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

More quotes by Lord Kelvin

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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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If you study science deep enough and long enough, it will force you to believe in God.
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If you can not measure it, you can not improve it.
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The atheistic idea is so nonsensical that I do not see how I can put it in words.
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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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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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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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You know only insofar as you can measure.
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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.
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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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Mathematics is the only true metaphysics.
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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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The more thoroughly I conduct scientific research, the more I believe that science excludes atheism.
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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.
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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.
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To live among friends is the primary essential of happiness.
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.
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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