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Science Quotes by Henri Poincare

51 Science quotes by Henri Poincare

All Science quotes Henri Poincare’s page

Henri Poincaré compares science to a house built from stones, where each fact is a brick. He says experiments are the only source of truth and that intuition often leads to discovery before proof. He also notes that mathematics serves both practical study of nature and a deeper philosophical purpose.

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Science is facts.

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Experiment is the sole source of truth.

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Just as houses are made of stones, so is science made of facts.

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It is by logic we prove. It is by intuition we discover.

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Chance ... must be something more than the name we give to our ignorance.

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Every good mathematician should also be a good chess player and vice versa.

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It is through science that we prove, but through intuition that we discover.

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It may happen that small differences in the initial conditions produce very great ones in the final phenomena.

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Sociology is the science with the greatest number of methods and the least results.

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Experiment is the sole source of truth. It alone can teach us something new; it alone can give us certainty.

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But for harmony beautiful to contemplate, science would not be worth following.

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Guessing before proving! Need I remind you that it is so that all important discoveries have been made?

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“ La pensée n'est qu'un écliar au milieu d'une longue nuit. Mais c'est cet éclair qui est tout. Thought is only a…

Henri Poincaré

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A reality completely independent of the spirit that conceives it, sees it, or feels it, is an impossibility. A world so external…

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When the physicists ask us for the solution of a problem, it is not drudgery that they impose on us, on the…

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In one word, to draw the rule from experience, one must generalize; this is a necessity that imposes itself on the most…

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It is a misfortune for a science to be born too late when the means of observation have become too perfect. That…

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The task of the educator is to make the child's spirit pass again where its forefathers have gone, moving rapidly through certain…

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Science is built up of facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science…

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A very small cause, which escapes us, determines a considerable effect which we cannot ignore, and we say that this effect is…

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So is not mathematical analysis then not just a vain game of the mind? To the physicist it can only give a…

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It is often said that experiments should be made without preconceived ideas. That is impossible. Not only would it make every experiment…

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On fait la science avec des faits, comme on fait une maison avec des pierres; mais une accumulation de faits n'est pas…

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All the scientist creates in a fact is the language in which he enunciates it. If he predicts a fact, he will…

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“ Le savant doit ordonner ; on fait la science avec des faits comme une maison avec des pierres ; mais une…

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What is a good definition? For the philosopher or the scientist, it is a definition which applies to all the objects to…

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Consider now the Milky Way. Here also we see an innumerable dust, only the grains of this dust are no longer atoms…

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“ Derrière la série de Fourier , d'autres séries analogues sont entrées dans la domaine de l'analyse; elles y sont entrees par…

Henri Poincaré

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Pure logic could never lead us to anything but tautologies; it can create nothing new; not from it alone can any science…

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One does not ask whether a scientific theory is true, but only whether it is convenient.

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The aim of science is not things themselves, as the dogmatists in their simplicity imagine, but the relation between things.

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If we wish to foresee the future of mathematics, our proper course is to study the history and present condition of the…

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All great progress takes place when two sciences come together, and when their resemblance proclaims itself, despite the apparent disparity of their…

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Doubt everything or believe everything: these are two equally convenient strategies. With either we dispense with the need for reflection.

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A scientist worthy of his name, about all a mathematician, experiences in his work the same impression as an artist; his pleasure…

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One would have to have completely forgotten the history of science so as to not remember that the desire to know nature…

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“ Deviner avant de démontrer! Ai-je besoin de rappeler que c'est ainsi que se sont faites toutes les découvertes importantes. Guessing before…

Henri Poincaré

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For a long time the objects that mathematicians dealt with were mostly ill-defined; one believed one knew them, but one represented them…

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Mathematics has a threefold purpose. It must provide an instrument for the study of nature. But this is not all: it has…

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The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in…

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More by Henri Poincare

The mathematical facts worthy of being studied are those which, by their analogy with other facts, are capable of leading us to the knowledge…

. . . by natural selection our mind has adapted itself to the conditions of the external world. It has adopted the geometry most…

If we knew exactly the laws of nature and the situation of the universe at the initial moment, we could predict exactly the situation…

Absolute space, that is to say, the mark to which it would be necessary to refer the earth to know whether it really moves,…

Science is facts.

Absolute space, that is to say, the mark to which it would be necessary to refer the earth to know whether it really moves,…

All of mathematics is a tale about groups.

A cat is witty, he has nerve, he knows how to do precisely the right thing at the right moment.

In the old days when people invented a new function they had something useful in mind.

Intuition is more important to discovery than logic.

Mathematics has a threefold purpose. It must provide an instrument for the study of nature. But this is not all: it has a philosophical…

Experiment is the sole source of truth.

“ Qu'une goutee de vin tombe dans un verre d'eau; quelle que soit la loi du movement interne du liquide, nous verrons bientôt se…

Henri Poincaré

If that enabled us to predict the succeeding situation with the same approximation, that is all we require, and we should say that the…

“ Le savant doit ordonner ; on fait la science avec des faits comme une maison avec des pierres ; mais une accumulation de…