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I think it ought to occupy a prominent place in our investigations, and that we ought to endeavour to construct a mental representation of all the details of its action, and this has been my constant aim in this treatise.

James Clerk Maxwell

The student who uses home made apparatus, which is always going wrong, often learns more than one who has the use of carefully adjusted instruments, to which he is apt to trust and which he dares not take to pieces.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Always Apparatus Going Home Made Student Use Wrong
Every existence above a certain rank has its singular points; the higher the rank the more of them. At these points, influences whose physical magnitude is too small to be taken account of by a finite being may produce results of the greatest importance.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Above Certain Every Existence Influence Magnitude More Physical Point Rank Singular Them These
Ampere was the Newton of Electricity.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Ampere Electricity Newton
All the mathematical sciences are founded on relations between physical laws and laws of numbers.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

All Between Found Law Mathematically Number Physical Relation Science
I have the capacity of being more wicked than any example that man could set me.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Capacity Example Man More Set Wick
Gin a body meet a body Flyin’ through the air, Gin a body hit a body, Will it fly? and where?
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Body Flyin Gin Met Through
The University of Cambridge, in accordance with that law of its evolution, by which, while maintaining the strictest continuity between the successive phases of its history, it adapts itself with more or less promptness to the requirements of the times, has lately instituted a course of Experimental Physics.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Accordance Continuity Country Evolution Law Maintain People Person Phase Strictest Successive University
… 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 MAXWELL

Approximately Constant Estimate Few Great Left Men Occupation Only Physical Science Will Work Year
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 MAXWELL

Body Constitution Deduct Define Entirely First Investigation Law Molecular Property Second Speculation Thermal Thermodynamics
But I think that the results which each man arrives at in his attempts to harmonize his science with his Christianity ought not to be regarded as having any significance except to the man himself, and to him only for a time, and should not receive the stamp of a society.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Attempt Christianity Harmonize Receive Result Science Stamp Think
Gases are distinguished from other forms of matter, not only by their power of indefinite expansion so as to fill any vessel, however large, and by the great effect heat has in dilating them, but by the uniformity and simplicity of the laws which regulate these changes.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Distinguish Effect Expansion Form Gasses Great Indentifite Large Matter Other Power Vessel
In fact, whenever energy is transmitted from one body to another in time, there must be a medium or substance in which the energy exists after it leaves one body and before it reaches the other … and if we admit this medium as an hypothesis.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Another Body Energy Exist Leave Medium Must One Substance Time Transmitted
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 MAXWELL

Biblical Bury Change Ground Hypothesis Interpretation Dimension Long More Rate Scientific
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 MAXWELL

Creation Incomplete Itself Matter Nothing Reason Science Upon
The dimmed outlines of phenomenal things all merge into one another unless we put on the focusing-glass of theory, and screw it up sometimes to one pitch of definition and sometimes to another, so as to see down into different depths through the great millstone of the world.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

All Another Diamond Focus Glass Merge Outlines Phenomenal Pitch Put Screw Sometimes Theory Thing Unless
The only laws of matter are those that our minds must fabricate and the only laws of mind are fabricated for it by matter.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

Law Matter Mind Must Fabricate Only

I think it ought to occupy a prominent place in our investigations, and that we ought to endeavour to construct a mental representation of all the details of its action, and this has been my constant aim in this treatise.

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I think it ought to occupy a prominent place in our investigations, and that we ought to endeavour to construct a mental representation of all the details of its action, and this has been my constant aim in this treatise.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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