
“We say that Columbus discovered America and Newton discovered gravity, as though America and gravity weren't there until Columbus and Newton got wind of them.”
Source: Girl, Interrupted
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Susanna Kaysen 65
American writer 1948Related quotes


Source: The End of Science (1996), p. 66

Glastonbury, England Midsummer Festival, June 21, 1971
1970s

Letter to Robert Hooke (15 February 1676)
Context: I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phenomena, and I frame no hypotheses; for whatever is not deduced from the phenomena is to be called a hypothesis, and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy.

"Newton's Principia" in 300 Years of Gravitation. (1987) by S. W. Hawking and W. Israel, p. 4

“Gravity’s books have got to balance.”
Source: Farmer in the Sky (1950), Chapter 17, “Disaster” (p. 177)

Letters of Voltaire and Frederick the Great (New York: Brentano's, 1927), trans. Richard Aldington, letter 221 from Frederick to Voltaire (1777-11-25)

It comes out at twenty-eight days. As Newton said, "They agreed pretty nearly."
The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination (1978)