The only laws of matter are those that our minds must fabricate and the only laws of mind are fabricated for it by matter. — James Clerk Maxwell Copy Share Image
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… — James Clerk Maxwell Copy Share Image
This characteristic of modern experimentsthat they consist principally of measurements, is so prominent, that the opinion seems to have got abroad, that in a… — James Clerk Maxwell Copy Share
That small word "Force," they make a barber's block, Ready to put on Meanings most strange and various, fit to shock Pupils of Newton…… — James Clerk Maxwell Copy Share
But I should be very sorry if an interpretation founded on a most conjectural scientific hypothesis were to get fastened to the text in… — James Clerk Maxwell Copy Share
It is a universal condition of the enjoyable that the mind must believe in the existence of a law, and yet have a mystery… — James Clerk Maxwell Copy Share
In Science, it is when we take some interest in the great discoverers and their lives that it becomes endurable, and only when we… — James Clerk Maxwell Copy Share
Colour as perceived by us is a function of three independent variables at least three are I think sufficient, but time will show if… — James Clerk Maxwell Copy Share
The true Logic for this world is the Calculus of Probabilities, which takes account of the magnitude of the probability. — James Clerk Maxwell Copy Share
One of the chief peculiarities of this treatise is the doctrine that the true electric current, on which the electromagnetic phenomena depend, is not… — James Clerk Maxwell Copy Share
The dimmed outlines of phenomenal things all merge into one another unless we put on the focusing-glass of theory, and screw it up sometimes… — James Clerk Maxwell Copy Share
All the mathematical sciences are founded on relations between physical laws and laws of numbers. — James Clerk Maxwell Copy Share
Thoroughly conscious ignorance is the prelude to every real advance in science. — James Clerk Maxwell Copy Share
The student who uses home made apparatus, which is always going wrong, often learns more than one who has the use of carefully adjusted… — James Clerk Maxwell Copy Share
My soul is an entangled knot, Upon a liquid vortex wrought By Intellect in the Unseen residing, And thine doth like a convict sit,… — James Clerk Maxwell Copy Share
The mathematical difficulties of the theory of rotation arise chiefly from the want of geometrical illustrations and sensible images, by which we might fix… — James Clerk Maxwell Copy Share
Mathematicians may flatter themselves that they possess new ideas which mere human language is as yet unable to express. Let them make the effort… — James Clerk Maxwell Copy Share
