17 James Clerk Maxwell Quotes on science equation Inventions & Facts | learn quotes

Mathematicians may flatter themselves that they possess new ideas which mere human language is as yet unable to express. The mind of man has perplexed itself with many hard questions. Is space infinite, and in what sense? Is the material world infinite in extent, and are all places within that extent equally full of matter? Do atoms exist or is matter infinitely divisible? Ampere was the newton of electricity. I have the capacity of being more wicked than any example that man could set me. All the mathematical sciences are founded on relations between physical laws and laws of numbers, so that the aim of exact science is to reduce the problems of nature to the determination of quantities by operations with numbers. In a few years, all great physical constants will have been approximately estimated, and that the only occupation which will be left to men of science will be to carry these measurements to another place of decimals. Every existence above a certain rank has its singular points, the higher the rank the more of them. At these points, influences whose physical magnitude is too small to be taken account of by a finite being may produce results of the greatest importance. The numbers may be said to rule the whole world of quantity, and the four rules of arithmetic may be regarded as the complete equipment of the mathematician. We are obliged to admit that the undulations are those of an ethereal substance, and not of the gross matter. By the study of Boltzmann I have been unable to understand him. He could not understand me on account of my shortness, and his length was and is an equal stumbling block to me. It is a good thing to have two ways of looking at a subject, and to admit that there are two ways of looking at it. Very few of us can now place ourselves in the mental condition in which even such philosophers as the great Descartes were involved in the days before Newton had announced the true laws of the motion of bodies. Statistical laws are not necessarily used as a result of our ignorance. Statistical laws can reflect how things really are. There are matters that can only be treated statistically. Almighty God, who hast created man in thine own image, and made him a living soul that he might seek after thee, and have dominion over thy creatures, teach us to study the works of thy hands, that we may subdue the earth to our use, and strengthen the reason for thy service. It is of great advantage to the student of any subject to read the original memoirs on that subject, for science is always most completely assimilated when it is in the nascent state. Thoroughly conscious ignorance is the prelude to every real advance in science. These transient facts, these fugitive impressions must be transformed by mental acts, to permanent possessions. Then summon up your grasp of mind, your fancy scientific, till sights and sounds with thought combined become of truth prolific.