Happy Birthday William Thomson, 1. Baron Kelvin!

When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarely, in your thoughts advanced to the stage of science.

Nur die Namen der »Größten Trinker« leben weiter.

Do not imagine that mathematics is hard and crabbed, and repulsive to common sense. It is merely the etherealization of common sense.

Die Wissenschaft ist eine Fackel, die uns das Dasein der Abgründe zeigt, aber deren Grund nicht durchleuchten kann.

The steam engine has done much more for science than science has done for the steam engine.

Schwerer als Luft? - Solche Flugmaschinen sind unmöglich.

Oersted would never have made his great discovery of the action of galvanic currents on magnets had he stopped in his researches to consider in what manner they could possibly be turned to practical account; and so we would not now be able to boast of the wonders done by the electric telegraphs. Indeed, no great law in Natural Philosophy has ever been discovered for its practical implications, but the instances are innumerable of investigations apparently quite useless in this narrow sense of the word which have led to the most valuable results.

Eines wissen wir sicher, und das ist die reale und materielle Existenz des lichttragenden Äthers.

There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement.

Zeitungsartikel sind das Zeug, das zwischen den Anzeigen steht.

No two nations differ more from each other than the Russians and Finlanders. The former are as active, acute and sensible, as the latter are slow, heavy and stupid.

Diese Strahlen des Herrn Röntgen werden sich als Betrug herausstellen.

The fact that mathematics does such a good job of describing the Universe is a mystery that we don't understand. And a debt that we will probably never be able to repay.

Das Radio hat keine Zukunft.

Questions of personal priority, however interesting they may be to the persons concerned, sink into insignificance in the prospect of any gain of deeper insight into the secrets of nature.