My Design in this Book is not to explain the Properties of Light by Hypotheses, but to propose and prove them by Reason and Experiments: In order to which, I shall premise the following Definitions and Axioms.
Interpretation
Isaac Newton emphasizes the importance of using reason and experiments over mere speculation in understanding the properties of light.
In this quote, Isaac Newton articulates his scientific approach to understanding light, highlighting that the true nature of scientific inquiry relies on empirical evidence and logical reasoning rather than unfounded theories or hypotheses. He sets a foundation for his work by stating that he will establish definitions and principles that will guide his exploration, thereby underlining the importance of a structured methodology in the scientific process.
In practice
During a science seminar discussing the fundamentals of experimental physics.
The best and safest way of philosophising seems to be, first to enquire diligently into the properties of things, and to establish those properties by experiences [experiments] and then to proceed slowly to hypotheses for the explanation of them. For hypotheses should be employed only in explaining the properties of things, but not assumed in determining them; unless so far as they may furnish experiments.
Plato is my friend, Aristotle is my friend, but my greatest friend is truth.
His epitaph: Who, by vigor of mind almost divine, the motions and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, and the tides of the seas first demonstrated.
And from true lordship it follows that the true God is living, intelligent, and powerful; from the other perfections, that he is supreme, or supremely perfect. He is eternal and infinite, omnipotent and omniscient; that is, he endures from eternity to eternity; and he is present from infinity to infinity; he rules all things, and he knows all things that happen or can happen.
It is the weight, not numbers of experiments that is to be regarded.
Poetry is a kind of ingenious nonsense.
Evolution, thus, is merely contingent on certain processes articulated by Darwin: variation and selection. No longer is a fixed object transformed, as in transformational evolution, but an entirely new start is, so to speak, made in every generation.
There are grounds for cautious optimism that we may now be near the end ofthe search for the ultimate laws of nature.
The constancy of the internal environment is the condition for free and independent life: the mechanism that makes it possible is that which assured the maintenance, with the internal environment, of all the conditions necessary for the life of the elements.
I dug things up. I was curious. I liked to draw what I found.
Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.
I met with amnesiacs and savants, educators and scientists, to try to understand what memory is, why it works, why it sometimes doesn't, and what its potential might be.
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