William C. Clark Quotes

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.

One of the distinguishing features of anything that aspires to the name of science is the reproducibility of experimental results.

In the spirit of science, there really is no such thing as a 'failed experiment.' Any test that yields valid data is a valid test.

True science is never speculative; it employs hypotheses as suggesting points for inquiry, but it never adopts the hypotheses as though they were demonstrated propositions.

if the result confirms the hypothesis, then you've made a measurement. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you've made a discovery.

Okay, are you really 'experimenting'? How do you know if you're really experimenting? You're working on it methodically and you're publishing the results! It's not an experiment if you don't publish the results in some verifiable and falsifiable form, okay?

An experiment is a question which science poses to Nature and a measurement is the recording of Nature's answer.

Experimenters are the shock troops of science.

I learned quickly, as I tell my graduate students now, there are no answers in the back of the book when the equipment doesn't work or the measurements look strange.

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

Reason, observation, and experience; the holy trinity of science.

The process of science is difficult and challenging. It involves always being aware that your ideas might be right or they might be wrong. I think it's that kind of balance that makes science so interesting.

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

What intrigues basic scientists like me is that anytime we do a series of experiments, there are going to be three or four new questions that come up when you think you've answered one.

It is the weight, not numbers of experiments that is to be regarded.

If you're a physicist, for heaven's sake, and here is the experiment, and you have a theory, and the theory doesn't agree with the experiment, then you have to cut out the theory. You were wrong with the theory.

Hypotheses should be subservient only in explaining the properties of things but not assumed in determining them, unless so far as they may furnish experiments.

The scientist-community guy may get a $500,000 grant, and if his equipment works or doesn't work, he still gets a gold star for doing the science experiment. For me, there is no merit in anything for doing an experiment; I have to go home with pictures.

If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment.

Experimentation is an active science.

The true method of knowledge is experiment.

I was not surprised by the results of the Horizon experiments, but I remain willing to observe and consider any and all other tests that are done under similarly precise conditions.

Indeed, every true science has for its object the determination of certain phenomena by means of others, in accordance with the relations which exist between them.

There are an infinite number of boring things to do in science.

Hypotheses are what we lack the least.