Scientific Precision Quotes

If all art aspires to the condition of music, all the sciences aspire to the condition of mathematics.

Why should we, however, in economics, have to plead ignorance of the sort of facts on which, in the case of a physical theory, a scientist would certainly be expected to give precise information?

The truth is, the way you write music, it's a code. It has to be very precise. It's scientific, but ultimately it also depends on interpretation. It's very similar to how you grow a master plan: it's an objective document, but at the same time it is a lyrical document which allows through interpretation to become a harmonious work of art.

If I'm writing, I'll say something metaphorical or approximate, whereas scientists are very precise.

It is a common observation that a science first begins to be exact when it is quantitatively treated. What are called the exact sciences are no others than the mathematical ones.

We find sects and parties in most branches of science; and disputes which are carried on from age to age, without being brought to an issue. Sophistry has been more effectually excluded from mathematics and natural philosophy than from other sciences. In mathematics it had no place from the beginning; mathematicians having had the wisdom to define accurately the terms they use, and to lay down, as axioms, the first principles on which their reasoning is grounded. Accordingly, we find no parties among mathematicians, and hardly any disputes.

But a science is exact to the extent that its method measures up to and is adequate to its object.

I deliberately and consciously give preference to a dramatic, mythological way of thinking and speaking, because this is not only more expressive but also more exact than an abstract scientific terminology, which is wont to toy with the notion that its theoretic formulations may one fine day be resolved into algebraic equations.

I fell in love with the elegance and precision of genetic analysis and experimentation to answer profound biological questions.

Only mathematics and mathematical logic can say as little as the physicist means to say.

Color, which is the poet's wealth, is so expensive that most take to mere outline sketches and become men of science.

All painting, beginning with Impressionism, is antiscientific, even Seurat. I was interested in introducing the precise and exact aspect of science, which hadn't often been done, or at least hadn't been talked about very much.

We have little choice but to place a certain level of trust in scientists - even when it comes to the model-driven speculative discipline of climate change. And, need it be said, most scientists take great care in being honest, principled and precise.

In this metaphor we actually have a picture of the computational universe, a metaphor which I hope to make scientifically precise as part of a research program.

When Kepler found his long-cherished belief did not agree with the most precise observation, he accepted the uncomfortable fact. He preferred the hard truth to his dearest illusions, that is the heart of science.