John Henry Poynting - Collected Scientific Papers

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The threads of life, coming in we know not where, now twining together, now dividing, are weaving patterns of their own, ever increasing in intricacy, ever gaining in beauty.

John Henry Poynting
Molecules, atoms and corpuscles are at the present day the letters of the alphabet in which we write our knowledge of Physical Nature.

John Henry Poynting
A law may fail or cease to be true, not because Nature has changed her ways, but because we have failed in our statement of likenesses, or because we learn new details with which our old description does not tally.

John Henry Poynting
While the investigation of Nature is ever increasing our knowledge, and while each new discovery is a positive addition never again to be lost, the range of the investigation and the nature of the knowledge gained form the theme of endless discussion.

John Henry Poynting
If our mental experience convinces us that we have freedom of choice, we are obliged to believe that in mind there is territory which the physicist can never annex. Some of his laws may still hold good, but somewhere or other his scheme must cease to give a true account.

John Henry Poynting
To take an old but never-worn-out metaphor, the physicist is examining the garment of Nature, learning of how many, or rather of how few different kinds of thread it is woven, finding how each separate thread enters into the pattern, and seeking from the pattern woven in the past to know the pattern yet to come.

John Henry Poynting