"Une loi de Physique possède une certitude beaucoup moins immédiate et beaucoup plus difficile à apprécier qu'une loi de sens commun; mais elle surpasse cette dernière par la précision minutieuse et détaillée de ses prédictions. ...Cette minutie dans le détail, les lois de la Physique ne la peuvent acquérir qu'en sacrifiant quelque chose de la certitude fixe et absolue des lois de sens commun. Entre la précision et la certitude il y a une sorte de compensation; l'une ne peut croître qu'au détriment de l'autre. A law of physics possesses a certainty much less immediate and much more difficult to estimate than a law of common sense, but it surpasses the latter by the minute and detailed precision of its predictions. ...The laws of physics can acquire this minuteness of detail only by sacrificing something of the fixed and absolute certainty of common-sense laws. There is a sort of balance between precision and certainty; one cannot be increased except to the detriment of the other."
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Pierre Duhem, La Théorie Physique: son Objet, et sa Structure (1906) p. 292. [Duhem's Law] Tr. Philip P. Wiener, The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory (1954)
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