"The ability of nonintelligent people to understand the most complicated mechanisms and to use them has always been to me a cause of astonishment: their inability to understand simple questions is even more astonishing. The general acceptance of simple ideas is difficult and rare, and yet it is only when simple, fundamental, ideas have been accepted that further progress becomes possible on a higher level."

You may also like:

• 

  Abu Rayhan al-Biruni
  Scholar

• 

  Alexandre Koyre
  Philosopher

• 

  I. Bernard Cohen
  Author

• 

  Lawrence Joseph Henderson
  Chemist

• 

  May Sarton
  Poet

• 

  Roger Bacon
  Philosopher

• 

  Wilhelm Wundt
  Psychologist

• 

  William Whewell
  Polymath

• 

  Otto E. Neugebauer
  Mathematician