I picture the vast realm of the sciences as an immense landscape scattered with patches of dark and light. The goal towards which we must work is either to extend the boundaries of the patches of light, or to increase their number. One of these tasks falls to the creative genius; the other requires a sort of sagacity combined with perfectionism.
Interpretation
Diderot emphasizes the importance of expanding knowledge and creativity in the sciences.
In this quote, Denis Diderot presents the field of science as an expansive landscape filled with areas of knowledge (light) and ignorance (dark). He suggests that the pursuit of scientific progress involves either broadening our understanding to include more knowledge or improving the quality of what we know. This duality highlights the roles of creativity and analytical thinking in advancing scientific inquiry.
In practice
In a lecture about the importance of research, one could discuss Diderot's vision of expanding the boundaries of scientific knowledge.
The arbitrary rule of a just and enlightened prince is always bad. His virtues are the most dangerous and the surest form of seduction: they lull a people imperceptibly into the habit of loving, respecting, and serving his successor, whoever that successor may be, no matter how wicked or stupid.
This root [the potato], no matter how much you prepare it, is tasteless and floury. It cannot pass for an agreeable food, but it supplies a food sufficiently abundant and sufficiently healthy for men who ask only to sustain themselves. The potato is criticized with reason for being windy, but what matters windiness for the vigorous organisms of peasants and laborers?
Do you see this egg? With this you can topple every theological theory, every church or temple in the world.
There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge... observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the result of that combination.
In order to get as much fame as one's father one has to much more able than he.
All abstract sciences are nothing but the study of relations between signs.
Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas.
The methods of theoretical physics should be applicable to all those branches of thought in which the essential features are expressible with numbers.
All our science is just a cookery book, with an orthodox theory of cooking that nobody's allowed to question, and a list of recipes that mustn't be added to except by special permission from the head cook.
We find, therefore, under this orderly arrangement, a wonderful symmetry in the universe, and a definite relation of harmony in the motion and magnitude of the orbs, of a kind that is not possible to obtain in any other way.
All physical systems can be thought of as registering and processing information, and how one wishes to define computation will determine your view of what computation consists of.
While NASA talks about 'Are we alone?' as a number one question, they are putting zero money into searching for intelligent life. There's a big disconnect there.
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