Quote

I can never satisfy myself until I can make a mechanical model of a thing. If I can make a mechanical model, I can understand it. As long as I cannot make a mechanical model all the way through I cannot understand.

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
Make
Acceptance
Never
Models
Understand
Science
Cannot
Thing
Mechanical
Long
Satisfy
Way
Model

More quotes by Lord Kelvin

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To measure is to know.
Lord Kelvin
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I have no satisfaction in formulas unless I feel their numerical magnitude.
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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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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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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Mathematics is the only true metaphysics.
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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The atheistic idea is so nonsensical that I do not see how I can put it in words.
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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Fourier is a mathematical poem.
Lord Kelvin
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Accurate and minute measurement seems to the non-scientific imagination, a less lofty and dignified work than looking for something new. But nearly all the grandest discoveries of science have been but the rewards of accurate measurement and patient long-continued labour in the minute sifting of numerical results.
Lord Kelvin
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The more thoroughly I conduct scientific research, the more I believe that science excludes atheism.
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
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I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning, or of the expectation of good results from any of the trials we heard of. So you will understand that I would not care to be a member of the Aeronautical Society.
Lord Kelvin
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If you can not measure it, you can not improve it.
Lord Kelvin
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When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it.
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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If you study science deep enough and long enough, it will force you to believe in God.
Lord Kelvin
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You know only insofar as you can measure.
Lord Kelvin
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Science is bound, by the everlasting vow of honour, to face fearlessly every problem which can be fairly presented to it.
Lord Kelvin