Science attempts to find logic and simplicity in nature. Mathematics attempts to establish order and simplicity in human thought.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the pursuit of simplicity and order in both nature through science and in human thought through mathematics.
Edward Teller points out the parallel efforts of science and mathematics in their quests for understanding. Science seeks to uncover the underlying logic and simplicity present in the natural world, while mathematics strives to impose a structure and clarity on human reasoning, suggesting that both fields aim for an elegant and coherent worldview that simplifies complexity.
In practice
In a lecture about the importance of STEM education, I quoted, 'Science attempts to find logic and simplicity in nature.'
In the history of physics, there have been three great revolutions in thought that first seemed absurd yet proved to be true. The first proposed that the earth, instead of being stationary, was moving around at a great and variable speed in a universe that is much bigger than it appears to our immediate perception. That proposal, I believe, was first made by Aristarchos two millenia ago ... Remarkably enough, the name Aristarchos in Greek means best beginning.
The science of today is the technology of tomorrow.
The scientist is not responsible for the laws of nature. It is his job to find out how these laws operate. It is the scientist's job to find the ways in which these laws can serve the human will. However, it is not the scientist's job to determine whether a hydrogen bomb should be constructed, whether it should be used, or how it should be used. This responsibility rests with the American people and with their chosen representatives.
Today, nothing is unusual about a scientific discovery's being followed soon after by a technical application: The discovery of electrons led to electronics; fission led to nuclear energy. But before the 1880's, science played almost no role in the advances of technology. For example, James Watt developed the first efficient steam engine long before science established the equivalence between mechanical heat and energy.
Secrecy, once accepted, becomes an addiction.
No endeavor that is worthwhile is simple in prospect; if it is right, it will be simple in retrospect.
Molecular evidense suggests that our common ancestor with the chimpanzees lived, in Africa, between 5 and 7 million years ago, say half a million generations ago. This is not long by evolutionary standards.
There is no scientific reason to think that we, even with space travel, are going to survive as a species for ever, certainly not by biting off the hand that feeds us, which is exactly what we are doing.
We can invent as many theories we like, and any one of them can be made to fit the facts. But that theory is always preferred which makes the fewest number of assumptions.
A good hypothesis in science must have other properties than those of the phenomenon it is immediately invoked to explain, otherwise it is not prolific enough.
Does anyone believe that the difference between the Lebesgue and Riemann integrals can have physical significance, and that whether say, an airplane would or would not fly could depend on this difference? If such were claimed, I should not care to fly in that plane.
Space or science fiction has become a dialect for our time.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.