“I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be.”

— William Thomson

Lecture on "Electrical Units of Measurement" (3 May 1883), published in Lectures Vol. I, p. 73 https://archive.org/stream/popularlecturesa01kelvuoft#page/73/mode/1up|Popular

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William Thomson 18

British physicist and engineer 1824–1907

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William Thomson 18

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