Quotes for a science classroom wall

September 28, 2009 10:11 AM

I'm looking for good quotations about science (particularly physics) and education that are suitable for the wall of a secondary school (ages 11-18) classroom.

As examples, these are quotes I've already used:
"The two most common elements in the Universe are hydrogen and stupidity." - Harlan Ellison
"Physics is like sex. Sure it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it" - Richard Feynman
"The illiterate of the 21st Century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." - Alvin Toffler

posted by alby to science & nature (21 comments total)

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the Dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the Light. - Plato
posted by yawper at 10:22 AM on September 28

Einstein has a few:

I never teach my pupils. I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.

Imagination is more important than knowledge...

The important thing is not to stop questioning.

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious.

Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 10:28 AM on September 28

I'm sure he wouldn't mind if you used "woman" there.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 10:29 AM on September 28

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. - Arthur Schopenhauer

Pretty much anything said by Feynman
posted by milqman at 10:34 AM on September 28 [1 favorite]

Ernest Rutherford: "All science is either physics or stamp collecting"
Edward Teller: "Physics is, hopefully, simple. Physicists are not."
Niels Bohr: "If anybody says he can think about quantum physics without getting giddy, that only shows he has not understood the first thing about it."
Michio Kaku: "It is often stated that of all the theories proposed in this century, the silliest is quantum theory. Some say that the only thing that quantum theory has going for it, in fact, is that it is unquestionably correct"
Karl Popper: "Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve."
Thomas Edison: "Results? Why, man, I have gotten lots of results! If I find 10,000 ways something won't work, I haven't failed."
posted by Beautiful Screaming Lady at 10:58 AM on September 28

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. Arthur C Clarke

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I've found it!), but 'That's funny...' Isaac Asimov
posted by DU at 11:11 AM on September 28 [2 favorites]

Donald E. Simanek: "The production of useful work is strictly limited by the laws of thermodynamics. The production of useless work seems to be unlimited."
Ernest Rutherford: "All of physics is either impossible or trivial. It is impossible until you understand it, and then it becomes trivial."
Virgil: "Happy is he who gets to know the reasons for things."
Adam Smith: "Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition."
posted by Beautiful Screaming Lady at 11:19 AM on September 28

These are my "reality check" science quotes... Reminders of the power of the gedanken-experiment and the value of getting your hands dirty from time to time...

Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality.
- Nikola Tesla (1857 - 1943)

Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
- Pablo Picasso

"The power of imagination makes us infinite."
- John Muir, environmentalist, explorer, writer
posted by crenquis at 11:36 AM on September 28 [2 favorites]

These are brilliant. Keep them coming!
posted by alby at 12:10 PM on September 28

Another from Einstein: "As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it."

"Modern science has been a voyage into the unknown, with a lesson in humility waiting at every stop. Many passengers would rather have stayed home." - Carl Sagan

Do the quotes have to be famous ones? There's two I like from MeFi itself:
"It's not a sin to be wrong in science." - eriko
"In fact, it's a duty." - freebird
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 12:18 PM on September 28

“I think physicists are the Peter Pans of the human race. They never grow up and they keep their curiosity.”

--I.I. Rabi
posted by Skot at 12:26 PM on September 28 [1 favorite]

One sentence by Albert Szent-Györgyi seems particularly appropriate for a classroom: “Discovery consists in seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought.”

I'd recommend buying a copy of the Oxford Dictionary of Scientific Quotations and having a quick look for quotations that you like. I find that my copy is great for just dipping into.
posted by James Scott-Brown at 1:07 PM on September 28

"It is not knowledge but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment. When I have clarified and exhausted a subject, then I turn away from it, in order to go into the darkness again." Gauss
posted by Commander Rachek at 1:29 PM on September 28

I was born not knowing, and have had only a little time to change that here and there.
--Richard P. Feynman

may my mind stroll about hungry

and fearless and thirsty and supple

and even if it’s sunday may i be wrong

for whenever men are right they are not young
--E. E. Cummings

For me science is not different from art, except in the one small, crucial detail that experiments speak their own truths, not ours.
---Nina Fedoroff
posted by you're a kitty! at 4:31 PM on September 28 [1 favorite]

"It's easy to tell a theorist from an experimentalist: an experimentalist washes his hands before using the restroom."
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 4:44 PM on September 28

There is no democracy in Physics. We Can't say that some second-rate guy has as much right to opinion as Fermi. ---Luis Walter Alvarez

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 Poincare

Science has "explained" nothing; the more we know, the more fantastic the world becomes and the profounder the surrounding darkness. ---Aldous Huxley

This is what nonscientists don't know, and this is what scientists are too bashful to talk about publicly, at least until they grow old enough to become shameless. Science at its highest level is ultimately the organization of, the systematic pursuit of, and the enjoyment of wonder, awe, and mystery. ---Abraham Maslow

What is the universe? Is it a great 3D movie in which we are the unwilling actors? Is it a cosmic joke, a giant computer, a work of art by a Supreme Being or simply an experiment? The problem in trying to understand the universe is that we have nothing to compare it to. ---Heinz R. Pagels

A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary. ---Thomas Carruthers

Learning is the only thing the mind never exhausts, never fears, and never regrets. ---Leonardo Da Vinci
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:21 PM on September 28

The scientist and the romantic are necesary to each other. The scientist keeps the romantic honest and the romantic keeps the scientist human.

the fact of the matter is that matter is not a fact
posted by Redhush at 6:30 PM on September 28

"The aim of science is not to open a door to infinite wisdom, but to set a limit to infinite error." -- Bertolt Brecht

"If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research." -- Albert Einstein

"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction." -- Pierre Pachet, professor of physiology at Toulouse, 1872

"When you dare to ask profound questions about the universe in which we live, you may very well receive some rather profound answers." -- Sean O'Keefe, NASA administrator

"We are a way for the universe to know itself." -- Carl Sagan
posted by bryon at 8:46 PM on September 28

"The aims of scientific thought are to see the general in the particular and the eternal in the transitory." – Alfred North Whitehead

"Scientists have odious manners, except when you prop up their theory; then you can borrow money from them." – Mark Twain

"We’re in a culture that increasingly holds that science is just another belief." – Alan Alda

"Science is the outcome of being prepared to live without certainty and therefore a mark of maturity. It embraces doubt and loose ends." – A.C. Grayling
posted by bryon at 8:57 PM on September 28 [1 favorite]

Science. It works!
(You might want to change the last of xkcd's words to something else...)
posted by dowcrag at 3:35 AM on September 29

From Civilization 4, narrated by Leonard Nemoy...

Mathematics:
If in other sciences we should arrive at certainty without doubt and truth without error, It behooves us to place the foundations of knowledge in Mathematics.

Roger Bacon

Engineering:
A designer knows he has achieved perfection, not when there is nothing left to add but when there is nothing left to take away.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Computers:
Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window.

Steve Wozniak
posted by prodevel at 2:10 PM on September 29