Physicists From England

"To complete the theory of reflexion and on the undulatory hypothesis, it will be necessary to show what becomes of those oblique portions of the secondary waves, diverging in all directions from every point of the reflecting or refracting surfaces... which do not conspire to form the principal wave. But to understand this, we must enter on the doctrine of the interference of the rays of light,—a doctrine we owe almost entirely to the ingenuity of Dr. Young, though some of its features may be pretty distinctly traced in the writings of Hooke, (the most ingenious man, perhaps, of his age,) and though Newton himself occasionally indulged in speculations bearing a certain relation to it. But the unpursued speculations of Newton, and the appercus of Hooke, however distinct, must not be put in competition, and, indeed, ought scarcely to be mentioned with the elegant, simple, and comprehensive theory of Young,—a theory which, if not founded in nature, is certainly one of the happiest fictions that the genius of man has yet invented to group together natural phenomena..."

"Economics hasn't had an Einstein because it hasn't had a Galileo yet."

"The good news is cities are extraordinarily resilient. The bad news is that they are also very hard to change."

"You could not have evolved a complex system like a city or an organism - with an enormous number of components - without the emergence of laws that constrain their behavior in order for them to be resilient."

"Cities are the crucible of civilization."

"The paradigm of physics - with its interplay of data, theory and prediction - is the most powerful in science."

"I’ve always wanted to find the rules that govern everything. It’s amazing that such rules exist. It’s even more amazing that we can find them."

"Once we started to urbanize, we put ourselves on this treadmill. We traded away stability for growth. And growth requires change."

"It’s hard to kill a city, but easy to kill a company."

"A human being at rest runs on 90 watts. That’s how much power you need just to lie down. And if you’re a hunter-gatherer and you live in the Amazon, you’ll need about 250 watts. That’s how much energy it takes to run about and find food. So how much energy does our lifestyle [in America] require? Well, when you add up all our calories and then you add up the energy needed to run the computer and the air-conditioner, you get an incredibly large number, somewhere around 11,000 watts. Now you can ask yourself: What kind of animal requires 11,000 watts to live? And what you find is that we have created a lifestyle where we need more watts than a blue whale. We require more energy than the biggest animal that has ever existed. That is why our lifestyle is unsustainable. We can’t have seven billion blue whales on this planet. It’s not even clear that we can afford to have 300 million blue whales."

"Everything around us is scale dependent. It's woven into the fabric of the universe."

"Humanity has just crossed a major landmark in its history with the majority of people now living in cities. Cities have long been known to be society's predominant engine of innovation and wealth creation, yet they are also its main source of crime, pollution, and disease. The inexorable trend toward urbanization worldwide presents an urgent challenge for developing a predictive, quantitative theory of urban organization and sustainable development"

"Every fundamental law has exceptions. But you still need the law or else all you have is observations that don’t make sense. And that’s not science. That’s just taking notes."

"In modern physics the essential stuff of the universe... exists as relationships and fluctuations... Indigenous science teaches that all that exists is an expression of relationships, alliances, and balances between what... we call energies, powers, or spirits."

"Several leading-edge thinkers in physics suggest that nature is... a flux of processes. The whole notion of flux and process is fundamental to the Indigenous sciences of... Algonkian-speaking peoples... all share a strongly verb-based family of languages that reflects this direct experience."

"The mescal bead... is no mere symbol. For those who wear it, it really does enfold the universe and bring them into contact with all of creation."

"Quantum theory stresses the irreducible link between observer and observed and the basic holism of all phenomena. Indigenous science also holds that there is no separation between the individual and society, between matter and spirit, between each one of us and the whole of nature."

"The danger arises when a culture takes its own story as the absolute truth, and seeks to impose this truth on others as the yardstick of all knowledge and belief."

"We must ask if.. structures and organizations continue to serve the purposes for which they were first created. Are they true to the spirit that once inspired them?"

"When the needed to make a decision they thought of the implications of the seventh generation to come after them. Today we must think... of peoples all over the world, rich or poor, industrialized or indigenous."

"Science proceeds by abstracting what is essential from the accidental details of matter and process."

"Art and music make manifest, by bringing into conscious awareness, that which has previously been felt only tentatively and internally. Art, in its widest sense, is a form of play that lies at the origin of all making, of language, and of the mind's awareness of its place within the world. Art, in all its forms, makes manifest the spiritual dimension of the cosmos, and expresses our relationship to the natural world. This may have been the cause of that natural light which first illuminated the preconscious minds of early hominids."

"The persona can eventually become ourselves, or an aspect of ourselves, to the point where we don't know which is the mask and which is the I."

"Each one of our thoughts changes the world in a tiny but subtle way. Multiply this by... the billions in the world, and human thought has an enormous impact."

"Is there an objective aspect that remains constant through time? Or are we more like open systems or processes within the constant flow of life?"

"In the act of simply being with another culture there comes the realization of a need for balance, the understanding that there are times when it is better to listen than to ask, better the feel than to think, more appropriate to stay with a silence than to seek answers in speech."

"Within the indigenous world the act of coming to know something involves a personal transformation. The knower and the known are indissolubly linked and changed in a fundamental way. ...it is a dynamic and living process, an aspect of the ever-changing, ever-renewing process of nature."

"Like the ski resort full of girls hunting for husbands and husbands hunting for girls the situation is not as symmetrical as it might seem."

"In 1525 he filled the office of proctur in the university [Oxford]. His great work "concerning the cause of God against the Pelagians," was first delivered in the form of lectures at Oxford. These he afterwards, while chancellor of the diocese of London, at the request of the students of Merton, enlarged and polished. The publication of this book earned for its author the highest reputation. It was speedily in the hands of nil the learned men both in England and on the continent; and Bradwardine was thenceforward known by the title of "the profound doctor." His subject was treated with a mathematical accuracy, and his reasoning was pursued in one connected series of arguments, very different from the discursive remarks of the divines who had preceded him."

"Bradwardine was solicitous to employ the many talents now entrusted to him to the glory of his divine Master. It was his care to mitigate as far as possible the impetuosity of the king's temper, when immoderately fired with warlike rage, or unbecomingly elated with the advantages of victory. And so much meekness and persuasive eloquence mingled with his addresses to the army, that the soldiers, wrought upon by his earnest admonitions, were more than ordinarily restrained from practising the excesses attendant upon war. In fact, so truly did Bradwardine sustain amid arms the character of an ambassador of peace, and so influential was the spirit which evidently swayed him, that some of the writers of that time do not hesitate to attribute the conquests of the English king rather to the virtues and holiness of his chaplain than to his own conduct, or the prowess of his troops."

"If I were to grasp once, in emulation, work of the absolute, origin-creating mind, its opus est, conclusive otherness, the veil of certitude discovered as itself that which is to be resolved, I should hold for my own, my self-giving, my retort upon Emerson's 'alienated majesty', the De Causa Dei of Thomas Bradwardine."

"Undoubtedly, such expressions as, 'Turn yourselves,' &c. relate to the free power which every man has to will; but if Pelagius had half an eye, he might see that God, in giving the precept which directs us to turn unto him, influences also the human will, and excites it to action; not, indeed, in opposition our free choice, but the reverse, as I have all along maintained. Hence it is written, 'Without me ye do nothing.' And again, 'I laboured more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which with me.' And lastly, 'I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine holy name's sake. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and shall be clean; and I will cleanse you from your idols. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will put within you; and I will take away the stony heart, and will give you a heart of flesh.'"

"St. Paul says, that God commendeth his love to us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us: and that when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son. St. Paul was in a peculiar manner a child of grace: with gratitude, therefore, he honours and extols its efficacy in all his epistles; and particularly in his epistle to the Romans throughout he defends his doctrines with great precision and copiousness. 'Every mouth,' says he, 'must be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God. By the deeds of the law no flesh can be justified. Man must be justified freely by his grace. By grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.'"

"The Pelagians produce such Scriptures as these: 'The Lord is with you, while ye be with him; and if ye seek him, he will be found of you' (2 Chron. xv. 2). 'Turn ye, ...and I will turn unto you' (Zech. i. 3) From which they would infer, that the grace of God is proportioned to the merits of men. But all this would be to no purpose, if they would but compare one Scripture with another; for example: 'Turn us, O God of our salvation' (Ps lxxxv. 4); and, 'after that I was turned, I repented' (Jer. xxxi. 19); and, 'turn us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned' (Lam v. 21)"

"The mischievous Pelagians maintain that this sort of grace is not given freely by God but is to be obtained by preceding merits. I myself was once so foolish and empty, when I first applied myself to the study of philosophy, as to be seduced by this error."

"When I heard those parts of the Scriptures read in the Church which extol the grace of God, and lower the free-will of man, for example, 'It is not of him that willeth, or of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy,' and many similar passages,—this doctrine of grace was very disagreeable to my ungrateful mind. But afterwards I began to perceive some few distant rays of light respecting this matter. I seemed to see, but by no means clearly, that the grace of God is prior, both in nature and in time, to any good actions that men can possibly perform; and I return thanks to God, from whom proceeds every good thing, for thus freely enlightening my understanding."

"St. Augustine confesses that he himself had been formerly in a similar mistake. 'I was once,' says he, 'a Pelagian in my principles; I thought that faith towards God was not the gift of God, but that we procured it by our own powers, and that then, through the use of it, we obtain the gifts of God; I never supposed that the preventing grace of God was the proper cause of our faith, till my mind was struck in a particular manner by the apostle's argument and testimony: What hast thou that thou hast not received, and if thou hast received it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?' In this whole business I follow the steps of Augustine."

"O great and wonderful Lord our God, thou only light of the eyes, open, I implore thee, the eyes of my heart, and of others my fellow-creatures, that we may truly understand and contemplate thy wondrous works. And the more thoroughly we comprehend them, the more may our minds be affected in the contemplation with pious reverence and profound devotion. Who is not struck with awe in beholding thy all-powerful will completely efficacious throughout every part of the creation? It is by this same sovereign and irresistible will, that whom and when thou pleasest thou bringest low and liftest up, killest and makest alive. How intense and how unbounded is thy love to me, O Lord! whereas my love, how feeble and remiss! my gratitude, how cold and inconstant! Far be it from thee that thy love should even resemble mine; for in every kind of excellence thou art consummate. O thou who fillest heaven and earth, why fillest thou not this narrow heart? O human soul, low, abject, and miserable, whoever thou art, if thou be not fully replenished with the love of so great a good, why dost thou not open all thy doors, expand all thy folds, extend all thy capacity, that, by the sweetness of love so great, thou mayest be wholly occupied, satiated, and ravished; especially since, little as thou art, thou canst not be satisfied with the love of any good inferior to the One supreme? Speak the word, that thou mayest become my God and most enviable in mine eyes, and it shall instantly be so, without the possibility of failure. What can be more efficacious to engage the affection than preventing love? Most gracious Lord, by thy love thou hast prevented me, wretch that I am, who had no love for thee, but was at enmity with my Maker and Redeemer. I see, Lord, that it is easy to say and to write these things, but very difficult to execute them. Do thou, therefore, to whom nothing is difficult, grant that I may more easily practise these things with my heart than utter them with my lips. Open thy liberal hand, that nothing may be easier, sweeter, or more delightful to me, than to be employed in these things. Thou, who preventest thy servants with thy gracious love, whom dost thou not elevate with the hope of finding thee?"

"In... A New System of Chemical Philosophy published in 1808, John Dalton laid the foundations of the atomic theory: he assumed chemical action to be an action between very minute particles of elements and compounds, and all the minute particles of the same element, or compound, to be exactly the same size and weight. ...his hypothesis assumed the accuracy and universal applicability of those generalisations which are now called the laws of chemical combination."

"Dalton, the mathematical tutor, following up the lead of Newton, combined the whole of the results of quantitative measurement which had accumulated up to his time, in a comprehensive theory, based on the concept of the chemical atom."

"God gives his grace freely, in the strictest sense of the word, and without merit on the part of man. For if God did not bestow his grace in this perfectly gratuitous manner, but on account of some subordinate contingent uncertain cause, he could not possibly foresee how he should bestow his free gifts."

"He has shewn to us how vividly he formed these ideas, that they were no mere fancies which had passed through his brain, but distinct impressions, ready prepared for utterance. No doubt is left upon our minds as to his opinions, which are, that every piece of matter, even the smallest, must follow the laws of the largest; that when pounds of matter unite, the atoms contained in them must unite also, until we come to the fact that only atoms can really be said to unite. Now as the conception of any fraction of an atom is a contradiction and impossible, they must constantly unite as wholes, and the proportion will be constant. If constant in the smallest quantities, then so in the largest, explaining the permanency of the constitution of bodies so much disputed, and making it a law of nature. If two compound bodies unite, the same law is followed out."

"When one body combines with another in more than one proportion, the second proportion appears to be some multiple or divisor of the first; and this circumstance, observed and ingeniously illustrated by Mr. Dalton, led him to adopt the atomic hypothesis of chemical changes, which had been ably defended by Mr. Higgins in 1789, namely, that the chemical elements consist of certain indestructible particles which unite one and one, or one and two, or in some definite [] numbers."

"The most extraordinary man I met [in Manchester] is John Dalton, whose name is better known in almost any country of Europe than his own, and in any town than in Manchester. He is generally styled by continental writers the Father of Modern Chemistry, and is one of the eight associates of the Institute. Yet this man between sixty and seventy is earning, as I had a peculiar satisfaction in seeing with my own eyes, a penurious existence by teaching boys the elements of mathematics, with which he is so totally occupied, that he can hardly snatch a moment for the prosecution of discoveries which have already put his name on a level with the courtly and courted Davy. But the remarkable thing is that this simple and firm-minded man preserves all the original simplicity and equanimity of his mind, and calmly leaves his fame, like Bacon, to other nations and future ages.'"

"Another immense service rendered by Dalton, as a corollary of the new atomic doctrine, was the creation of a system of symbolic notation, which not only made the nature of chemical compounds and processes easily intelligible and easy of recollection, but, by its very form, suggested new lines of inquiry. The atomic notation was as serviceable to chemistry as the binomial nomenclature and the classificatory schematism of Linnæus were to zoölogy and botany."

"From the hour he came from his mother's womb, the God of Nature had laid his hand upon his head, and had ordained him for the ministration of high philosophy. But his natural talents, great as they were, and his almost intuitive skill in tracing the relations of material phaenomena, would have been of comparatively little value to himself and to society, had there not been superadded to them a beautiful moral simplicity and singleness of heart, which made him go on steadily in the way he was before him, without turning to right hand or to the left, and taught him to do homage to no authority before that of truth."

"The conviction that chemical substances combine according to fixed and simple proportions gained ground on the Continent, chiefly during the discussion in which Proust finally disproved and defeated Berthollet's theory of chemical affinity; but it is to Dalton that the doctrine of fixed and multiple proportions is indebted for a consistent exposition. Dalton based it upon a mental representation which ever since has been the soul of all chemical reasoning."

"The word grace evidently implies that there is no antecedent merit. And in this way the apostle to the Romans appears to argue, when he says, 'And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.' All this is perfectly intelligible, even in the conduct of liberal and magnificent human characters. They frequently bestow their gifts from a pure spirit of liberality, without the smallest previous claim on the score of merit. And shall not God, whose perfections are infinite, do more than this?"

"1. Small particles called atoms exist and compose all matter; 2. They are indivisible and indestructible; 3. Atoms of the same chemical element have the same chemical properties and do not transmute or change into different elements."

"When we consider that all elastic fluids are equally expanded by temperature, and that liquids and solids are not so, it should seem that a general law for the affection of elastic fluids for heat, ought to be more easily deducible and more simple than for liquids, or for solids.—There are three suppositions in regard to elastic fluids which merit discussion. 1. Equal weights of elastic fluids may have the same quantity of heat under like circumstances of temperature and pressure. The truth of this supposition is disproved by several facts... 2. Equal bulks of elastic fluids may have the same quantity of heat with the same pressure and temperature. This appears much more plausible... But... considerations... render this supposition extremely improbable, if they do not altogether disprove it. ... 3. The quantity of heat belonging to the ultimate particles of all elastic fluids, must be the same under the same temperature and pressure. It is evident the number of ultimate particles or molecules in a given weight or volume of one gas is not the same as in another... The only answer that can be given... is this.—The particles will condense their respective atmospheres of heat, by which their mutual repulsion will be diminished, and the external pressure will therefore effect a proportionate condensation in the volume of air: neither an increase nor diminution in the quantity of heat around each molecule, or around the whole, will take place. Hence the truth of the supposition, or... proposition, is demonstrated. Corol. 1. The specific heats of equal weights of any two elastic fluids, are inversely as the weights of their atoms or molecules. Corol. 2. The specific heats of equal bulks of elastic fluids, are directly as their specific gravities, and inversely as the weights of their atoms. Corol. 3. Those elastic fluids that have their atoms the most condensed, have the strongest attraction for heat; the greater attraction is spent in accumulating more heat in a given space or volume, but does not increase the quantity around any single atom. Corol. 4. When two elastic atoms unite by chemical affinity to form one elastic atom, one half of their heat is disengaged, &c. And in general, when m elastic particles by chemical union become n; the heat given out is to the heat retained as m-n is to n."