Ludwig Boltzmann Quotes

14 Sourced Quotes

In my view all salvation for philosophy may be expected to come from Darwin's theory

Ludwig Boltzmann
A friend of mine has defined the practical man as one who understands nothing of theory and the theoretician as an enthusiast who understands nothing at all.

Ludwig Boltzmann
Since a given system can never of its own accord go over into another equally probable state but into a more probable one, it is likewise impossible to construct a system of bodies that after traversing various states returns periodically to its original state, that is a perpetual motion machine.

Ludwig Boltzmann
I think the predilection for nudity [regarding the undraped figure of nature] would be carried too far if we were to forego every hypothesis. Only we must not demand too much from hypotheses.

Ludwig Boltzmann
Every hypothesis must derive indubitable results from mechanically well-defined assumptions by mathematically correct methods.

Ludwig Boltzmann
But all the more splendid is the success when, groping in the thicket of special questions, we suddenly find a small opening that allows a hitherto undreamt of outlook on the whole.

Ludwig Boltzmann
The Second Law can never be proved mathematically by means of the equations of dynamics alone.

Ludwig Boltzmann
Who sees the future? Let us have free scope for all directions of research; away with dogmatism, either atomistic or anti-atomistic!

Ludwig Boltzmann
A mathematician will recognize Cauchy, Gauss, Jacobi, of Helmholz after reading a few pages, just as musicians recognize, from the first few bars, Mozart, Beethoven, or Schubert.

Ludwig Boltzmann
I adhered scrupulously to the precept of that brilliant theoretical physicist L. Boltzmann, according to whom matters of elegance ought to be left to the tailor and to the cobbler.

Ludwig Boltzmann
Mathematics and music! the most glaring possible opposites of human thought! and yet connected, mutually sustained! It is as if they would demonstrate the hidden consensus of all the actions of our mind, which in the revelations of genius makes us forefeel unconscious utterances of a mysteriously active intelligence.

Ludwig Boltzmann
How awkward is the human mind in divining the nature of things, when forsaken by the analogy of what we see and touch directly?

Ludwig Boltzmann
Since in the differential equations of mechanics themselves there is absolutely nothing analogous to the second law of thermodynamics the latter can be mechanically represented only by means of assumptions regarding initial conditions.

Ludwig Boltzmann
The world of ice and of eternal snow... so stern, so solitary, so dangerous, it may be, has yet its own peculiar charms.

Ludwig Boltzmann