R. Buckminster Fuller Quotes

Every time man makes a new experiment he always learns more. He cannot learn less.

Great scientific contributions have been techniques.

Science, my lad, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.

Scientists learn about the world in three ways: They analyze statistical patterns in the data, they do experiments, and they learn from the data and ideas of other scientists. The recent studies show that children also learn in these ways.

In science, every question answered leads to 10 more. I love that science can never, ever be finished. From a young age, people think, 'Science is hard and boring.' We don't tell children, 'Yes, you have to learn these formulae and theorems, but then you go on to learn about nuclear reactions and stars.'

Real science is a very risky activity; people can spend their whole life working on a theory that doesn’t work out.

Science is a way of getting knowledge. It's a method. It's a method that really relies on making mistakes. We propose ideas, they are usually wrong, and we test them against the data. Scientists do this in a formal way. It's a way that everyone can go through life; that's how we should be teaching science from a very young age.

I just try to stuff my brain with everything that I can read on what is going on in science at a very high level, and sometimes I see connections of what might need to be done.

Research in the natural sciences operates in successive approximations. We are glad to be able to offer many good problems for research by generations to come.

A good scientist can understand the current state of a field, pick interesting questions where a success will actually lead to useful new knowledge, and push that field further through their work.

Learning is like a cow of desire. It, like her, yields in all seasons.

A book is like a pump. It gives nothing unless first you give to it. You prime a pump with your own water, you work the handle with your own strength. You do this because you expect to get back more than you give.

We are just in the kindergarten of uncovering things; there is no downcurve in science.

The lyf so short, the craft so longe to lerne. Th' assay so hard, so sharp the conquerynge, The dredful joye, alwey that slit so yerne; Al this mene I be love... For out of olde feldes, as men seith, Cometh al this new corn fro yeer to yere; And out of olde bokes, in good feith, Cometh al this newe science that men lere.

Education is like a diamond with many facets: It includes the basic mastery of numbers and letters that give us access to the treasury of human knowledge, accumulated and refined through the ages; it includes technical and vocational training as well as instruction in science, higher mathematics, and humane letters.

The job of a theoretical physicist is to make mistakes as fast as possible .

Whenever we proceed from the known to the unkown we may hope to understand, but we may have to learn at the same time a new meaning of the word 'understanding'

I don't know anything about anything. The only difference between then and now is this: I may know more than I used to but my wisdom pales in comparison to that which I have yet to learn

...those experiments be not only esteemed which have an immediate and present use, but those principally which are of most universal consequence for invention of other experiments, and those which give more light to the invention of causes; for the invention of the mariner's needle, which giveth the direction, is of no less benefit for navigation than the invention of the sails, which give the motion.

Learning is not to be tacked to the mind, but we must fuse and blend them together, not merely giving the mind a slight tincture, but a thorough and perfect dye. And if we perceive no evident change and improvement, it would be better to leave it alone; learning is a dangerous weapon, and apt to wound its master if it be wielded by a feeble hand, and by one not well acquainted with its use.

One may receive the information but miss the teaching.

One of the ways of stopping science would be only to do experiments in the region where you know the law. But experimenters search most diligently, and with the greatest effort, in exactly those places where it seems most likely that we can prove our theories wrong. In other words, we are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.

As long as scientists are free to pursue the truth wherever it may lead, there will be a flow of new scientific knowledge to those who can apply it to practical problems.

You've just got to give yourself time - that's good advice I think. Give yourself time to figure out what you're good at and what you're not good at.

People learn twenty-five percent from their teacher, twenty-five percent from listening to themselves, twenty-five percent from their friends, and twenty-five percent from time.