Lord Kelvin famous quotes

Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Science #Air #Flying

The fact that mathematics does such a good job of describing the Universe is a mystery that we don't understand. And a debt that we will probably never be able to repay.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Jobs #Doe #Debt

When you are face to face with a difficulty, you are up against a discovery.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Discovery #Faces #Habit

In science there is only physics; all the rest is stamp collecting.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Science #Physics #Stamp Collecting

I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Science #Numbers #Kind

The more thoroughly I conduct scientific research, the more I believe that science excludes atheism.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Believe #Atheism #Research

Fourier is a mathematical poem.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Poetry #Mathematical #Fourier

If you study science deep enough and long enough, it will force you to believe in God.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Believe #Long #Atheism

In physical science a first essential step in the direction of learning any subject is to find principles of numerical reckoning and practicable methods for measuring some quality connected with it. I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely in your thoughts advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Numbers #Quality #Matter

Radio has no future." "X-rays are clearly a hoax". "The aeroplane is scientifically impossible.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Technology #Rays #Radio

Large increases in cost with questionable increases in performance can be tolerated only in race horses and fancy women.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Horse #Race #Ironic

When you cannot measure, your knowledge is meager and unsatisfactory.
-- Lord Kelvin

Overwhelmingly strong proofs of intelligent and benevolent design lie around us... the atheistic idea is so nonsensical that I cannot put it into words.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Strong #Lying #Intelligent

Mathematics is the only true metaphysics.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Mathematics #Metaphysics

Mathematics is the only good metaphysics.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Mathematics #Metaphysics

Questions of personal priority, however interesting they may be to the persons concerned, sink into insignificance in the prospect of any gain of deeper insight into the secrets of nature.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Nature #Interesting #Priorities

The vortex theory [of the atom] is only a dream. Itself unproven, it can prove nothing, and any speculations founded upon it are mere dreams about dreams.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Dream #Atoms #Vortex

Do not imagine that mathematics is harsh and crabbed, and repulsive to common sense. It is merely the etherealisation of common sense.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Common Sense #Imagine #Mathematics

I believe that the more thoroughly science is studied, the further does it take us from anything comparable to atheism.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Believe #Atheism #Doe

The atheistic idea is so nonsensical that I do not see how I can put it in words.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Ideas #Nonsensical #Atheistic

We only know God in His works, but we are forced by science to admit and to believe with absolute confidence in a Directive Power-in an influence other than physical, or dynamical, or electrical forces,
-- Lord Kelvin

#Believe #Influence #Force

At what time does the dissipation of energy begin?
-- Lord Kelvin

#Time #Energy #Doe

I can never satisfy myself until I can make a mechanical model of a thing. If I can make a mechanical model, I can understand it. As long as I cannot make a mechanical model all the way through I cannot understand.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Acceptance #Science #Long

Accurate and minute measurement seems to the non-scientific imagination, a less lofty and dignified work than looking for something new. But nearly all the grandest discoveries of science have been but the rewards of accurate measurement and patient long-continued labour in the minute sifting of numerical results.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Hard Work #Discovery #Imagination

Let nobody be afraid of true freedom of thought. Let us be free in thought and criticism; but, with freedom, we are bound to come to the conclusion that science is not antagonistic to religion, but a help to it.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Freedom #Criticism #Helping

We all confidently believe that there are at present, and have been from time immemorial, many worlds of life besides our own. . . . [This] may seem wild, and visionary; all I maintain is that it is not unscientific.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Believe #Moon #Visionaries

There is nothing in science which teaches the origin of anything at all.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Science #Teach

The only census of the senses, so far as I am aware, that ever before made them more than five, was the Irishman's reckoning of seven senses. I presume the Irishman's seventh sense was common sense; and I believe that the possession of that virtue by my countrymen-I speak as an Irishman.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Believe #Science #Common Sense

Ether is the only substance we are confident of in dynamics. One thing we are sure of and that is the reality and substantiality of the luminferous ether.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Reality #Substance #Dynamics

I need scarcely say that the beginning and maintenance of life on earth is absolutely and infinitely beyond the range of all sound speculation in dynamical science. The only contribution of dynamics to theoretical biology is absolute negation of automatic commencement or automatic maintenance of life.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Sound #Needs #Maintenance

I have no satisfaction in formulas unless I feel their numerical magnitude.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Satisfaction #Magnitude #Formulas

[Referring to Fourier's mathematical theory of the conduction of heat] ... Fourier's great mathematical poem ...
-- Lord Kelvin

#Heat #Theory #Mathematical

Simplification of modes of proof is not merely an indication of advance in our knowledge of a subject, but is also the surest guarantee of readiness for farther progress.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Knowledge #Progress #Guarantees

The life and soul of science is its practical application, and just as the great advances in mathematics have been made through the desire of discovering the solution of problems which were of a highly practical kind in mathematical science, so in physical science many of the greatest advances that have been made from the beginning of the world to the present time have been made in the earnest desire to turn the knowledge of the properties of matter to some purpose useful to mankind.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Knowledge #Soul #Desire

I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning, or of the expectation of good results from any of the trials we heard of. So you will understand that I would not care to be a member of the Aeronautical Society.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Expectations #Molecules #Trials

Vortices of pure energy can exist and, if my theories are right, can compose the bodily form of an intelligent species.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Intelligent #Energy #Form

If you can not measure it, you can not improve it.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Can Not

Although mechanical energy is indestructible, there is a universal tendency to its dissipation, which produces throughout the system a gradual augmentation and diffusion of heat, cessation of motion and exhaustion of the potential energy of the material Universe
-- Lord Kelvin

#Energy #Heat #Tendencies

There cannot be a greater mistake than that of looking superciliously upon practical applications of science. The life and soul of science is its practical application...
-- Lord Kelvin

#Mistake #Soul #Application

Science is bound, by the everlasting vow of honour, to face fearlessly every problem which can be fairly presented to it.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Faces #Problem #Vow

There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement.
-- Lord Kelvin

#Discovery #Measurement #Physics