Henri Poincaré

Henri Poincaré

"The scientist does not study nature because it is useful to do so. He studies it because he takes pleasure in it, and he takes pleasure in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful it would not be worth knowing, and life would not be worth living. I am not speaking, of course, of the beauty which strikes the senses, of the beauty of qualities and appearances. I am far from despising this, but it has nothing to do with science. What I mean is that more intimate beauty which comes from the harmonious order of its parts, and which a pure intelligence can grasp."
12 Quotes
"The scientist does not study nature because it is useful to do so. He studies it because he takes pleasure in it, and he takes pleasure in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful it would not be worth knowing, and life would not be worth living. I am not speaking, of course, of the beauty which strikes the senses, of the beauty of qualities and appearances. I am far from despising this, but it has nothing to do with science. What I mean is that more intimate beauty which comes from the harmonious order of its parts, and which a pure intelligence can grasp."
Henri Poincaré Science and Method
"A very small cause which escapes our notice determines a considerable effect that we cannot fail to see, and then we say that the effect is due to chance."
Henri Poincaré
"Science is built up of facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house."
Henri Poincaré
"It is through science that we prove, but through intuition that we discover."
Henri Poincaré
"If we knew exactly the laws of nature and the situation of the universe at the initial moment, we could predict exactly the situation of the same universe at a succeeding moment."
Henri Poincaré
"A scientist worthy of his name, about all a mathematician, experiences in his work the same impression as an artist; his pleasure is as great and of the same nature."
Henri Poincaré
"The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful."
Henri Poincaré
"If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living."
Henri Poincaré
"Absolute space, that is to say, the mark to which it would be necessary to refer the earth to know whether it really moves, has no objective existence."
Henri Poincaré
"Science is built of facts the way a house is built of bricks but an accumulation of facts is no more science than a pile of bricks is a house."
Henri Poincaré
"Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things."
Henri Poincaré
"Physicists believe that the Gaussian law has been proved in mathematics while mathematicians think that it was experimentally established in physics."
Henri Poincaré
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