Henri Poincaré - Facts Quotes

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The man of science must work with method. Science is built up of facts, as a house is built of stones; but an accumulation of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.

Henri Poincaré
Science is built up with facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.

Henri Poincaré
The most interesting facts are those which may serve many times; these are the facts which have a chance of coming up again. We have been so fortunate as to be born in a world where there are such.

Henri Poincaré
Facts are sterile until there are minds capable of choosing between them and discerning those which conceal something and recognizing that which is concealed; minds which under the bare fact see the soul of the fact.

Henri Poincaré
Sometimes truth frightens us. And in fact we know that it is sometimes deceptive, that it is a phantom never showing itself for a moment except to ceaselessly flee, that it must be pursued further and ever further without ever being attained.

Henri Poincaré
To obtain a result of real value, it is not enough to grind out calculations or to have a machine to put things in order; it is not order alone, it is unexpected order, which is worth while. The machine may gnaw on the crude fact; the soul of the fact will always escape it.

Henri Poincaré
The importance of a fact is known by its fruits, that is to say, by the amount of thought which it enables us to economize.

Henri Poincaré
Nothing but facts are of importance. John Lackland passed by here. Here is something that is admirable. Here is a reality for which I would give all the theories in the world." That is the language of the historian. The physicist would say rather: "John Lackland passed by here; that makes no difference to me, for he never will pass this way again."

Henri Poincaré
The historian, the physicist, even, must make a choice among facts; the head of the scientist, which is only a corner of the universe, could never contain the universe entire; so that among the innumerable facts nature offers, some will be passed by, others retained.

Henri Poincaré
An isolated fact can be observed by all eyes; by those of the ordinary person as well as of the wise. But it is the true physicist alone who may see the bond which unites several facts among which the relationship is important though obscure.

Henri Poincaré
The facts of geometry are naught else than the facts of algebra and analytical geometry expressed in another language.

Henri Poincaré
As science progress, it becomes more and more difficult to fit in the new facts when they will not fit in spontaneously. The older theories depend upon the coincidences of so many numerical results which can not be attributed to chance. We should not separate what has been joined together.

Henri Poincaré
The facts of greatest outcome are those we think simple; may be they really are so, because they are influenced only by a small number of well-defined circumstances, may be they take on an appearance of simplicity because the various circumstances upon which they depend obey the laws of chance and so come to mutually compensate.

Henri Poincaré
There are facts common to several sciences, which seem the common source of streams diverging in all directions and which are comparable to that knoll of Saint Gothard whence spring waters which fertilize four different valleys.

Henri Poincaré
The scientific fact is only the crude fact translated into a convenient language.

Henri Poincaré
Tolstoi explains somewhere in his writings why, in his opinion, "Science for Science's sake" is an absurd conception. We cannot know all the facts since they are infinite in number. We must make a selection... guided by utility... Have we not some better occupation than counting the number of lady-birds in existence on this planet?

Henri Poincaré
We can not know all facts and it is necessary to choose those which are worthy of being known.

Henri Poincaré
The mere fact is oftentimes without interest; it has been noted many times, but has rendered no service to science; it becomes of value only on that day when some happily advised thinker perceives a relationship which he indicates and symbolizes by a word.

Henri Poincaré
Physical theories must not introduce as many arbitrary constants as there are phenomena to be accounted for; they must establish connections among the various experimental facts and, above all, must lead to predictions.

Henri Poincaré
If we look at any particular law, we may be certain in advance that it can only be approximate. It is, in fact, deduced from experimental verifications, and these verifications were and could be only approximate. We should always expect that more precise measurements will oblige us to add new terms to our formulas.

Henri Poincaré
Thought must never submit, neither to a dogma, nor to a party, nor to a passion, nor to an interest, nor to a preconceived idea, nor to whatever it may be, save to the facts themselves, because, for thought, submission would mean ceasing to be.

Henri Poincaré
All the scientist creates in a fact is the language in which he enunciates it. If he predicts a fact, he will employ this language, and for all those who can speak and understand it, his prediction is free from ambiguity. Moreover, this prediction once made, it evidently does not depend upon him whether it is fulfilled or not.

Henri Poincaré
Now what is science?... it is before all a classification, a manner of bringing together facts which appearances separate, though they are bound together by some natural and hidden kinship. Science, in other words, is a system of relations.... it is in relations alone that objectivity must be sought.... it is relations alone which can be regarded as objective.
External objects... are really objects and not fleeting and fugitive appearances, because they are not only groups of sensations, but groups cemented by a constant bond. It is this bond, and this bond alone, which is the object in itself, and this bond is a relation.

Henri Poincaré
Scientists believe there is a hierarchy of facts and that among them may be made a judicious choice. They are right, since otherwise there would be no science... One need only open the eyes to see that the conquests of industry which have enriched so many practical men would never have seen the light, if these practical men alone had existed and if they had not been preceded by unselfish devotees who died poor, who never thought of utility, and yet had a guide far other than caprice.
As Mach says, these devotees have spared their successors the trouble of thinking.

Henri Poincaré
It is because simplicity and vastness are both beautiful that we seek by preference simple facts and vast facts; that we take delight, now in following the giant courses of the stars, now in scrutinizing the microscope that prodigious smallness which is also a vastness, and now in seeking in geological ages the traces of a past that attracts us because of its remoteness.

Henri Poincaré