Lord Kelvin Quotes

If you can not measure it, you can not improve it.

If you study science deep enough and long enough, it will force you to believe in God.

Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.

Can you measure it? Can you express it in figures? Can you make a model of it? If not, your theory is apt to be based more upon imagination than upon knowledge.

When you are face to face with a difficulty, you are up against a discovery.

In science there is only physics; all the rest is stamp collecting.

Radio has no future." "X-rays are clearly a hoax". "The aeroplane is scientifically impossible.

When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it.

To measure is to know.

Large increases in cost with questionable increases in performance can be tolerated only in race horses and fancy women.

Fourier is a mathematical poem.

If you cannot measure it, then it is not science.

The more thoroughly I conduct scientific research, the more I believe that science excludes atheism.

All of science can be divided into physics and stamp-collecting.

The fact that mathematics does such a good job of describing the Universe is a mystery that we don't understand. And a debt that we will probably never be able to repay.

If we can't express what we know in the form of numbers, we really don't know much about it.

Vortices of pure energy can exist and, if my theories are right, can compose the bodily form of an intelligent species.

Overwhelmingly strong proofs of intelligent and benevolent design lie around us... the atheistic idea is so nonsensical that I cannot put it into words.

Mathematics is the only good metaphysics.

When you cannot measure, your knowledge is meager and unsatisfactory.

Quaternions came from Hamilton after his really good work had been done, and though beautifully ingenious, have been an unmixed evil to those who have touched them in any way.

The atheistic idea is so nonsensical that I do not see how I can put it in words.

Simplification of modes of proof is not merely an indication of advance in our knowledge of a subject, but is also the surest guarantee of readiness for farther progress.

Science is bound, by the everlasting vow of honour, to face fearlessly every problem which can be fairly presented to it.

Mathematics is the only true metaphysics.

The vortex theory [of the atom] is only a dream. Itself unproven, it can prove nothing, and any speculations founded upon it are mere dreams about dreams.

I have no satisfaction in formulas unless I feel their numerical magnitude.

Ether is the only substance we are confident of in dynamics. One thing we are sure of and that is the reality and substantiality of the luminferous ether.

I believe that the more thoroughly science is studied, the further does it take us from anything comparable to atheism.

There is nothing in science which teaches the origin of anything at all.

You know only insofar as you can measure.

[Of the ether] it is no greater mystery at all events than the shoemakers' wax.

[Referring to Fourier's mathematical theory of the conduction of heat] ... Fourier's great mathematical poem.

At what time does the dissipation of energy begin?

There cannot be a greater mistake than that of looking superciliously upon practical applications of science. The life and soul of science is its practical application.

Symmetrical equations are good in their place, but ' vector ' is a useless survival, or offshoot from quaternions, and has never been of the slightest use to any creature.

To live among friends is the primary essential of happiness.

In science there is only physics all the rest is stamp collecting.

All science is either Physics or stamp-collecting.