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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.

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
Nothing
Students
Reliance
Take
Easier
Formulas
Progress
Confident
Courses
Student
Course
Symbols
Fact
Mathematical
Facts
Consider
Fatal
Reality
Physical
Formula

More quotes by Lord Kelvin

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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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Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.
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Overwhelmingly strong proofs of intelligent and benevolent design lie around us... the atheistic idea is so nonsensical that I cannot put it into words.
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To measure is to know.
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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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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.
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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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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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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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[Of the ether] it is no greater mystery at all events than the shoemakers' wax.
Lord Kelvin
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I have no satisfaction in formulas unless I feel their numerical magnitude.
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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.
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Fourier is a mathematical poem.
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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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Mathematics is the only true metaphysics.
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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When you cannot measure, your knowledge is meager and unsatisfactory.
Lord Kelvin
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You know only insofar as you can measure.
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.
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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