Misattributed to Kelvin since the 1980s, either without citation or stating that it was made in an address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1900. There is no evidence that Kelvin said this, and the quote is instead a paraphrase of Albert A. Michelson, who in 1894 stated: "… it seems probable that most of the grand underlying principles have been firmly established … An eminent physicist remarked that the future truths of physical science are to be looked for in the sixth place of decimals." The attribution to Kelvin giving an address in 1900 is presumably a confusion with his “Two clouds” speech, delivered to the Royal Society in 1900 (see above), and which on the contrary pointed out areas that would subsequently see revolutions.
Misattributed
Source: Superstring: A theory of everything? (1988) by Paul Davies and Julian Brown
Source: Rebuilding the Matrix : Science and Faith in the 21st Century (2003) by Denis Alexander
Source: Einstein (2007) by Walter Isaacson, page 575
Source: The End of Science (1996), by , p. 19 https://books.google.com/books?id=S1Lmqh79dOoC&pg=PA19
Initial statement of the Uncertainty principle in "Über den anschaulichen Inhalt der quantentheoretischen Kinematik und Mechanik" in Zeitschrift für Physik, 43 (1927)
Variant translation: The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa.
As quoted in "The Uncertainty Principle" at the American Institute of Physics http://www.aip.org/history/heisenberg/p08.htm
Light Waves and Their Uses. By Albert A. Michelson. Published by The University of Chicago Press, 1903, pp 23-25.
Context: Before entering into these details, however, it may be well to reply to the very natural question: What would be the use of such extreme refinement in the science of measurement? Very briefly and in general terms the answer would be that in this direction the greater part of all future discovery must lie. The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote. Nevertheless, it has been found that there are apparent exceptions to most of these laws, and this is particularly true when the observations are pushed to a limit, i. e., whenever the circumstances of experiment are such that extreme cases can be examined. Such examination almost surely leads, not to the overthrow of the law, but to the discovery of other facts and laws whose action produces the apparent exceptions.As instances of such discoveries, which are in most cases due to the increasing order of accuracy made possible by improvements in measuring instruments, may be mentioned: first, the departure of actual gases from the simple laws of the so-called perfect gas, one of the practical results being the liquefaction of air and all known gases; second, the discovery of the velocity of light by astronomical means, depending on the accuracy of telescopes and of astronomical clocks; third, the determination of distances of stars and the orbits of double stars, which depend on measurements of the order of accuracy of one-tenth of a second—an angle which may be represented as that which a pin's head subtends at a distance of a mile. But perhaps the most striking of such instances are the discovery of a new planet by observations of the small irregularities noticed by Leverier in the motions of the planet Uranus, and the more recent brilliant discovery by Lord Rayleigh of a new element in the atmosphere through the minute but unexplained anomalies found in weighing a given volume of nitrogen. Many instances might be cited, but these will suffice to justify the statement that "our future discoveries must be looked for in the sixth place of decimals." It follows that every means which facilitates accuracy in measurement is a possible factor in a future discovery, and this will, I trust, be a sufficient excuse for bringing to your notice the various methods and results which form the subject matter of these lectures.
“As Angelo discovered in Measure for Measure, nothing corrupts like virtue.”
"A needle for your pornograph" (22 July 1971), p. 67
The Madwoman's Underclothes (1986)
Introduction
A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40)
Context: Nothing is more usual and more natural for those, who pretend to discover anything new to the world in philosophy and the sciences, than to insinuate the praises of their own systems, by decrying all those, which have been advanced before them. And indeed were they content with lamenting that ignorance, which we still lie under in the most important questions, that can come before the tribunal of human reason, there are few, who have an acquaintance with the sciences, that would not readily agree with them. 'Tis easy for one of judgment and learning, to perceive the weak foundation even of those systems, which have obtained the greatest credit, and have carried their pretensions highest to accurate and profound reasoning. Principles taken upon trust, consequences lamely deduced from them, want of coherence in the parts, and of evidence in the whole, these are every where to be met with in the systems of the most eminent philosophers, and seem to have drawn disgrace upon philosophy itself.
"Quantum Mechanics for Cosmologists" (1981); published in Quantum Gravity (1981) edited by Christopher Isham, Roger Penrose and Dennis William Sciama, p. 611 - 637
Letter to Elizabeth Cady Stanton (Autumn 1872)
“Disease makes men more physical, it leaves them nothing but body.”
Source: The Magic Mountain (1924), Ch. 4
“Steampunk is nothing more than what happens when Goths discover brown.”
