The latest authors, like the most ancient, strove to subordinate the phenomena of nature to the laws of mathematics.
Interpretation
Isaac Newton emphasizes the connection between mathematics and the natural world, suggesting that both ancient and modern thinkers sought to understand nature through mathematical principles.
In this quote, Isaac Newton highlights the enduring pursuit of knowledge among both contemporary and historical authors to comprehend the complexities of nature by applying mathematical laws. He suggests that mathematics serves as a foundational framework for understanding natural phenomena, illustrating a timeless quest for intellectual clarity and scientific insight.
In practice
This quote can be used in a science seminar discussing the contributions of mathematics to scientific discovery.
The best and safest way of philosophising seems to be, first to enquire diligently into the properties of things, and to establish those properties by experiences [experiments] and then to proceed slowly to hypotheses for the explanation of them. For hypotheses should be employed only in explaining the properties of things, but not assumed in determining them; unless so far as they may furnish experiments.
Plato is my friend, Aristotle is my friend, but my greatest friend is truth.
His epitaph: Who, by vigor of mind almost divine, the motions and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, and the tides of the seas first demonstrated.
And from true lordship it follows that the true God is living, intelligent, and powerful; from the other perfections, that he is supreme, or supremely perfect. He is eternal and infinite, omnipotent and omniscient; that is, he endures from eternity to eternity; and he is present from infinity to infinity; he rules all things, and he knows all things that happen or can happen.
My Design in this Book is not to explain the Properties of Light by Hypotheses, but to propose and prove them by Reason and Experiments: In order to which, I shall premise the following Definitions and Axioms.
It is the weight, not numbers of experiments that is to be regarded.
Gravity is not a version of the truth. It is the truth. Anyone who doubts it is invited to jump out a tenth-storey window.
Our population and our use of the finite resources of planet Earth are growing exponentially, along with our technical ability to change the environment for good or ill.
Astronauts will remain the explorers, the pioneers-the first to go back to moon and on to Mars. But I think it's really important to make space space available to as many people as we can. It's going to be a while before we can launch people for less than $20 million a ticket. But that day is coming.
Data is like garbage. You'd better know what you are going to do with it before you collect it.
To invoke the origin of the DNA/protein machine by invoking a supernatural Designer is to explain precisely nothing - for it leaves unexplained the origin of the Designer.
Science is nothing, but trained and organized common sense.
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