Percival Lawrence Lowell est un homme d'affaires, mathématicien, auteur, astronome amateur inspiré et entreprenant. Il est connu pour avoir soutenu la présence de canaux d'eau sur Mars et fondé l'observatoire qui porte son nom à Flagstaff, en Arizona. Il est également à l'origine de l'effort qui a mené, quatorze ans après sa mort, à la découverte de Pluton première planète naine du Système solaire, par Clyde Tombaugh. Wikipedia
“Formulae are the anaesthetics of thought, not its stimulants”
Percival Lowell livre Mars and its Canals
Preface
Mars and its Canals (1906)
Contexte: Formulae are the anaesthetics of thought, not its stimulants and to make any one think is far better worth while than cramming him with ill-considered, and therefore indigestible, learning.
Percival Lowell livre Mars and its Canals
Source: Mars and its Canals (1906), Chapter XXXII, Conclusion
Contexte: War is a survival among us from savage times and affects now chiefly the boyish and unthinking element of the nation. The wisest realize that there are better ways for practicing heroism and other and more certain ends of insuring the survival of the fittest. It is something a people outgrow. But whether they consciously practice peace or not, nature in its evolution eventually practices it for them, and after enough of the inhabitants of a globe have killed each other off, the remainder must find it more advantageous to work together for the common good.
Percival Lowell livre Mars and its Canals
Preface
Mars and its Canals (1906)
Source: Mars as the Abode of Life (1908), Chapter I, p. 3
Percival Lowell livre Mars and its Canals
Source: Mars and its Canals (1906), Chapter XXXII, Conclusion
Source: Mars as the Abode of Life (1908), Chapter IV, p. 125
