I picture the vast realm of the sciences as an immense landscape scattered with patches of dark and light. The goal towards which we must work is either to extend the boundaries of the patches of light, or to increase their number. One of these tasks falls to the creative genius; the other requires a sort of sagacity combined with perfectionism.
Interpretation
Diderot emphasizes the importance of expanding knowledge and creativity in the sciences.
In this quote, Denis Diderot presents the field of science as an expansive landscape filled with areas of knowledge (light) and ignorance (dark). He suggests that the pursuit of scientific progress involves either broadening our understanding to include more knowledge or improving the quality of what we know. This duality highlights the roles of creativity and analytical thinking in advancing scientific inquiry.
In practice
In a lecture about the importance of research, one could discuss Diderot's vision of expanding the boundaries of scientific knowledge.
The arbitrary rule of a just and enlightened prince is always bad. His virtues are the most dangerous and the surest form of seduction: they lull a people imperceptibly into the habit of loving, respecting, and serving his successor, whoever that successor may be, no matter how wicked or stupid.
This root [the potato], no matter how much you prepare it, is tasteless and floury. It cannot pass for an agreeable food, but it supplies a food sufficiently abundant and sufficiently healthy for men who ask only to sustain themselves. The potato is criticized with reason for being windy, but what matters windiness for the vigorous organisms of peasants and laborers?
Do you see this egg? With this you can topple every theological theory, every church or temple in the world.
There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge... observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the result of that combination.
In order to get as much fame as one's father one has to much more able than he.
All abstract sciences are nothing but the study of relations between signs.
In a small lab, if you make a mistake, you can go in the next day and fix it. But here, when you are committed to spending a hundred thousand or a million dollars, you can't fix it later. You need to have a system of checks and balances internally. In particle physics, that's just part of the structure.
Quantum physics thus reveals a basic oneness of the universe.
One factor that has remained constant through all the twists and turns of the history of physical science is the decisive importance of the mathematical imagination.
If there is a small rocket on top of a big one, and if the big one is jettisoned and the small one is ignited, then their speeds are added.
'Closed timelike curve' is the jargon for time travel. It means you go out, come back and meet yourself in the past.
A great deal of my work is just playing with equations and seeing what they give.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.