Manfred Eigen Quotes

A theory can be proved by experiment; but no path leads from experiment to the birth of a theory.

It is not observation but theory that led me to this result that experience has confirmed afterwards.

There can be theory but, you know, the problem is you've got to be able to test it. So theories are one thing, testing is another.

When you come up with a theory, you fall in love with the beauty the simplicity and elegance of it. But then you have to get a sheet of paper and pencil and crack out all the details. Hundreds and hundreds of pages. Because you have to prove it.

Science is curiosity, testing and experimenting.

Science does not limit itself merely to what is currently verifiable. But it is interested in questions that are potentially verifiable (or, rather, falsifiable).

The deductive method is the mode of using knowledge, and the inductive method the mode of acquiring it.

Science is facts.

Take the situation of a scientist solving a problem, where he has certain data, which call for certain responses. Some of this set of data call for his applying such and such a law, while others call for another law.

Science is not, despite how it is often portrayed, about absolute truths. It is about developing an understanding of the world, making predictions, and then testing these predictions.

The proper method for inquiring after the properties of things is to deduce them from experiments.

You make observations, write theories to fit them, try experiments to disprove the theories and, if you can't, you've got something.

You can't prove any hypothesis, you can only improve or disprove it.

A few observation and much reasoning lead to error; many observations and a little reasoning to truth.

The aim of natural science is not simply to accept the statements of others, but to investigate the causes that are at work in nature.

I'm first and foremost a scientist.

I always say, 'Let your experiment speak to you.' What I mean by that is I - actually, we, or, at least, I'm not smart enough, actually, to guess how nature is working, but by looking and doing the right experiments and paying close attention to the subtleties of it, you start to catch on.

Reason and science allow us to properly think about the necessary data that are required in order to answer a given question. This is precisely why the scientific method is the most powerful framework for understanding the world.

Educated guesswork' is what science is. You form hypotheses, test them against the evidence, and if they fit the evidence, you can assume you've got close to the truth.

Scientific method, although in its more refined forms it may seem complicated, is in essence remarkably simply. It consists in observing such facts as will enable the observer to discover general laws governing facts of the kind in question. The two stages, first of observation, and second of inference to a law, are both essential, and each is susceptible of almost indefinite refinement. (1931)

I have emphasized experiments more than theory. Of course, we need some theory when thinking of soft matter.

Scientific inquiry starts with observation. The more one can see, the more one can investigate.

Facts are not science - as the dictionary is not literature.

Science goes from question to question; big questions, and little, tentative answers. The questions as they age grow ever broader, the answers are seen to be more limited.

Science is defined in various ways, but today it is generally restricted to something which is experimental, which is repeatable, which can be predicted, and which is falsifiable.