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Questions of personal priority, however interesting they may be to the persons concerned, sink into insignificance in the prospect of any gain of deeper insight into the secrets of nature.

Lord Kelvin

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Lord Kelvin
Age: 83 †
Born: 1824
Born: June 26
Died: 1907
Died: December 17
Astronomer
Mathematician
Physicist
Politician
Scientist
University Teacher
Belfast
Ireland
The Lord Kelvin
Lord Kelvin
William Thomson
William (Lord Kelvin) Thomson
Nature
Questions
Sink
May
However
Priority
Persons
Concerned
Secrets
Personal
Priorities
Secret
Insight
Interesting
Gain
Natural
Gains
Insignificance
Science
Deeper
Prospect

More quotes by Lord Kelvin

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The vortex theory [of the atom] is only a dream. Itself unproven, it can prove nothing, and any speculations founded upon it are mere dreams about dreams.
Lord Kelvin
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Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.
Lord Kelvin
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If you can not measure it, you can not improve it.
Lord Kelvin
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Mathematics is the only true metaphysics.
Lord Kelvin
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If you study science deep enough and long enough, it will force you to believe in God.
Lord Kelvin
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Vortices of pure energy can exist and, if my theories are right, can compose the bodily form of an intelligent species.
Lord Kelvin
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[Of the ether] it is no greater mystery at all events than the shoemakers' wax.
Lord Kelvin
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I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind.
Lord Kelvin
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The atheistic idea is so nonsensical that I do not see how I can put it in words.
Lord Kelvin
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To live among friends is the primary essential of happiness.
Lord Kelvin
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Fourier is a mathematical poem.
Lord Kelvin
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You know only insofar as you can measure.
Lord Kelvin
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If we can't express what we know in the form of numbers, we really don't know much about it.
Lord Kelvin
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We only know God in His works, but we are forced by science to admit and to believe with absolute confidence in a Directive Power-in an influence other than physical, or dynamical, or electrical forces.
Lord Kelvin
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When you cannot measure, your knowledge is meager and unsatisfactory.
Lord Kelvin
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Suppose that you could mark the molecules in a glass of water then pour the contents of the glass into the ocean and stir the latter throughly so as to distribute the marked molecules uniformly throughout the seven seas if then you took a glass of water anywhere out of the ocean, you would find in it about a hundred of your marked molecules.
Lord Kelvin
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Simplification of modes of proof is not merely an indication of advance in our knowledge of a subject, but is also the surest guarantee of readiness for farther progress.
Lord Kelvin
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Symmetrical equations are good in their place, but ' vector ' is a useless survival, or offshoot from quaternions, and has never been of the slightest use to any creature.
Lord Kelvin
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I have no satisfaction in formulas unless I feel their numerical magnitude.
Lord Kelvin
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Can you measure it? Can you express it in figures? Can you make a model of it? If not, your theory is apt to be based more upon imagination than upon knowledge.
Lord Kelvin