Theory Development Quotes

Great scientific contributions have been techniques.

There could be no fairer destiny for any physical theory than that it should point the way to a more comprehensive theory in which it lives on as a limiting case.

Theorists have wonderful ideas which take years and years to be verified.

Science is evidence-based and provides a continuing understanding of complex natural phenomena. Our understanding is constantly evolving and continually improving.

The end of science is not to prove a theory, but to improve mankind.

Science is to find something unknown, while invention is to make something new out of the known theory.

I really believe in science. It is a faith. It is a reverence akin to religion. But as we always say, it's different from religion in that, as near as we can tell, it exists outside of us. It has an objective quality, the process of science.

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

In less than eight years "The Origin of Species" has produced conviction in the minds of a majority of the most eminent living men of science. New facts, new problems, new difficulties as they arise are accepted, solved, or removed by this theory; and its principles are illustrated by the progress and conclusions of every well established branch of human knowledge.

A science is something which is constructed from truth on workable axioms. There are 55 axioms in scientology which are very demonstrably true, and on these can be constructed a great deal.

No part of the aim of normal science is to call forth new sorts of phenomena; indeed those that will not fit the box are often not seen at all. Nor do scientists normally aim to invent new theories, and they are often intolerant of those invented by others.

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

Scientific research involves going beyond the well-trodden and well-tested ideas and theories that form the core of scientific knowledge. During the time scientists are working things out, some results will be right, and others will be wrong. Over time, the right results will emerge.

Science is not a collection of facts; it is a process of discovery.

Science has fulfilled her function when she has ascertained and enunciated truth.

Progress in science occurs in fits and starts, and paradigm shifts occur when evidence can be marshaled to support a new point of view.

I was sitting in a chair in the patent office at Bern when all of a sudden a thought occurred to me: "If a person falls freely he will not feel his own weight." I was startled. This simple thought made a deep impression on me. It impelled me toward a theory of gravitation.

With the master, what is new and significant develops vigorously amid the 'manure' of contradictions out of the contradictory phenomena. The underlying contradictions themselves testify to the richness of the living foundation from which the theory itself developed. It is different with the disciple. His raw material is no longer reality, but the new theoretical form in which the master has sublimated.

One of the things Kuhn said about normal science is that people 'expect' things to be discovered.

To me, what makes physics physics is that experiment is intimately connected to theory. It's one whole.

Science is objective. And in my view we cannot take any experimental results seriously except in the light of good explanations of them.

Empirical explorations ultimately change our understanding of which questions are important and fruitful and which are not.

Traditional science is all about finding shortcuts.

When the basic status of a theory is clear, and all that needs to be cleared are details, you can collaborate. But if the main structure of a hypothesis isn't established, and you want to change the paradigm - like it was the case in the 1960s - it's better to work alone.

Very much, string theory is simply a work in progress. What we are inching toward every day are predictions that within the realm of current technology we hope to test. It's not like we're working on a theory that is permanently beyond experiment. That would be philosophy.