1926.
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For many things we can find substitutes, but there is not now, nor will there ever be, a substitute for creative thought."
Crawford Greenewalt, born
16 August 1902.
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It is proper to submit periodically to a very searching examination, principles that we have come to assume without any more discussion."
Louis de Broglie, born
15 August 1892.
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The agreement of this law with nature will be better seen by the repetition of experiments than by a long explanation."
Hans Christian Ørsted, born
14 August 1777.
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It is very difficult for us, placed as we have been from earliest childhood in a condition of training, to say what would have been our feelings had such training never taken place."
George Gabriel Stokes, born
13 August 1819.
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I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is deficient. It gives a lot of factual information, puts all our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us."
Erwin Schrödinger, born
12 August 1887.
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I like teaching and the contact with young minds keeps one on one's toes."
Aaron Klug, born
11 August 1926.
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There are many examples in physics showing that higher precision revealed new phenomena, inspired new ideas, or confirmed or dethroned well-established theories."
Wolfgang Paul, born
10 August 1913.
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Theoretical chemistry is a peculiar subject. It is based on an equation that can hardly ever be solved."
William Fowler, born
9 August 1911.
