German Astronomer Quotes

Johannes Kepler

Philip Melanchthon

Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander

Halton Arp

Telescope, instrument of much knowledge, more precious than any scepter! Is not he who holds thee in his hand made king and lord of the works of God?

Johannes Kepler

Moreover, I desire that with the plan of the wise rulers and with their authority, pious and learned men at some time be called together both from our own churches and the churches of other nations in order that there might be a deliberation about all these controversies, and that one consenting form of doctrine, true and clear and without any ambiguity, might be handed down to posterity.

Philip Melanchthon

Newton's own motto, "hypotheses non fingo" was, in a sense, disregarded by Newton himself: he rejected hypotheses only where they violated his own "regula philosophandi", that is to say, his principle of their strict parsimony. In terms of present-day methodology, we reject hypotheses as scientifically meaningless if they are incapable even of indirect test; and we reject them as superfluous or as implausible if they are too complex and artificial to conform with well established canons of inductive probability. But freedom of scientific theorizing must be preserved wherever the conditions of meaningfulness and of economy appear to be satisfied.

The old dream of wireless communication through space has now been realized in an entirely different manner than many had expected. The cosmos' short waves bring us neither the stock market nor jazz from distant worlds. With soft noises they rather tell the physicist of the endless love play between electrons and protons.

Albrecht Unsöld

Of course, if one ignores contradictory observations, one can claim to have an "elegant" or "robust" theory. But it isn't science.

Observations buried in a desk are no observations.

Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander