Talk to people... everything good I've done has come from conversations with people. Science is a very social phenomenon.
John C. MatherRead
My interest in science started quite early. My earliest school recollection, from age 6, is actually of mathematics, realizing that one could fill an entire page with digits and never come to the largest possible number, so I saw what was meant by infinity.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the author's early fascination with mathematics and the concept of infinity.
John C. Mather explains how his interest in science began at a young age, particularly through his understanding of mathematics. He recalls a profound realization about the endless possibilities inherent in numbers, which opened his eyes to the concept of infinity. This early encounter with mathematics not only sparked his curiosity but also laid the foundation for his later scientific pursuits.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of early education in STEM fields.
Talk to people... everything good I've done has come from conversations with people. Science is a very social phenomenon.
Many of the problems facing the nation and the world today may only be solved if their technical elements are understood - climate change, energy supply, health care, and infrastructure, to name just a few.
Even your chin is made up of exploded stars.
There's no such thing as saying that we'll ever find the ultimate cause of stuff. We can only work to push our understanding one step further.
Astronomers can look back in time. We can look at things as they used to be. We have an idea there was a Big Bang explosion 13.7 billion years ago. We have a story of how galaxies and stars were made. It's an amazing story.
We are discovering what the universe is really like, and it is totally magnificent, and one can only be inspired and awestruck by what we find.
If the only time you think of me as a scientist is during Black History Month, then I must not be doing my job as a scientist.
It is not a simple matter to differentiate unsuccessful from successful experiments. . . .[Most] work that is finally successful is the result of a series of unsuccessful tests in which difficulties are gradually eliminated.
Mycologists are few and far between. We are under-funded, poorly represented in the context of other sciences - ironic, as the very foundation of our ecosystems are directly dependent upon fungi, which ultimately create the foundation of soils.
My experiments proved that the radiation of uranium compounds can be measured with precision under determined conditions and that this radiation is an atomic property of the element of uranium.
The man who discovers a new scientific truth has previously had to smash to atoms almost everything he had learnt, and arrives at the new truth with hands blood stained from the slaughter of a thousand platitudes.
Mathematics is the key and door to the sciences.
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