Lord Kelvin: Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.

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.

Lord Kelvin

math numbers science

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

Lord Kelvin

measure-for-measure measurement can-not

There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement.

Lord Kelvin

measurement discovery science

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

Lord Kelvin

atheism long believe

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.

Lord Kelvin

figures theory imagination

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

Lord Kelvin

stamp-collecting physics science

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

Lord Kelvin

rays radio technology

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

Lord Kelvin

problem faces discovery

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

Lord Kelvin

math numbers science

To measure is to know.

Lord Kelvin

knows

Christianity without the cross is nothing. The cross was the fitting close of a life of rejection, scorn and defeat. But in no true sense have these things ceased or changed. Jesus is still He whom man despiseth, and the rejected of men. The world has never admired Jesus, for moral courage is yet needed in every one of its high places by him who would "confess" Christ. The "offense" of the cross, therefore, has led men in all ages to endeavor to be rid of it, and to deny that it is the power of God in the world.

Lord Kelvin

rejection men jesus

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

Lord Kelvin

ironic horse race

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

Lord Kelvin

ifs science

Do not imagine that mathematics is hard and crabbed, and repulsive to common sense. It is merely the etherealization of common sense.

Lord Kelvin

common-sense mathematics imagine

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.

Lord Kelvin

hard-work discovery science

I can never satisfy myself until I can make a mechanical model of a thing. If I can make a mechanical model, I can understand it. As long as I cannot make a mechanical model all the way through I cannot understand.

Lord Kelvin

acceptance science long

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

Lord Kelvin

intelligent strong lying

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

Lord Kelvin

atheism research believe

We only know God in His works, but we are forced by science to admit and to believe with absolute confidence in a Directive Power-in an influence other than physical, or dynamical, or electrical forces.

Lord Kelvin

force influence believe

Nothing can be more fatal to progress than a too confident reliance on mathematical symbols; for the student is only too apt to take the easier course, and consider the formula not the fact as the physical reality.

Lord Kelvin

progress reality facts