Lord Kelvin Quotes

The heart of science is measurement.

Science cannot progress without reliable and accurate measurement of what it is you are trying to study. The key is measurement, simple as that.

I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind.

When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it.

Through and through the world is infested with quantity: To talk sense is to talk quantities. It is no use saying the nation is large. . . . How large? It is no use saying the radium is scarce. . . . How scarce? You cannot evade quantity. You may fly to poetry and music, and quantity and number will face you in your rhythms and your octaves.

Science by itself is about numbers, and it's about measuring things. It's very important but it's very dry.

Whenever you can, count.

I feel passionately about measurement - about how difficult it is, about how much theory and conceptualization is involved in measurement, and indeed, how much politics is involved.

One accurate measurement is worth a thousand expert opinions.

We turn to quantities when we can't compare the qualities of things.

In every department of physical science there is only so much science, properly so-called, as there is mathematics.

It's not about size, it's a science.

We must have the real thing before we can have a science of a thing.

All science requires mathematics.

I belong to those theoreticians who know by direct observation what it means to make a measurement. Methinks it were better if there were more of them.

I'm very interested in science.

Science is about nothing but getting at the truth, and anything that gets in the way of that diminishes, in my experience, the science.

Science is organized knowledge.

Every science consists in the coordination of facts; if the different observations were entirely isolated, there would be no science.

Science is a wonderful discipline, to which we are deeply indebted.

Facts are the air of scientists. Without them you can never fly.

Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so.

Science is facts.

Science is knowledge arranged and classified according to truth, facts, and the general laws of nature.

In many spheres of human endeavor, from science to business to education to economic policy, good decisions depend on good measurement.