Physicists From Scotland

"Jesus will take me safe trough... I shall see Jesus, who created all things, Jesus, who made the worlds; I shall see Him as He is;... Yes; I have had the Light for many years, and Oh! how bright it is! I feel SO SAFE, SO SATISFIED."

"Although every part of the human frame has been fashioned by the same Divine hand and exhibits the most marvellous and beneficent adaptions for the use of men, the human eye stands pre-eminent above them all as the light of the body and the organ by which we become acquainted with the minutest and the nearest, the largest and most remote of the Creator’s work"

"The history of the human species is the history of a variety of races in every stage of civilization and barbarism, and the great majority of which have neither an intellectual, nor a moral, nor a religious progressive history. Progression has not been the character of the history of man. Without alluding to his primeval fall from his high estate, we have only to cast our eyes over the globe, and look at the intellectual, moral, and religious catastrophes which it presents to us, — at ages of light and darkness, — at alternations of progress and decline, — at the highest civilization sinking into the lowest barbarism. Mark those eastern lands, now involved in darkness, from which the beams of knowledge first radiated on mankind. Study the extinction of morality in many regions of the earth where its great lessons were first taught by our Saviour and His apostles; and above all, mark the total suppression of the Christian faith in European communities, where it has been displaced by a religion whose doctrines were preached by conquest, and whose decalogue was dictated by the sword."

"Amid the destructive convulsions of the physical world, even pious minds may have for an instant questioned the superintending providence of God. In the midst of famine, or pestilence, or war, they may have stood horror- struck at the scene. In the triumphs of fraud, oppression, and injustice, over honesty, and liberty, and law. Faith may have wavered, and Hope despaired; but in no condition, either of the physical or the moral world, does the mind question the POWER of its Maker. The omnipotence of the Creator, and the exertion of it in every corner of space, — His care over the falling sparrow, and His guidance of the gigantic planet, are the earliest of our acquired truths, and the very first that observation and experience confirm. When Reason gives wisdom to our perceptions, omnipotence is the grand truth which they inculcate. Whatever the eye sees, or the ear hears, or the fingers touch, — every motion of our body, every function it performs, every structure in its fabric, impresses on the mind, and fixes in the heart the conviction, that the Creator is all-powerful as well as all-wise. Omnipotence, in short, is the only attribute of God which is universally appreciated, which skepticism never unsettles, and which we believe as firmly when under the influence of our corrupt passions, as when we are looking devoutly to heaven. All the other attributes of God are inferences. His omnipresence, His omniscience, His justice, mercy, and truth, are the deductions of reason, and, however true and demonstrable, they exercise little influence over the mind; but the attribute of omnipotence predominates over them all, and no mind responsive to its power will ever be disturbed by the ideas which it suggests of infinity of time, infinity of space, and infinity of life."

"Man, made after God's image, was a nobler creation than twinkling sparks in the sky, or than the larger and more useful lamp of the moon."

"Truths physical have an- origin as divine as truths religious, In the time of Galileo they triumphed over the casuistry and secular power of the Church ; and in our own day the incontrovertible truths of primeval life have won as noble a victory over the errors of a speculative theology, and a false interpretation of the word of God. Science ever has been, and ever must be the safeguard of religion. The grandeur of her truths may transcend our failing reason, but those who cherish and lean upon truths equally grand, but certainly more incomprehensible, ought to see in the marvels of the material world the best defence and illustration of the mysteries of their faith."

"The human voice may be denominated the music of the mind; language, a figurative mode of expressing our ideas and sentiments. The effects of flowing from this beneficent endowment are overwhelming in contemplation and almost infinite in extent. It is principally instrumental to all the moral and physical improvements of man, and enables him to pour forth his otherwise invisible, inaudible, unfathomable thoughts, to his fellow-man and to his God."

"It is not easy to devise a cure for such a state of things (the declining taste for science). The most obvious remedy is to provide the educated classes with a series of works on popular and practical science, freed from mathematical symbols and technical terms, written in simple and perspicuous language, and illustrated by facts and experiments which are level to the capacity of ordinary minds."

"The cultivation of science is a luxury of no common kind amid the bustle and vexation of life, and is quite compatible with the most active professional duties. Your education and the example you have had to copy will, I am sure, guard you against those presumptuous and skeptical opinions which scientific knowledge too often engenders. In the ardour of pursuit and under the intoxication of success scientific men are apt to forget that they are the instrument by which Providence is gradually revealing the wonders of creation, and that they ought to exercise their functions with the same humility as those who are engaged in unfolding the mysteries of His revealed will."

"Truth has no greater enemy than its unwise defenders, and no warmer friends than those who, receiving it in a meek and tolerant spirit, respect the conscientious convictions of others, and seek, in study and in prayer, for the best solution of mysterious and incomprehensible revelations."

"The immense number and variety of the beautiful optical discoveries which we owe to Sir David Brewster makes the comparison in his case a very imperfect representation of his triumphs over nature; and that, besides his place in the history of the Theory of Optics, he must hold a most eminent position in the history of Optical Crystallography, whenever the discovery of a True Optical Theory of Crystals supplies us with the Epoch to which his labors in this field form so rich."

"Had Mr. Darwin written a work on the change of species, as determined by observation and experiment, without any other object but that of advancing natural science, he would have obtained a high place among philosophical naturalists. But after reading his work in which the name of the Creator is never distinctly mentioned, we can hardly believe that scientific truth was the only object the author had in view. Researches, conducted under the influence of other motives, are not likely to stand the test of a rigorous scrutiny; and some of Mr. Darwin's not unfriendly critics have produced ample evidence that the idol of speculation has been occasionally worshipped at the expense of truth."

"Though the large runt pigeon, with its massive beak and its huge feet, differs from its blue and barred progenitor the rock, it is a pigeon still. Though the slender Italian greyhound has a strange contrast with the short-legged bull-dog, they are both dogs in their teeth and in their skull. The mouse, even, has not been transmuted into the cat, nor the hen into the turkey, nor the duck into the goose, nor the hawk into the eagle, and still less the monkey into the man."

"Trained in a less severe school than that of geometry and physics, his reasonings are almost always loose and inconclusive. His generalizations seem to have been reached before he had obtained the materials upon which he rests them: His facts, though frequently new and interesting, are often little more than conjectures; and the grand phenomena of the world of life, and instinct, and reason, which other minds have woven into noble and elevating truths, have thus become in Mr. Darwin's hands the basis of a dangerous and degrading speculation."

"It is a more rational belief that man may become a brute than that a brute may become a man; and it is an easier faith that plants and animals may dwindle down into an elemental atom, than that this atom should embrace in its organization, and evolve, all the noble forms of vegetable, animal, and intellectual life."

"The world may be utterly crazy And life may be labour in vain; But I'd rather be silly than lazy, And would not quit life for its pain."

"Ask no more, then, "what is best, How shall those you love be blest," Ask at once eternal Rest, Peace and assurance giving. Rest of Life and not of death, Rest in Love and Hope and Faith, Til the God who gives their breath Calls them to rest from living."

"By the hollow mauntain-side Questions strange I shout for ever, While echoes far and wide Seem to mock my vain endeavour; Still I shout, for though they never Cast my borrowed voice aside, Words from empty words they sever— Words of Truth from words of Pride."

"How the learned fool would wonder Were he now to see his blunder, When he put his reason under The control of worldly Pride."

"I think men of science as well as other men need to learn from Christ, and I think Christians whose minds are scientific are bound to study science that their view of the glory of God may be as extensive as their being is capable. But I think that the results which each man arrives at in his attempts to harmonize his science with his Christianity ought not to be regarded as having any significance except to the man himself, and to him only for a time, and should not receive the stamp of a society."

"I maintain that all the evil influences that I can trace have been internal and not external, you know what I mean—that I have the capacity of being more wicked than any example that man could set me, and that if I escape, it is only by God's grace helping me to get rid of myself, partially in science, more completely in society, — but not perfectly except by committing myself to God as the instrument of His will, not doubtfully, but in the certain hope that that Will will be plain enough at the proper time. Nevertheless, you see things from the outside directly, and I only by reflexion, so I hope that you will not tell me you have little fault to find with me, without finding that little and communicating it."

"In every branch of knowledge the progress is proportional to the amount of facts on which to build, and therefore to the facility of obtaining data."

"I believe, with the Westminster Divines and their predecessors ad Infinitum that "Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever." That for this end to every man has been given a progressively increasing power of communication with other creatures. That with his powers his susceptibilities increase. That happiness is indissolubly connected with the full exercise of these powers in their intended direction. That Happiness and Misery must inevitably increase with increasing Power and Knowledge. That the translation from the one course to the other is essentially miraculous, while the progress is natural. But the subject is too high. I will not, however, stop short, but proceed to Intellectual Pursuits."

"I My soul’s an amphicheiral knot Upon a liquid vortex wrought By Intellect in the Unseen residing, While thou dost like a convict sit With marlinspike untwisting it Only to find my knottiness abiding; Since all the tools for my untying In four-dimensioned space are lying, Where playful fancy intersperses Whole avenues of universes; Where Klein and Clifford fill the void With one unbounded, finite homaloid, Whereby the Infinite is hopelessly destroyed. II But when thy Science lifts her pinions In Speculation’s wild dominions, I treasure every dictum thou emittest; While down the stream of Evolution We drift, and look for no solution But that of the survival of the fittest. Till in that twilight of the gods When earth and sun are frozen clods, When, all its energy degraded, Matter in æther shall have faded, We, that is, all the work we’ve done, As waves in æther, shall for ever run In swift-expanding spheres, through heavens beyond the sun. III Great Principle of all we see, Thou endless Continuity! By thee are all our angles gently rounded; Our misfits are by thee adjusted, And as I still in thee have trusted, So let my methods never be confounded! O never may direct Creation Break in upon my contemplation, Still may the causal chain, ascending, Appear unbroken and unending, And, where that chain is lost to sight Let viewless fancies guide my darkling flight Through Æon-haunted worlds, in order infinite. ∂p/∂t"

"The equations at which we arrive must be such that a person of any nation, by substituting the numerical values of the quantities as measured by his own national units, would obtain a true result."

"Aye, I suppose I could stay up that late."

"The 2nd law of thermodynamics has the same degree of truth as the statement that if you throw a tumblerful of water into the sea, you cannot get the same tumblerful of water out again."

"Colour as perceived by us is a function of three independent variables at least three are I think sufficient, but time will show if I thrive."

"We shall see that the mathematical treatment of the subject [of electricity] has been greatly developed by writers who express themselves in terms of the 'Two Fluids' theory. Their results, however, have been deduced entirely from data which can be proved by experiment, and which must therefore be true, whether we adopt the theory of two fluids or not. The experimental verification of the mathematical results therefore is no evidence for or against the peculiar doctrines of this theory."

"It is of great advantage to the student of any subject to read the original memoirs on that subject, for science is always most completely assimilated when it is in the nascent state..."

"Mathematicians may flatter themselves that they possess new ideas which mere human language is yet unable to express. Let them make the effort to express these ideas in appropriate words without the aid of symbols, and if they succeed they will not only lay us laymen under a lasting obligation, but we venture to say, they will find themselves very much enlightened during the process, and will even be doubtful whether the ideas as expressed in symbols had ever quite found their way out of the equations of their minds."

"The vast interplanetary and interstellar regions will no longer be regarded as waste places in the universe, which the Creator has not seen fit to fill with the symbols of the manifold order of His kingdom. We shall find them to be already full of this wonderful medium; so full, that no human power can remove it from the smallest portion of Space, or produce the slightest flaw in its infinite continuity."

"The whole science of heat is founded Thermometry and , and when these operations are understood we may proceed to the third step, which is the investigation of those relations between the thermal and the mechanical properties of substances which form the subject of Thermodynamics. The whole of this part of the subject depends on the consideration of the Intrinsic Energy of a system of bodies, as depending on the temperature and physical state, as well as the form, motion, and relative position of these bodies. Of this energy, however, only a part is available for the purpose of producing mechanical work, and though the energy itself is indestructible, the available part is liable to diminution by the action of certain natural processes, such as conduction and radiation of heat, friction, and viscosity. These processes, by which energy is rendered unavailable as a source of work, are classed together under the name of the Dissipation of Energy."

"We may find illustrations of the highest doctrines of science in games and gymnastics, in travelling by land and by water, in storms of the air and of the sea, and wherever there is matter in motion."

"This characteristic of modern experiments — that they consist principally of measurements — is so prominent, that the opinion seems to have got abroad, that in a few years all the great physical constants will have been approximately estimated, and that the only occupation which will then be left to men of science will be to carry on these measurements to another place of decimals. If this is really the state of things to which we are approaching, our Laboratory may perhaps become celebrated as a place of conscientious labour and consummate skill, but it will be out of place in the University, and ought rather to be classed with the other great workshops of our country, where equal ability is directed to more useful ends. But we have no right to think thus of the unsearchable riches of creation, or of the untried fertility of those fresh minds into which these riches will continue to be poured. It may possibly be true that, in some of those fields of discovery which lie open to such rough observations as can be made without artificial methods, the great explorers of former times have appropriated most of what is valuable, and that the gleanings which remain are sought after, rather for their abstruseness, than for their intrinsic worth. But the history of science shews that even during the phase of her progress in which she devotes herself to improving the accuracy of the numerical measurement of quantities with which she has long been familiar, she is preparing the materials for the subjugation of the new regions, which would have remained unknown if she had been contented with the rough methods of her early pioneers. I might bring forward instances gathered from every branch of science, shewing how the labour of careful measurement has been rewarded by the discovery of new fields of research, and by the development of new scientific ideas. But the history of the science of terrestrial magnetism affords us a sufficient example of what may be done by experiments in concert, such as we hope some day to perform in our Laboratory."

"I have also a paper afloat, with an electromagnetic theory of light, which, till I am convinced to the contrary, I hold to be great guns."

"I have also cleared the electromagnetic theory of light from all unwarrantable assumption, so that we may safely determine the velocity of light by measuring the attraction between bodies kept at a given difference of potential, the value of which is known in electromagnetic measure."

"The general equations are next applied to the case of a magnetic disturbance propagated through a non-conductive field, and it is shown that the only disturbances which can be so propagated are those which are transverse to the direction of propagation, and that the velocity of propagation is the velocity v, found from experiments such as those of Weber, which expresses the number of electrostatic units of electricity which are contained in one electromagnetic unit. This velocity is so nearly that of light, that it seems we have strong reason to conclude that light itself (including radiant heat, and other radiations if any) is an electromagnetic disturbance in the form of waves propagated through the electromagnetic field according to electromagnetic laws."

"Velocity of transverse undulations in our hypothetical medium, calculated from the electromagnetic experiments of 'MM'. Kohlrausch and Weber, agrees so exactly with the velocity of light calculated from the optical experiments of M. Fizeau, that we can scarcely avoid the conclusion that light consists in the transverse undulations of the same medium which is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena."

"And last of all we have the secondary forms of crystals bursting in upon us, and sparkling in the rigidity of mathematical necessity and telling us, neither of harmony of design, usefulness or moral significance, — nothing but spherical trigonometry and Napier's analogies. It is because we have blindly excluded the lessons of these angular bodies from the domain of human knowledge that we are still in doubt about the great doctrine that the only laws of matter are those which our minds must fabricate, and the only laws of mind are fabricated for it by matter."

"Maxwell, and then Boltzmann, and then... J. Willard Gibbs consequently expended enormous intellectual effort in devising... , or... . The uses... extend far beyond gases... describing electric and magnetic interactions, chemical reactions, phase transitions... and all other manner of exchanges of matter and energy. The success... has driven the belief among many physicists that it could be applied with similar success to society. ...[E]verything from the flow of funds in the stock market to the flow of traffic on interstate highways ..."

"Maxwell... during the 1860s... showed that when the velocities reached the bell-shaped distribution, no further net change was likely. (...Ludwig Boltzmann further elaborated... and strengthened Maxwell's results). Any specific molecule would speed up or slow down, but... other molecules would change in speed to compensate. When a gas reached that state... the gas was at equilibrium. ...[T]his notion of equilibrium is precisely analogous to the Nash equilibrium in game theory. ...[J]ust as the Nash equilibrium is typically a mixed set of strategies, a gas seeks an equilibrium state with a mixed distribution of molecular velocities."

"The essential feature of Maxwell's work was showing that the properties of gases made sense not if gas molecules all flew around at a similar "average" velocity, as Clausius had surmised, but only if they moved at all sorts of speeds, most near the average, but some substantially faster or slower, and a few very fast or slow. ...Just as Quetelet's average man was fictitious, and key insights into society came from analyzing the spread of features around the average, understanding gases meant figuring out the range and distribution of molecular velocities around the average. And that distribution, Maxwell calculated, matched the bell-shaped curve describing the range of measurement errors."

"Maxwell probably first encountered Quetelet in an article by... John Herschel... (...familiar with Quetelet as a fellow astronomer). Later, in 1857, Maxwell read a newly published book by... Henry Thomas Buckle. Buckle, himself clearly influenced by Quetelet, believed that science could discover the "laws of the human mind" and that human actions are a part of "one vast system of universal order." ...Though Maxwell found Buckle's book "bumptious," he recognized it as a source of original ideas, and the statistical reasoning Buckle applied to society seemed just the thing... needed to deal with molecular motion."

"Maxwell... mastered electricity and magnetism, light and heat, pretty much mopping up all the major areas of physics beyond those that Newton had... taken care of—gravitation and the laws of motion. ...Maxwell detected an essential shortcoming in Newton's laws of motion, too. They worked... for macroscopic objects, like cannonballs and rocks. But what about the submicroscopic molecules from which such objects were made? ...Newton's laws ...did you no good because you could not possibly trace the motion of an individual molecule ...Maxwell applied the sort of statistical thinking that Quetelet had promoted."

"[I]n the mid-19th century math seemed... useless for physicists pondering the complexities of molecular motions in gases. ...How could anyone grasp the inner workings of a mass of molecules too numerous to count and too small to be seen? Yet... Maxwell found a way, by using statistics—mathematical descriptions of large groups of molecules. ...Maxwell got the idea to use statistics in physics from social scientists applying math to society!"

"Changing electric fields produce magnetic fields, and changing magnetic fields produce electric fields. Thus the fields can animate one another in turn, giving birth to self-reproducing disturbances that travel at the speed of light. Ever since Maxwell, we understand that these disturbances are what light is."

"In a famous memoir, Clerk Maxwell showed nearly a hundred years ago that Saturn's rings would be unstable if they were solid, and that they must consist of a swarm of separate bodies. In a system of particles rotating about a centre of gravitational attraction the innermost particles will rotate more rapidly than the outermost, in order to counteract the stronger gravitational pull towards the centre. In studying the problem of Galactic rotation we are almost entirely dependent on the determination of velocities in the line of sight, which can be measured spectroscopically by the . ...On the theory of Galactic rotation stars which are further from the centre than the sun will tend, in general, to move more slowly, i.e. relative to the sun they will lag behind, whereas stars nearer to the centre will race ahead."

"Maxwell's importance in the history of scientific thought is comparable to Einstein's (whom he inspired) and to Newton's (whose influence he curtailed)"

"In electromagnetism... the law of the inverse square had been supreme, but, as a consequence of the work of Faraday and Maxwell, it was superseded by the field. And the same change took place in the theory of gravitation. By and by the material particles, electrically charged bodies, and magnets which are the things that we actually observe come to be looked upon only as "singularities" in the field."