George Paget Thomson Quotes

11 Sourced Quotes

Probably every physicist would believe in a creation [of the universe] if the Bible had not unfortunately said something about it many years ago and made it seem old fashioned.

George Paget Thomson
There is great power in truth and sincerity. The mathematics community has tremendous reserves of human potential energy. If we are lean and hungry, we are likely to use our energy. If we are honest, it is likely to be effective.

George Paget Thomson
The progress of science is a little like making a jig-saw puzzle. One makes collections of pieces which certainly fit together, though at first it is not clear where each group should come in the picture as a whole, and if at first one makes a mistake in placing it, this can be corrected later without dismantling the whole group.

George Paget Thomson
One may picture the free electron as something like a gossamer spider floating through the air at the center of a number of radiating filaments which control its flight as the air wafts them about, or as they are caught by solid objects.

George Paget Thomson
An electron is like an able guerrilla leader who occupies a wide area with rumors of his presence, but when he strikes, he strikes with his whole force.

George Paget Thomson
Science is knowledge which, in principle at least, is public in the sense that it may be shared by many, unlike private personal experiences such as dreams or pain. This suggests a preference for statements which can be made in a form valid for large classes of possible observers.

George Paget Thomson
[The method of science is] a collection of pieces of advice, some general, some rather special, which may help to guide the explorer in his passage through the jungle of apparently arbitrary facts... In fact, the sciences differ so greatly that it is not easy to find any sort of rule which applies to all without exception.

George Paget Thomson
One can always make a theory, many theories, to account for known facts, occasionally even to predict new ones. The test is aesthetic.

George Paget Thomson
The goddess of learning is fabled to have sprung full-grown from the brain of Zeus, but it is seldom that a scientific conception is born in its final form, or owns a single parent. More often it is the product of a series of minds, each in turn modifying the ideas of those that came before, and providing material for those that come after.

George Paget Thomson
In order to make an experiment meaningful one must have a theory as to what matters for the experiment.

George Paget Thomson
The influence of science on men's lives comes in two rather different ways — one through the ideas themselves, and the other through their material consequences.

George Paget Thomson