German Scientist Quotes

According to my attempts to understand them, reality is systematically denied in the Copenhagen interpretation in order to circumvent consistency problems (such as Is the electron really a wave or a particle?). If there is no reality, one does not need a consistent description!

The careful experiments of Joule, who developed heat in various ways by the application of mechanical force, establish almost to a certainty, not only the possibility of increasing the quantity of heat, but also the fact that the newly-produced heat is proportional to the work expended in its production.

Rudolf Clausius

It will rightly be asked: What is the synthetic principle on which this obviously highly important product of y-methylcyclopentenophenanthrene is built up in nature, and why is it that this particular type which, as founda tion of many substances indispensable to life and of extreme physiological and biological importance, plays such a vital role in the vegetable and animal kingdoms? However, the time has not yet come when we can give an answer to questions so fundamental and so important to an understanding of the workings of Nature. But I am firmly convinced that this problem - like all others - will eventually be solved.

As a consequence, geneticists described evolution simply as a change in gene frequencies in populations, totally ignoring the fact that evolution consists of the two simultaneous but quite separate phenomena of adaptation and diversification.

The exact sciences also start from the assumption that in the end it will always be possible to understand nature, even in every new field of experience, but that we may make no a priori assumptions about the meaning of the word understand.

Werner Heisenberg

There prevails here [Charleston] a finer manner of life, and on the whole, there are more evidences of courtesy than in the northern cities.

Johann David Schoepf

All statements about the hydrides of boron earlier than 1912, when Stock began to work upon them, are untrue.

Chemistry without catalysis, would be a sword without a handle, a light without brilliance, a bell without sound.

Fermentation is the exhalation of a substance through the admixture of a ferment which, by virtue of its spirit, penetrates the mass and transforms it into its own nature.

Andreas Libavius

When we are confronted with facts which we see no possibility of understanding save on a single hypothesis, even though it be an undemonstratable one, we are naturally led to accept the hypothesis, at least until a better one can be found.

August Weismann

I would trade all my experimental works for the single idea of the benzene theory.

August Wilhelm von Hofmann

Research workers were, at one time, obliged to endeavor to ensure that their theories did not contradict those of the Church, nowadays, in contrast, the Church is at pains to prove that its teachings are compatible with those of Science. In other words, the Church acknowledges Science as the higher authority.

Wolfgang Ostwald

I. Animals have an electricity peculiar to themselves to which the name animal electricity is given.
II. The organs in which animal electricity acts above all others, and by which it is distributed throughout the whole body, are the nerves, and the most important organ of secretion is the brain.

Christian Heinrich Pfaff

It is difficult, however, for a person to be comprehensible and at the same time remain scientific, so I must ask you to bear with me.

Chlorine is a poisonous gas. In case I should fall over unconscious in the following demonstration involving chlorine, please pick me up and carry me into the open air. Should this happen, the lecture for the day will be concluded.

An equal number of atoms, combined in the same way produce the same crystal forms, and the same crystal form does not depend on the nature of the atoms, but only on their number and mode of combination.

Eilhard Mitscherlich

The abundance of substances of which animals and plants are composed, the remarkable processes whereby they are formed and then broken down again have claimed the attention of mankind of old, and hence from the early days they also persistently captivated the interest of chemists.

Hermann Emil Fischer

Science, as long as it limits itself to the descriptive study of the laws of nature, has no moral or ethical quality and this applies to the physical as well as the biological sciences.

Ernst Boris Chain

Everyone now agrees that a physics lacking all connection with mathematics...would only be an historical amusement, fitter for entertaining the idle than for occupying the mind of a philosopher.

Franz Karl Achard

Someone has said that the benzene theory appeared like a meteor from the sky. It came absolutely new and uninitiated. The human mind does not work in this manner. Nothing has ever been thought of which is absolutely new, certainly not in chemistry...

Friedrich August Kekulé

No other substance in organic chemistry attracts the attention of the physiologist and chemist to a higher degree than uric acid.

Friedrich Wöhler

Chymia, or Alchemy and Spagyrism, is the art of resolving compound bodies into their principles and of combining these again.

Georg Ernst Stahl

For the second law [of thermodynamics], I will burn at the stake.

Generally speaking it is better, where possible in natural science, to study objects of research independently of the accidents of their historical development.

Before delivering your lectures, the manuscript should be in such a perfect form that, if need be, it could be set in type. Whether you follow the manuscript during the delivery of the lecture is purely incidental. The essential point is that you are thus master of the subject matter.