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God said, “div D = ρ, div B = 0, curl E = - ðB/ðt, curl H = J + ðD/ðt,” and there was light.

God said, “div D = ρ, div B = 0, curl E = - ðB/ðt, curl H = J + ðD/ðt,”
and there was light.

This ingenious statement by atheist-physicist Brent Meeker is my favourite science quotation.
It was used in 2002 when I was on Vic Stenger’s discussion site, avoid-l.

Here are some more science-related quotations from among many dozens I have been collecting for years. What are your best science-related quotes?

“The first key to wisdom is assiduous and frequent questioning ... For by doubting we come to inquiry, and by inquiry we arrive at truth.” Peter Abelard (1079-1142) c. 1120.

“The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the Universe to do.” Galileo Galilei

Socrates: “There is only one good, Knowledge, and only one evil, Ignorance.”

René Descartes: “We buy the right to reject only with the effort we make to understand”.

Tags: Let there be light, Quotations

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on February 19, 2012 at 12:19pm

Mmmm, poetry for a physicist! I like it!

Permalink Reply by thewoodenwand on June 8, 2012 at 7:32am

I have been E-mailing back and forth with a Prof of physics who claims (theorizes) the Big Bang was caused by an culmination of all wavelengths. At one point in time and a non-important place in space a wavelengths synced or un-synced and BANG! I was hoping you could help me understand and might have a comment if such an incident occurred is possible and logical. Also could a God be involved.

Attachments:

There is a God.pptx, 285 KB

Permalink Reply by Dr. Terence Meaden on June 8, 2012 at 8:36am

Dunno about the idea of super-synchronising wavelengths, but we can discount any possibility of a god being somewhere behind it all largely because such a divinity is a needless concept and an invention and illusion of the human brain. The Universe can be explained as having got under way using just physics (q.v. Dr Stenger's works). My book on the Origin of the Universe very briefly summarises this, and will appear as part of an e-book before 2012 is out.

Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on June 8, 2012 at 8:59am

That PowerPoint presentation strikes me as being little more than a bunch of unsubstantiated suppositions, stitched together with what may or may not be scientific statements, intended to make it SOUND impressive and credible.

Sorry, no sale. I'm not having any.

Permalink Reply by thewoodenwand on June 8, 2012 at 11:29am

So why are there 3 spatial dimensions, why is time quantifiable only in plank time intervals, and what makes the rules and why is Pi an irrational number? Can God be letting us view our universe in plank time intervals? if not what will give us the power to redefine time or space/time and will machines ever have a soul? Have you read "The Emperors New Mind?"

Permalink Reply by Bill A on June 8, 2012 at 3:15pm

You asked for our favorite science related quotes and here is mine, from Richard Feynman’s book (“Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!,” pg. 283). Feynman (winner of the Nobel prize in Physics) began talking to a Danish Princess at the Nobel Awards King’s dinner, and the Princess, upon finding that he was receiving the award in Physics, commented, “Oh. Well nobody knows anything about [Physics], so I guess we can’t talk about it.”

“On the contrary,” [Feynman] answered. “It’s because somebody knows something about it that we can’t talk about it. It’s things that nobody knows anything about that we can discuss. We can talk about the weather; we can talk about social problems; we can talk about psychology; we can talk about international finance – gold transfers, we can’t talk about because those are understood – so it’s the subject that nobody knows anything about that we can all talk about!” I don’t know how they do it. There’s a way for forming ice on the surface of the face, and she did it! She turned to talk to somebody else…”

His point was that if someone in a group is an expert in a topic, then you won’t have a discussion, you will have a presentation or speech on the part of the expert. If everyone is equally ignorant on the topic you can have a spirited discussion. Think of the topic of religion.

Permalink Reply by thewoodenwand on June 9, 2012 at 4:57pm

I think Feynman was boosting he knew a lot and got a "dig" in on a Princess, I do not understand the math of most physics but I can actually see a Cartesian point in my mind and I can see it as a particle and as part of a wave "spin" is what I call it. Quantum properties from what I have read include spin properties and if a point spins it is my opinion, it can then behave as a particle when the 3D wave breaks its quantum barrier and mass is created. I may know nothing about what I lie at night imagining for 40 years but I feel as Einstein did physics allows us to "glimpse into the mind of God" even if God is the fact of being all knowing not an actual thing or entity that i all knowing. Any help with the math and any suggested reading or website is greatly appreciated. Respectfully too uneducated to count, Dave

Permalink Reply by thewoodenwand on June 9, 2012 at 5:06pm

P.S. lying in bed dreaming 50 years ago I "knew" the earths magnetic field was liquid core dependent, Forty years ago I knew I lives would revolve around computers, Thirty years ago I decided if mass and energy are inter-changeable space must turn energy fields to particles and twenty years ago I decided entropy in space/time creates particles (energy) spin to create mass-less particles. Today I am on bi-polar medications and am slow enough to focus on the math, too bad it took 60 years to realize I was mental.

Permalink Reply by Future on December 10, 2012 at 2:25pm