Jean Sylvain Bailly famous quotes

Last updated: Sep 5, 2024

That which the sciences can add to the privileges of the human race has never been more marked than at the present moment. ... The air seems to become as accessible to him as the waters.... The name of Montgolfier, the names of those hardy navigators of the new element, will live through time; but who among us, on seeing these superb experiments, has not felt his soul elevated, his ideas expanded, his mind enlarged?
-- Jean Sylvain Bailly

#Science #Race #Air
It is interesting to transport one's self back to the times when Astronomy began; to observe how discoveries were connected together, how errors have got mixed up with truth, have delayed the knowledge of it, and retarded its progress; and, after having followed the various epochs and traversed every climate, finally to contemplate the edifice founded on the labours of successive centuries and of various nations.
-- Jean Sylvain Bailly

#Science #Errors #Discovery
The motion of the stars calculated by the Hindus before some 4500 years vary not even a single minute from the tables of Cassine and Meyer (used in the 19-th century). The Indian tables give the same annual variation of the moon as the discovered by Tycho Brahe - a variation unknown to the school of Alexandria and also to the Arabs who followed the calculations of the school ... The Hindu systems of astronomy are by far the oldest and that from which the Egyptians, Greek, Romans and - even the Jews derived from the Hindus their knowledge.
-- Jean Sylvain Bailly

#Stars #School #Moon

Knowledge above the average can be crammed into the average man, but it remains dead, and in the last analysis sterile knowledge. The result is a man who may be a living dictionary but nevertheless falls down miserably in all special situations and decisive moments in life.
The youthful brain should in general not be burdened with things ninety-five percent of which it cannot use and hence forgets again... In many cases, the material to be learned in the various subjects is so swollen that only a fraction of it remains in the head of the individual pupil, and only a fraction of this abundance can find application, while on the other hand it is not adequate for the man working and earning his living in a definite field.
Our national policies will not be revoked or modified, even for scientists. If the dismissal of Jewish scientists means the annihilation of contemporary German science, then we shall do without science for a few years.
Whether statistics be an art or a science... or a scientific art, we concern ourselves little. It is the basis of social and political dynamics, and affords the only secure ground on which the truth or falsehood of the theories and hypotheses of that complicated science can be brought to the test.
Where lies the line between sorcery and science? It is only a matter of terminology, my friend.
Science is global. Einstein's equation, E=mc2, has to reach everywhere. Science is a beautiful gift to humanity, we should not distort it. Science does not differentiate between multiple races.
I'm not an expert on the arms race.
...Let us discard all this quibbling about this man and the other man-this race and that race and the other race being inferior, and therefore they must be placed in and inferior position...Let us discard all these things, and unite as one people throughout this land, until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal.
Now it would be as absurd to deny the existence of God, because we cannot see him, as it would be to deny the existence of the air or wind, because we cannot see it.
During the Battle of Britain the question "fighter or fighter-bomber?" had been decided once and for all: The fighter can only be used as a bomb carrier with lasting effect when sufficient air superiority has been won.

Jean Sylvain Bailly famous quotes

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