Source: 1960s-1970s, The Sciences of the Artificial, 1969, p. 53.
“If we study the history of science we see happen two inverse phenomena… Sometimes simplicity hides under complex appearances; sometimes it is the simplicity which is apparent, and which disguises extremely complicated realities.
…No doubt, if our means of investigation should become more and more penetrating, we should discover the simple under the complex, then the complex under the simple, then again the simple under the complex, and so on, without our being able to foresee what will be the last term. We must stop somewhere, and that science may be possible, we must stop when we have found simplicity. This is the only ground on which we can rear the edifice of our generalizations.”
Science and Hypothesis (1901)
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Henri Poincaré 49
French mathematician, physicist, engineer, and philosopher … 1854–1912Related quotes
The Concept of Nature (1919), Chapter VII, p.143 http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18835/18835-h/18835-h.htm#CHAPTER_VII.
1910s
Context: The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanations of complex facts. We are apt to fall into the error of thinking that the facts are simple because simplicity is the goal of our quest. The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be, "Seek simplicity and distrust it."
"For This I Have Laid Down My Life", p. 12
Unfinished Pilgrimage (1995)
“Life is not complex. We are complex. Life is simple, and the simple thing is the right thing.”
Source: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. 40
Source: 1980s, Against The Grain (1986), Ch. 10, The Critic as Clown