If You Cannot Measure It, Then It

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.

Accurate And Minute Measurement Seems To The Non-scientific Imagination, A Less Lofty And Dignified Work Than Looking For Something New. But Nearly All The Grandest Discoveries Of Science Have Been But The Rewards Of Accurate Measurement And Patient Long-continued Labour In The Minute Sifting Of Numerical Results.

Vortices Of Pure Energy Can Exist And, If My Theories Are Right, Can Compose The Bodily Form Of An Intelligent Species.

In Physical Science A First Essential Step In The Direction Of Learning Any Subject Is To Find Principles Of Numerical Reckoning And Practicable Methods For Measuring Some Quality Connected With It. I Often Say That When You Can Measure What You Are Speaking About, And Express It In Numbers, You Know Something About It; But When You Cannot Measure It, When You Cannot Express It In Numbers, Your Knowledge Is Of A Meagre And Unsatisfactory Kind; It May Be The Beginning Of Knowledge, But You Have Scarcely In Your Thoughts Advanced To The Stage Of Science, Whatever The Matter May Be.

It Is Conceivable That Animal Life Might Have The Attribute Of Using The Heat Of Surrounding Matter, At Its Natural Temperature, As A Source Of Energy For Mechanical Effect . . . .the Influence Of Animal Or Vegetable Life On Matter Is Infinitely Beyond The Range Of Any Scientific Enquiry Hitherto Entered On. Its Power Of Directing The Motions Of Moving Particles, In The Demonstrated Daily Miracle Of Our Human Free-will, And In The Growth Of Generation After Generation Of Plants From A Single Seed, Are Infinitely Different From Any Possible Result Of The Fortuitous Concurrence Of Atoms.