“What is needed is a homely experiment which could be carried out in the basement with parts from an old sewing machine and an Ingersoll watch, with an old file of Popular Mechanics standing by for reference! This I am, alas, afraid we have not achieved, but I do believe that the following example… is adequate to expose the principles…”

— Howard P. Robertson

Geometry as a Branch of Physics (1949)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "What is needed is a homely experiment which could be carried out in the basement with parts from an old sewing machine …" by Howard P. Robertson?

Howard P. Robertson 28

American mathematician and physicist 1903–1961

Related quotes

“"What about the dark? We could lock you in the basement."
"I'm a demon hunter. Clearly, I am not afraid of the dark."”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

Clary and Alec, pg. 285
The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)

“And yet I don't know. And yet I don't know!
The sewing machine that cost me twenty guineas or so.
And that would buy plenty of linen and thread
And things that are hand-made are best, so it's said.
It's not that I'm mingy - although I'm half Scotch.
I know what I'll buy her. A Ingersoll watch.”

Stanley Holloway (1890–1982) English stage and film actor, comedian, singer, poet and monologist

And Yet I Don't Know!

“Coming, as I do, from mountain folk on one side and sea followers on the other, there are few old songs of the hills or the sea with which I am not familiar.”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

From a letter to Robert W. Gordon (February 4, 1925)
Letters

“When less than four years old I was standing with my nurse, Mary Ward, watching the shadows on the wall from branches of an elm behind which the moon had risen. I have never forgot those shadows and am often trying to paint them.”

Samuel Palmer (1805–1881) British landscape painter, etcher and printmaker

The Life and Letters of Samuel Palmer, Painter and Etcher (AH Palmer, London, 1892)

“It is only when we speak what is right that we stand a chance at night of being blown to bits in our homes. Can we call this a free country, when I am afraid to go to sleep in my own home in Mississippi?… I might not live two hours after I get back home, but I want to be a part of setting the Negro free in Mississippi.”

Fannie Lou Hamer (1917–1977) American civil rights activist (October 6, 1917 – March 14, 1977)

As quoted in This Little Light of Mine, ch. 8, by Hay Mills (1993). Said on September 13, 1965, in a hearing before the United States House of Representatives' Subcommittee on Elections.

“The story has spread that in testifying against Mr. Hiss I am working out some old grudge, or motives or revenge or hatred. I do not hate Mr. Hiss. We were close friends, but we are caught in a tragedy of history. Mr. Hiss represents the concealed enemy against which we are all fighting, and I am fighting. I have testified against him with remorse and pity, but in a moment of history in which this Nation now stands, so help me God, I could not do otherwise.”

Whittaker Chambers Witness

televised testimony of August 25, 1948
Source: Witness (1952), pp. 694-695

“I am no longer afraid of getting old. Indeed I can't believe I ever said anything so stupid. So childish. So offensive and.
But mainly, so very, very stupid. I desperately want to grow old.”

Elizabeth Wein book Code Name Verity

Source: Code Name Verity

“Now is really the time to raise more awareness of what’s going on and to demand that things change. This younger generation is not afraid to speak out, I think they’ve given a lot of us courage to really stand up to what’s right, and I think that’s what we need to follow”

Kristi Yamaguchi (1971) American figure skater

"Kristi Yamaguchi: 'The entire Asian American community is on alert'" in The Hill https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/543818-kristi-yamaguchi-the-entire-asian-american-community-is-on

“All I could think of when I got a look at the place from the outside was what fun it would be to stand out there and watch it burn down.”

Shirley Jackson book The Haunting of Hill House

Source: The Haunting of Hill House

“Consider what kind of authority [can be ascribed to] any principle which it open to us to choose to regard as authoritative or not. I may choose for example to observe a regimen of asceticism and fasting … for reasons of health … What authority such principles possess derives from the reasons for my choice. Insofar as they are good reasons, the principles have corresponding authority; insofar as they are not, the principles are to that same extent deprived of authority. It would follow that a principle for the choice of which no reasons could be given would be a principle devoid of authority. I might indeed adopt such a principle from whim or caprice or from some arbitrary purpose … but if I then chose to abandon the principle whenever it suited me, I would be entirely free to do so.”

Alasdair MacIntyre book After Virtue

Source: After Virtue (1981), p. 42.

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Howard P. Robertson 28

Related quotes

Related topics