But let us remember that we are dealing with infinities and indivisibles both of which transcend our finite understanding, the former on account of their magnitude, the latter because of their smallness.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the limitations of human understanding when it comes to both vastness and minuteness in nature.
Galileo Galilei's quote highlights the challenges faced by humans in comprehending concepts of infinity and indivisibility. He suggests that the enormity of the universe and the intricacies of the smallest particles are beyond our finite capacities to fully grasp, emphasizing the awe and complexity of the natural world.
In practice
During a science lecture discussing the universe's scale, this quote can illustrate the vastness of cosmological phenomena.
It has always seemed to me extreme presumptuousness on the part of those who want to make human ability the measure of what nature can and knows how to do, since, when one comes down to it, there is not one effect in nature, no matter how small, that even the most speculative minds can fully understand.
We must say that there are as many squares as there are numbers.
Science proceeds more by what it has learned to ignore than what it takes into account.
The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.
Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the letters in which it is composed.
That sculpture is more admirable than painting for the reason that it contains relief and painting does not is completely false. ... Rather, how much more admirable the painting must be considered, if having no relief at all, it appears to have as much as sculpture!
Science is the acceptance of what works and the rejection of what does not. That needs more courage than we might think.
The idea that there could be other universes out there is really one that stretches the mind in a great way.
As history proves abundantly, mathematical achievement, whatever its intrinsic worth, is the most enduring of all.
I've been thinking about the distorted view of science that prevails in our culture. I've been wondering about this, because our civilization is completely dependent on science and high technology, yet most of us are alienated from science.
Space or science fiction has become a dialect for our time.
In the good old days physicists repeated each other's experiments, just to be sure. Today they stick to FORTRAN, so that they can share each other's programs, bugs included.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.