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

More quotes by Lord Kelvin

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To live among friends is the primary essential of happiness.
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Fourier is a mathematical poem.
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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.
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[Of the ether] it is no greater mystery at all events than the shoemakers' wax.
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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.
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Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.
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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.
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If you study science deep enough and long enough, it will force you to believe in God.
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There cannot be a greater mistake than that of looking superciliously upon practical applications of science. The life and soul of science is its practical application.
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When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it.
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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.
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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.
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Nothing can be more fatal to progress than a too confident reliance on mathematical symbols for the student is only too apt to take the easier course, and consider the formula not the fact as the physical reality.
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To measure is to know.
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I believe that the more thoroughly science is studied, the further does it take us from anything comparable to atheism.
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I have no satisfaction in formulas unless I feel their numerical magnitude.
Lord Kelvin
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The more thoroughly I conduct scientific research, the more I believe that science excludes atheism.
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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.
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When you cannot measure, your knowledge is meager and unsatisfactory.
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The atheistic idea is so nonsensical that I do not see how I can put it in words.
Lord Kelvin