William Thomson > Quotes

“When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarely, in your thoughts advanced to the stage of science.”
― Lord Kelvin

“Do not imagine that mathematics is hard and crabbed, and repulsive to common sense. It is merely the etherealization of common sense.”
― Lord Kelvin

“The steam engine has done much more for science than science has done for the steam engine.”
― Lord Kelvin

“There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement.”
― William Thomson Kelvin

“Oersted would never have made his great discovery of the action of galvanic currents on magnets had he stopped in his researches to consider in what manner they could possibly be turned to practical account; and so we would not now be able to boast of the wonders done by the electric telegraphs. Indeed, no great law in Natural Philosophy has ever been discovered for its practical implications, but the instances are innumerable of investigations apparently quite useless in this narrow sense of the word which have led to the most valuable results.”
― Lord Kelvin

“… Fourier's great mathematical poem ...

{Referring to Joseph Fourier's mathematical theory of the conduction of heat, one of the precursors to thermodynamics.}”
― William Thomson Kelvin, Treatise on Natural Philosophy: Volume 2

“The fact that mathematics does such a good job of describing the Universe is a mystery that we don't understand. And a debt that we will probably never be able to repay.”
― William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin

“The influence of animal or vegetable life on matter is infinitely beyond the range of any scientific inquiry hitherto entered on.”
― Lord Kelvin

“No two nations differ more from each other than the Russians and Finlanders. The former are as active, acute and sensible, as the latter are slow, heavy and stupid.”
― William Thomson

“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 in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind. It may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter might be.”
― Lord Kelvin

“Nearly all of the grandest discoveries of science have been but the rewards of accurate measurement and patient, long-continued labor in the minute sifting of numerical results”
― Lord Kelvin

“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.”
― William Thomson Kelvin

“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; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be.”
― William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin