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Johann Heinrich Lambert Quotes

Johann Heinrich Lambert was a Swiss polymath who made important contributions to the subjects of mathematics, physics , philosophy, astronomy and map projections.

Edward Tufte calls him and William Playfair "The two great inventors of modern graphical designs" . Wikipedia  

✵ 26. August 1728 – 25. September 1777
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Johann Heinrich Lambert: 8   quotes 0   likes

Famous Johann Heinrich Lambert Quotes

“We would wish to discover the Plan of the Universe, and the means employed by the Eternal Architect in the execution of his magnificent design. We will first contemplate the System of which we make a part, and of which our Sun is the center. Thence we will ascend towards those Suns and those innumerable Worlds which are scattered through the immensity of space.”

Johann Heinrich Lambert

Introduction, p. xxxix
The System of the World (1800)

“We will found our hypothesis in the general laws of motion, whose effects are every where the same, and whose influence extends to the utmost limits of matter.”

Johann Heinrich Lambert

The System of the World (1800)

“If in two ellipses having a common major axis we take two such arcs that their chords are equal, and that also the sums of the radii vectores, drawn respectively from the foci to the extremities of these arcs, are equal to each other, then the sectors formed in each ellipse by the arc and the two radii vectores are to each other as the square roots of the parameters of the ellipses.”

Johann Heinrich Lambert

Sect. 4, Lemma 26, Insigniores orbitae cometarum proprietates (1761) [Notable properties of comets' orbits] translated by Florian Cajori, A History of Mathematics https://books.google.com/books?id=kqQPAAAAYAAJ (1906) p. 259, from the German of Michel Chasles, Geschichte der Geometrie, haupsächlich mit Bezug auf die neuern Methoden https://books.google.com/books?id=NgYHAAAAcAAJ (1839) p. 183.

“We will next proceed by the lamp of experience, consulting with care the observations deposited in the records of astronomy.”

Johann Heinrich Lambert

The System of the World (1800)

“But, are the faculties of our nature equal to this? and what are the principles which ought to guide us in these researches?”

Johann Heinrich Lambert

Introduction, p. xxxix
The System of the World (1800)

“This is all to which weak and limited beings can pretend, beings who occupy a point, and last but a moment in this mighty edifice built for eternity.”

Johann Heinrich Lambert

The System of the World (1800)

“In order to supply the defects of experience, we will have recourse to the probable conjectures of analogy, conclusions which we will bequeath to our posterity to be ascertained by new observations, which, if we augur rightly, will serve to establish our theory and to carry it gradually nearer to absolute certainty.”

Johann Heinrich Lambert

The System of the World (1800)

“We suppose the existence of a wise and beneficent Being who presided over the formation of the World, and who is pleased to display his infinite perfections on this illustrious theatre.”

Johann Heinrich Lambert

The System of the World (1800)

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