Thoroughly conscious ignorance is the prelude to every real advance in science.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL
James Clerk Maxwell on every
James Clerk Maxwell62 quotes“Thoroughly conscious ignorance is the prelude to every real advance in science.”
More from James Clerk Maxwell
… that, in a few years, all great physical constants will have been approximately estimated, and that the only occupation which will be left to men of science will be to carry these measurements to another place of decimals.
James Clerk MaxwellJames Clerk Maxwell All the mathematical sciences are founded on relations between physical laws and laws of numbers.
James Clerk MaxwellJames Clerk Maxwell I have looked into most philosophical systems and I have seen that none will work without God.
James Clerk MaxwellJames Clerk Maxwell The experimental investigation by which Ampere established the law of the mechanical action between electric currents is one of the most brilliant achievements in science. The whole, theory and experiment, seems as if it had leaped, full grown and full armed, from the brain of the ‘Newton of Electricity’.
James Clerk MaxwellJames Clerk Maxwell In Science, it is when we take some interest in the great discoverers and their lives that it becomes endurable, and only when we begin to trace the development of ideas that it becomes fascinating.
James Clerk MaxwellJames Clerk Maxwell But, we venture to say, they will find themselves very much enlightened during the process, and will even be doubtful whether the ideas as expressed in symbols had ever quite found their way out of the equations into their minds.
James Clerk MaxwellJames Clerk Maxwell We define thermodynamics … as the investigation of the dynamical and thermal properties of bodies, deduced entirely from the first and second law of thermodynamics, without speculation as to the molecular constitution.
James Clerk MaxwellJames Clerk Maxwell One of the chief peculiarities of this treatise is the doctrine that the true electric current, on which the electromagnetic phenomena depend, is not the same thing as the current of conduction, but that the time-variation of the electric displacement must [also] be taken into account.
James Clerk MaxwellJames Clerk Maxwell But I should be very sorry if an interpretation founded on a most conjectural scientific hypothesis were to get fastened to the text in Genesis…
James Clerk MaxwellJames Clerk Maxwell I have also a paper afloat, with an electromagnetic theory of light, which, till I am convinced to the contrary, I hold to be great guns.
James Clerk MaxwellJames Clerk Maxwell Heat may be generated and destroyed by certain processes, and this shows that heat is not a substance.
James Clerk MaxwellJames Clerk Maxwell Science is incompetent to reason upon the creation of matter itself out of nothing. We have reached the utmost limit of our thinking faculties when we have admitted that because matter cannot be eternal and self-existent it must have been created.
James Clerk MaxwellJames Clerk Maxwell An Experiment, like every other event which takes place, is a natural phenomenon; but in a Scientific Experiment the circumstances are so arranged that the relations between a particular set of phenomena may be studied to the best advantage.
James Clerk MaxwellJames Clerk Maxwell In speaking of the Energy of the field, however, I wish to be understood literally. All energy is the same as mechanical energy, whether it exists in the form of motion or in that of elasticity, or in any other form. The energy in electromagnetic phenomena is mechanical energy.
James Clerk MaxwellJames Clerk Maxwell The rate of change of scientific hypothesis is naturally much more rapid than that of Biblical interpretations, so that if an interpretation is founded on such an hypothesis, it may help to keep the hypothesis above ground long after it ought to be buried and forgotten.
James Clerk MaxwellJames Clerk Maxwell I have the capacity of being more wicked than any example that man could set me.
James Clerk MaxwellJames Clerk Maxwell
Original quotes
From our community writers
Since you are gone, I collect the stars each night building my own night sky, so I have something to hold onto forever.
Laura ChouetteLaura Chouette Can anybody hear me? Are my words going to waste I need to believe there was a purpose to all the pain?
Allie MillerAllie Miller The universe hears what you say, but it knows what you mean.
Brianna PastorBrianna Pastor Enough of this. The next one I love will return my passion.
Iestyn TudorIestyn Tudor It’s unconditional; their chemistry is unconditional – forever.
Ophelia ScarlettOphelia Scarlett I love you so much that it hurts and that’s the problem I love you so much that it hurts.
Olivia CliffordOlivia Clifford Let’s always bloom, savor and delight others with our beauty.
Mariya FedulovaMariya Fedulova Shadows follow me the way a vulture stalks death. One small step ahead.
Danielle MontgomeryDanielle Montgomery
Meet the writers
More on every
The most extraordinary, the most bizarre acts, those which most arrantly seem to conflict with every law, every human institution.
Marquis de SadeMarquis de Sade Honestly I’m not a huge TV person. The only show that I’ve seen every episode of is ‘Pretty Little Liars.’ It’s my favorite show.
Sabrina CarpenterSabrina Carpenter Every Christmas Eve, the elves will come and give us a new pair of pajamas.
Sabrina CarpenterSabrina Carpenter That everything around you give you its utter attention, think only of you, care only for you…every man wants to be a tyrant when he fornicates.
Marquis de SadeMarquis de Sade The iPad remains Apple’s second bestselling product – all the more reason why the iPad Pro needs to be “big” in every sense of the word.
Tim CookTim Cook Why did everyone think i needed a new boyfriend? I didn’t need a new boyfriend. I’d had enough of boyfriends to last a lifetime. The only thing a boyfriend was good for was a shattered heart.
Becca FitzpatrickBecca Fitzpatrick The world gets better every day – then worse again in the evening.
Kin HubbardKin Hubbard Every ceiling reached becomes a floor.
Aldous HuxleyAldous Huxley