“The most marvellous instrument which men have yet invented, the telescope and the steam engine not excepted.”

What is it possible to do well, in physics particularly, if things are not reduced to degrees and measures?

If you have seen with your own eyes a mountain move forward in a plain; that is, a huge rock of this mountain’ breaking off and covering entire fields; a whole castle sunken into the earth.

I continue to form a column. If the column contains about twenty of these couples of metal, it will be capable of giving to the fingers several small shocks.

I am still of the same opinion because the impossibility of the formation of mountains by the sea is demonstrated to me.

What is it possible to do well, in physics particularly, if things are not reduced to degrees and measures?

The language of experiment is more authoritative than any reasoning: facts can destroy our ratiocination—not vice versa.

I continue coupling a plate of silver with one of zinc, and always in the same order, and place between each of these couples a moistened disk. I continue to form a column. If the column contains about twenty of these couples of metal, it will be capable of giving to the fingers several small shocks.

Each metal has a certain power, which is different from metal to metal, of setting the electric fluid in motion.

Heroes of physics, Argonauts of our time Who leaped the mountains, who crossed the seas. You have confirmed in uncomfortable places What Newton knew without leaving his study.

You must be ready to give up even the most attractive ideas when experiment shows them to be wrong.