The atom can't be seen, yet its existence can be proved. And it is simple to prove that it can't ever be seen. It has to be studied by indirect evidence - and the technical difficulty has been compared to asking a man who has never seen a piano to describe a piano from the sound it would make falling downstairs in the dark.
Interpretation
The quote illustrates the challenge of understanding unseen phenomena through indirect evidence.
Carl David Anderson's quote emphasizes the complexities involved in studying subatomic particles like atoms, which, although unseen, can still be proven to exist through indirect methods. He likens this challenge to a person trying to describe a piano without ever having seen it, relying only on the sounds it produces, highlighting the limitations and difficulties inherent in scientific inquiry.
In practice
In a science lecture discussing the nature of atomic theory, this quote can illustrate the challenges of scientific evidence.
Science is a human activity, and the best way to understand it is to understand the individual human beings who practise it. Science is an art form and not a philosophical method. The great advances in science usually result from new tools rather than from new doctrines. ... Every time we introduce a new tool, it always leads to new and unexpected discoveries, because Nature's imagination is richer than ours.
Science fiction frees you to go anyplace and examine anything.
But let us remember that we are dealing with infinities and indivisibles both of which transcend our finite understanding, the former on account of their magnitude, the latter because of their smallness.
Now I'm a scientific expert; that means I know nothing about absolutely everything.
[M]y work, which I've done for a long time, was not pursued in order to gain the praise I now enjoy, but chiefly from a craving after knowledge, which I notice resides in me more than in most other men. And therewithal, whenever I found out anything remarkable, I have thought it my duty to put down my discovery on paper, so that all ingenious people might be informed thereof.
It's often better to read first-rate science fiction than second-rate science - it's far more stimulating, and perhaps no more likely to be wrong.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.