SHAIJU

RESEARCH QUOTES

If a man will begin with certainties, he will end in doubts; but if he will be
content to begin with doubts, he will end in certainties.
-Francis Bacon (1561-1626),_Advancement of Learning_

A scientist is a mimosa when he himself has made a mistake, and a roaring
lion when he discovers a mistake of others.
-- Albert Einstein, quoted in Ehlers, Liebers Hertz.


"Experimental confirmation of a prediction is merely a
measurement. An experiment disproving a prediction is a discovery."
-- Enrico Fermi, Italian physicist, 1901-1954

"...it doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how
smart you are -- if it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong." --
R.P. Feynman

It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data.
Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories
instead of theories to suit facts." - Sherlock Holmes

"Science is built upon facts, as a house is built of stones;
but an accumulation of facts is no more a science that a heap
of stones is a house." -- Henri Poincare' in Science and Hypothesis

"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research,
would it?". -- Albert Einstein (1879-1955) [German physicist]

We have a habit in writing articles published in scientific journals to
make the work as finished as possible, to cover up all the tracks, to not
worry about the blind alleys or describe how you had the wrong idea first,
and so on. So there isn't any place to publish, in a dignified manner, what
you actually did in order to get to do the work.
-- Richard Feynman, American physicist, Nobel Lecture, 1966.

Every great scientific truth goes through three stages. First, people say
it conflicts with the Bible or great holy books. Next they say it had been discovered
before. Lastly they say they always believed it.
so Four stages of acceptance:

i) this is worthless nonsense;
ii) this is an interesting, but perverse, point of view;
iii) this is true, but quite unimportant;
iv) I always said so.