Quotes about velocity (95 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“The way that the background fields generates mass is rather like the way in which when light passes through a transparent medium like glass or water, it gets slowed down. It no longer travels with the fundamental velocity of light c. And that's the way to think of the generation of mass.”

Peter Higgs (1929) British physicist

in video Meet Peter Higgs by CERN (July 2004).

Way , Travel , Thinking , Light

“Now, the velocity of wave propagation can be seen, without the aid of any mathematical analysis, to depend on the elasticity of the medium and its density; for we can see that if a medium is highly elastic the disturbance would be propagated at a great speed.”

Albert A. Michelson (1852–1931) American physicist

Light Waves and Their Uses Page 146.

Mathematics , Dependency , Speed

“No! Please! I'll tell you whatever you want to know!" the man yelled.
"Really?" said Vimes. "What's the orbital velocity of the moon?"
"What?"
"Oh, you'd like something simpler?”

Terry Pratchett book Night Watch

Source: Night Watch

“From literature to ecology, from the escape velocity of galaxies to the greenhouse effect, from garbage disposal methods to traffic jams, everything is discussed in our world. But the democratic system, as if it were a given fact, untouchable by nature until the end of time, we don't discuss that.”

José Saramago (1922–2010) Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature

Intervention in the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, February of 1992; quoted in Las leyes antidiscriminatorias en el Mercosur: Impactos de la III conferencia mundial contra el racismo, la discriminación racial, la xenofobia y las formas conexas de intolerancia, Durban, 2001: informe sobre el seminario realizado en Montevideo, 29 y 30 de abril de 2002. Published by Organizaciones Mundo Afro, 2002 163 pages.

World , Literature , Nature , Time

“What is the lesson to us to-day? Are we to go the way of the older civilizations? The immense increase in the area of civilized activity to-day, so that it is nearly coterminous with the world's surface; the immense increase in the multitudinous variety of its activities; the immense increase in the velocity of the world movement—are all these to mean merely that the crash will be all the more complete and terrible when it comes? We can not be certain that the answer will be in the negative; but of this we can be certain, that we shall not go down in ruin unless we deserve and earn our end. There is no necessity for us to fall; we can hew out our destiny for ourselves, if only we have the wit and the courage and the honesty.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, The World Movement (1910)

World , Way , Courage

“We see from Lenard's table that a cathode ray can travel through air at atmospheric pressure a distance of about half a centimetre before the brightness of the phosphorescence falls to about half its original value. Now the mean free path of the molecules of air at this pressure is about 10-5 cm., and if a molecule of air were projected it would lose half its momentum in a space comparable with the mean free path. Even if we suppose that it is not the same molecule that is carried, the effect of the obliquity of the collisions would reduce the momentum to half in a short multiple of that path. Thus, from Lenard's experiments on the absorption of the rays outside the tube, it follows on the hypothesis that the cathode rays are charged particles moving with high velocities, that the size of the carriers must be small compared with the dimensions of ordinary atoms or molecules. The assumption of a state of matter more finely subdivided than the atom of an element is a somewhat startling one; but a hypothesis that would involve somewhat similar consequences—viz. that the so-called elements are compounds of some primordial element—has been put forward from time to time by various chemists.”

J. J. Thomson (1856–1940) British physicist

Royal Institution Lecture (April 30, 1897) as quoted by Edmund Taylor Whittaker, A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity from the Age of Descartes to the Close of the Nineteenth Century http://books.google.com/books?id=CGJDAAAAIAAJ (1910).
Quotes eat me

Travel , Time

“If we suppose the distance of the fixed stars from the sun to be so great that the diameter of the earth's orbit viewed from them would not subtend a sensible angle, or which amounts to the same, that their annual parallax is quite insensible; it will then follow that a line drawn from the earth in any part of its orbit to a fixed star, will always, as to sense, make the same angle with the plane of the ecliptic, and the place of the star, as seen from the earth, would be the same as seen from the sun placed in the focus of the ellipsis described by the earth in its annual revolution, which place may therefore be called its true or real place.
But if we further suppose that the velocity of the earth in its orbit bears any sensible proportion to the velocity with which light is propagated, it will thence follow that the fixed stars (though removed too far off to be subject to a parallax on account of distance) will nevertheless be liable to an aberration, or a kind of parallax, on account of the relative velocity between light and the earth in its annual motion.
For if we conceive, as before, the true place of any star to be that in which it would appear viewed from the sun, the visible place to a spectator moving along with the earth, will be always different from its true, the star perpetually appearing out of its true place more or less, according as the velocity of the earth in its orbit is greater or less; so that when the earth is in its perihelion, the star will appear farthest distant from its true place, and nearest to it when the earth is in its aphelion; and the apparent distance in the former case will be to that in the latter in the reciprocal proportion of the distances of the earth in its perihelion and its aphelion. When the earth is in any other part of its orbit, its velocity being always in the reciprocal proportion of the perpendicular let fall from the sun to the tangent of the ellipse at that point where the earth is, or in the direct proportion of the perpendicular let fall upon the same tangent from the other focus, it thence follows that the apparent distance of a star from its true place, will be always as the perpendicular let fall from the upper focus upon the tangent of the ellipse. And hence it will be found likewise, that (supposing a plane passing through the star parallel to the earth's orbit) the locus or visible place of the star on that plane will always be in the circumference of a circle, its true place being in that diameter of it which is parallel to the shorter axis of the earth's orbit, in a point that divides that diameter into two parts, bearing the same proportion to each other, as the greatest and least distances of the earth from the sun.”

James Bradley (1693–1762) English astronomer; Astronomer Royal

Miscellaneous Works and Correspondence (1832), Demonstration of the Rules relating to the Apparent Motion of the Fixed Stars upon account of the Motion of Light.

Star , Sense , Light , Distant

“Maybe that is our mistake: maybe there are no particle positions and velocities, but only waves. It is just that we try to fit the waves to our preconceived ideas of positions and velocities. The resulting mismatch is the cause of the apparent unpredictability.”

Stephen Hawking book A Brief History of Time

Source: A Brief History of Time (1988), Ch. 12

Idea

“Harry Dresden: There was a sound of impact, a raspy, dry scream, and the vampire went down hard. It lay on the ground like a butterfly pinned to a card, arms and legs thrashing uselessly. Its chest and collarbone had been crushed. By an entire frozen turkey. A twenty-pounder. The plucked bird must have fallen from an airplane overhead, doubtlessly manipulated by the curse. By the time it got to the ground, the turkey had already reached its terminal velocity, and was still hard as a brick. The drumsticks poked up above the vampire's crushed chest, their ends wrapped in red tinfoil. The vampire gasped and writhed a little more. The timer popped out of the turkey. Everyone stopped to blink at that for a second. I mean, come on. Impaled by a guided frozen turkey missile. Even by the standards of the quasi-immortal creatures of the night, that ain't something you see twice. "For my next trick," I panted into the startled silence, "anvils."”

Jim Butcher The Dresden Files

The Dresden Files, Blood Rites (2004)

Bird , Silence , Time , Night

“What has the future in store for this strange being, born of a breath, of perishable tissue, yet Immortal, with his powers fearful and Divine? What magic will be wrought by him in the end? What is to be his greatest deed, his crowning achievement?
Long ago he recognized that all perceptible matter comes from a primary substance, or a tenuity beyond conception, filling all space, the Akasha or luminiferous ether, which is acted upon by the life-giving Prana or Creative Force, calling into existence, in never ending cycles, all things and phenomena. The primary substance, thrown into infinitesimal whirls of prodigious velocity, becomes gross matter; the force subsiding, the motion ceases and matter disappears, reverting to the primary substance.
Can man control this grandest, most awe-inspiring of all processes in nature? Can he harness her inexhaustible energies to perform all their functions at his bidding? more still cause them to operate simply by the force of his will?
If he could do this, he would have powers almost unlimited and supernatural. At his command, with but a slight effort on his part, old worlds would disappear and new ones of his planning would spring into being. He could fix, solidify and preserve the ethereal shapes of his imagining, the fleeting visions of his dreams. He could express all the creations of his mind on any scale, in forms concrete and imperishable. He could alter the size of this planet, control its seasons, guide it along any path he might choose through the depths of the Universe. He could cause planets to collide and produce his suns and stars, his heat and light. He could originate and develop life in all its infinite forms.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

Man's Greatest Achievement (1908; 1930)

Life , World , Fear , Dreams

“In many respects there is a complete lack of analogy between the civilization of to-day and the only other civilization in any way comparable to it, that of the ancient Greco-Roman lands. There are, of course, many points in which the analogy is close, and in some of these points the resemblances are as ominous as they are striking. But most striking of all is the fact that in point of physical extent, of wide diversity of interest, and of extreme velocity of movement, the present civilization can be compared to nothing that has ever gone before. It is now literally a world movement, and the movement is growing ever more rapid and is ever reaching into new fields. Any considerable influence exerted at one point is certain to be felt with greater or less effect at almost every other point. Every path of activity open to the human intellect is followed with an eagerness and success never hitherto dreamed of. We have established complete liberty of conscience, and, in consequence, a complete liberty for mental activity. All free and daring souls have before them a well-nigh limitless opening for endeavor of any kind.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, The World Movement (1910)

World , Dreams , Way , Soul

“Love is implicit in every connection. It should be. Thus when absent it makes us insane. (You Shall Know Our Velocity)”

Dave Eggers (1970) memoirist, novelist, short story writer, editor, publisher

Love

“Velocity of transverse undulations in our hypothetical medium, calculated from the electromagnetic experiments of 'MM'. Kohlrausch and Weber, agrees so exactly with the velocity of light calculated from the optical experiments of M. Fizeau, that we can scarcely avoid the conclusion that light consists in the transverse undulations of the same medium which is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena.”

James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879) Scottish physicist

Lecture at Kings College (1862) as quoted by F. V. Jones, "The Man Who Paved the Way for Wireless," New Scientist (Nov 1, 1979) p. 348 & Andrey Vyshedskiy, On The Origin Of The Human Mind 2nd edition

Light

“If the expansion of the space of the universe is uniform in all directions, an observer located in anyone of the galaxies will see all other galaxies running away from him at velocities proportional to their distances from the observer.”

George Gamow (1904–1968) Russian-American physicist and science writer

Source: The Creation of the Universe (1952), p. 31

Universe

“John Philoponus (c. 490-570) of Alexandria… refuted Aristotle's theory that the velocities of falling bodies in a given medium are proportional to their weight, making the observation that "if one lets fall simultaneously from the same height two bodies differing greatly in weight, one will find that the ratio of the times of their motion does not correspond to the ratios of their weights, but the difference in time is a very small one." …He also criticized Aristotle's antiperistasis theory of projectile motion, which states that the air displaced by the object flows back to push it from behind. Instead Philoponus concluded that "some incorporeal kinetic power is imparted by the thrower to the object thrown" and that "if an arrow or a stone is projected by force in a void, the same will happen much more easily, nothing being necessary except the thrower."”

John Freely (1926–2017) American physicist

This is the famous "impetus theory," which was revived in medieval Islam and again in fourteenth century Europe, giving rise to the beginning of modern dynamics.
Source: Before Galileo, The Birth of Modern Science in Medieval Europe (2012), p. 8

Time

“The problem of defining exactly what is meant by the signal velocity, which cropped up as long ago as 1907, has not been solved.”

Hans Christian von Baeyer (1938) American physicist

Source: Information, The New Language of Science (2003), Chapter 15, Ultimate Speed, The information speed limit, p. 135

Problem

“This kid is electric. He overpowered us today. There's no doubt about that. He had everything and threw everything where he wanted to throw it with velocity, with tilt, with sharpness.”

Carlos Zambrano (1981) Venezuelan baseball pitcher

Clint Hurdle in Armour, Nancy, Chi Cubs 11, Colorado 0 http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/recap?gid=240507116, Yahoo! Sports, Retrieved on June 14, 2007
2004

“It has been frequently assumed that V is constant; and this indeed is the cornerstone of the quantity theory of money. But it seems fairly obvious that the velocity of circulation in fact depends on the short-term rate of interest.”

Michał Kalecki (1899–1970) Polish economist

Source: Theory of Economic Dynamics (1965), Chapter 6, The Short Term Rate of Interest, p. 73

Money , Dependency

“Consider an event, for example the outburst if a nova… Suppose this event is observed from two stars in line with the nova, and suppose further that the two stars are moving uniformly with respect to each other in this line. Let the epoch at which these stars passed by each other be taken as the zero of time measurement, and let an observer A on one of the stars estimate the distance and epoch of the nova outburst to be x units of length and t units of time, respectively. Suppose the other star is moving toward the nova with velocity v relative to A. Let an observer B on the star estimate the distance and epoch of the nova outburst to be x' units of length and t' units of time, respectively. Then the Lorentz formulae, relating x' to t', arex' = \frac {x-vt}{\sqrt{1-\frac{v^2}{c^2}}}; \qquad t' = \frac {t-\frac{vx}{c^2}}{\sqrt{1-\frac{v^2}{c^2}}}
These formulae are… quite general, applying to any event in line with two uniformly moving observers. If we let c become infinite then the ratio of v to c tends to zero and the formulae becomex' = x - vt; \qquad t' = t.”

Gerald James Whitrow (1912–2000) British mathematician

p, 125
The Structure of the Universe: An Introduction to Cosmology (1949)

Star , Time

“Once again, my family and I find ourselves being assaulted by the obscenity that is Mumia Abu-Jamal. On Sunday October 5th, my husband's killer will once again air his voice from what masquerades as a prison, and spew his thoughts and ideas at another college commencement. Mumia Abu-Jamal will be heard and honored as a victim and a hero by a pack of adolescent sycophants at Goddard College in Vermont. Despite the fact that 33 years ago, he loaded his gun with special high-velocity ammunition designed to kill in the most devastating fashion, then used that gun to rip my husband's freedom from him--today, Mumia Abu-Jamal will be lauded as a freedom fighter. Undoubtedly the administrators at Goddard who first accepted, then enthusiastically supported Abu-Jamal as their speaker will be moved by his "important message" when, if one distills that message to its basic meaning, it amounts to nothing more than the same worn out hatred for this country and everyone in law enforcement that Mumia Abu-Jamal has harbored his entire life. Many at Goddard College have said that this is a matter of Abu-Jamal's First Amendment right to speak and be heard. What a convenient way to dodge their responsibility to take a moral position on this situation. This is not a matter of First Amendment rights -- it's a matter of right and wrong. Across the country, people have been voicing their disgust with the wrong that the college is about to commit by allowing a convicted cop-killer to speak to them. Is this the message to be heard? How could they allow him to speak when Danny no longer has a voice? It is my opinion that all murderers should forfeit their right to free speech when they take the life of an innocent person. I have repeatedly seen college administrators deny conservative and religious speakers access to their campuses when even the tiniest minority feel their message is in some way offensive. What could be more offensive than having a person who violently took the life of another imparting his "unique perspective" on your students? Let's be honest. The instructors, administrators and graduates at Goddard College embrace having this killer as their commencement speaker not despite the fact that he brutally murdered a cop, but because he brutally murdered a cop. Otherwise, like so many other speakers that have been denied access to college campuses across the country, Goddard's administration would have lived up to their moral responsibility and pulled the plug on this travesty long ago. Shame on Goddard College and all associated with that school for choosing to honor an arrogant remorseless killer as their commencement speaker. Unfortunately, this is something that I am certain they will be proud of for the rest of their lives.”

Mumia Abu-Jamal (1954) Prisoner, Journalist, Broadcaster, Author, Activist

Statement http://6abc.com/news/mumia-abu-jamal-speech-met-with-vigil-for-slain-officer/337357/ by Maureen Faulkner, widow of Daniel Faulkner, upon Abu-Jamal's delivering the Commencement Address at Goddard College in 2014
About

Life , People , School , Family

“A question which has long troubled astronomers and physicists is what becomes of the energy that is continually being poured out into space by the sun and the stars. To this question a complete answer is given by the new theory. It is used up, diluted, or degraded, by the expansion of the universe. …the light travelling through the expanding universe and, so to say, trying to reach a particular star, or stellar system, which is continually receding with great velocity, is losing energy in trying to catch up with it. It is this degradation of the light, technically known as the redshift of the spectral lines, by which we become aware of the receding velocities of the extra-galactic nebulae. It can be shown that the decrease of the total amount of radiant energy in the universe by this degradation exceeds the increase by the radiation of the stars. It would not be correct, however, to conclude that the expansion is caused by the energy thus lost by the radiation…”

Willem de Sitter (1872–1934) Dutch cosmologist

Kosmos (1932)

Travel , Star , Question , Light

“In India, we have a concept of caste. It has a concept of escape velocity. If one belongs to a backward caste and wants to attain success then one needs an escape velocity to attain that success. Dalits in this country need the escape velocity of Jupiter to attain success.”

Rahul Gandhi (1970) Indian politician

Quoted in Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera http://staff.stream.aljazeera.com/story/201310082109-0023097 NDTV, NDTV http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/a-dalit-needs-jupiter-s-escape-velocity-to-achieve-success-rahul-gandhi-429421?pfrom=home-lateststories

Success , Country

“… the principle of the limiting character of the velocity of light. This statement… is not an arbitrary assumption but a physical law based on experience. In making this statement, physics does not commit the fallacy of regarding absence of knowledge as evidence for knowledge to the contrary. It is not absence of knowledge of faster signals, but positive experience which has taught us that the velocity of light cannot be exceeded. For all physical processes the velocity of light has the property of an infinite velocity. In order to accelerate a body to the velocity of light, an infinite amount of energy would be required, and it is therefore physically impossible for any object to obtain this speed. This result was confirmed by measurements performed on electrons. The kinetic energy of a mass point grows more rapidly than the square of its velocity, and would become infinite for the speed of light.”

Hans Reichenbach (1891–1953) American philosopher

The Philosophy of Space and Time (1928, tr. 1957)

Law , Knowledge , Light , Speed

“Reason may be employed in two ways to establish a point: firstly, for the purpose of furnishing sufficient proof of some principle, as in natural science, where sufficient proof can be brought to show that the movement of the heavens is always of uniform velocity. Reason is employed in another way, not as furnishing a sufficient proof of a principle, but as confirming an already established principle, by showing the congruity of its results, as in astrology the theory of eccentrics and epicycles is considered as established, because thereby the sensible appearances of the heavenly movements can be explained; not, however, as if this proof were sufficient, forasmuch as some other theory might explain them.”

Thomas Aquinas book Summa Theologica

I, q. 32, art. 1, reply obj. 2
Summa Theologica (1265–1274)

Way , Nature , Appearance , Science

“Mathematicks therefore is a Science which teaches or contemplates whatever is capable of Measure or Number as such. When it relates to Number, it is called Arithmetick; but when to measure, as Length, Breadth, Depth, Degrees of Velocity in Motion, Intenseness or Remissness of Sounds, Augmentation or Diminution of Quality, 6tc. it is called Geometry.”

Jacques Ozanam (1640–1718) French mathematician

Source: A Mathematical Dictionary: Or; A Compendious Explication of All Mathematical Terms, 1702, p. 1, The Introduction

Science

“This foolish idea of shooting at the moon is an example of the absurd length to which vicious specialisation will carry scientists working in thought-tight compartments …. For a projectile entirely to escape the gravitation of the Earth, it needs a velocity of 7 miles a second. The thermal energy of a gramme at this speed is 15180 calories …. The energy of our most violent explosive - nitroglycerine - is less than 1500 calories per grammer. Consequently, even had the explosive nothing to carry, it has only one tenth of the energy to escape the Earth … hence the proposition appears to be basically unsound.”

A.W. Bickerton (1842–1929) British scientist

From Basics of space flight, Ludwik Marian Celnikier, 1993, ISBN 2863321323, quoting "Discouraging Words", Spaceflight, 34, 225 (1992).

Idea , Appearance , Speed

“E = mc2 really applies only to isolated bodies at rest. In general, when you have moving bodies, or interacting bodies, energy and mass aren't proportional. E = mc2 simply doesn't apply. …For moving bodies, the correct mass-energy equation is
E=\frac {mc^2} {\sqrt{1-\frac{v^2} {c^2}}}
where v is the velocity. For a body at rest (v=0), this becomes E = mc2. …we must consider the special case of particles with zero mass… examples include photons, color gluons, and gravitons. If we attempt to put m = 0 and v = c in our general mass-energy equation, both the numerator and denominator on the right-hand-side vanish, and we get the nonsensical relation E = 0/0. The correct result is that the energy of a photon can take any value. …The energy E of a photon is proportional to the frequency f of the light it represents. …they are related by the Planck-Einstein-Schrödinger equation E = hf, where h is Plank's constant.”

Frank Wilczek (1951) physicist

when the velocity <math>v</math> approaches the speed of light c, the denominator approaches 0 thus E approaches infinity, unless m = 0.
Source: The Lightness of Being – Mass, Ether and the Unification of Forces (2008), Ch. 3, p. 19 & Appendix A

Color , Light

“The same Being that fashioned the insect, whose existence is only discerned by a microscope, and gave that invisible speck a system of ducts and other organs to perform its vital functions, created the enormous mass of the planet thirteen hundred times larger than our earth, and launched it in its course round the sun, and the comet, wheeling with a velocity that would carry it round our globe in less than two minutes of time, and yet revolving through so prodigious a space that it takes near six centuries to encircle the sun!”

Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux (1778–1868) English barrister, politician, and Lord Chancellor of Great Britain

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 274.

Fashion , Time , Sun

“On the 15th of April 1744, I described the principle upon which the following work is based, in the public assembly of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Paris, as reported in the Acts of that academy.
At the end of the same year, Professor Euler published his excellent book Methodus inveniendi lineas curvas maximi minimive proprietate gaudentes. In a supplement to his book, this illustrious geometer showed that, in the trajectory of a particle acted on by a central force, the velocity multiplied by the line element of the trajectory is minimized.
This observation gave me great pleasure, as a beautiful application of my principle to the motion of the planets, which is determined by this principle.
From the same principle, I will now try to derive higher and more important truths.”

Pierre Louis Maupertuis (1698–1759) French mathematician, philosopher and man of letters

Les Loix du Mouvement et du Repos, déduites d'un Principe Métaphysique (1746)

Pleasure , Truth , Books , Beauty

“Motion with respect to the universal ocean of aether eludes us. We say, "Let V be the velocity of a body through the aether", and form the various electromagnetic equations in which V is scattered liberally. Then we insert the observed values, and try to eliminate everything which is unknown except V. The solution goes on famously; but just as we have got rid of all the other unknowns, behold! V disappears as well, and we are left with the indisputable but irritating conclusion —
::: 0 = 0
This is a favourite device that mathematical equations resort to, when we propound stupid questions.”

Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882–1944) British astrophysicist

Source: The Nature of the Physical World (1928), Ch. 2 Relativity

Stupidity , Mathematics , Question , Universe

“In the preface to the reissue of Risk, Uncertainty and Proﬁt, Frank Knight makes the penetrating observation that under the conditions envisaged above the velocity of circulation would become inﬁnite and so would the price level. This is perhaps an over-dramatic way of saying that nobody would hold money, and it would become a free good to go into the category of shell and other things which once served as money. We should expect too that it would not only pass out of circulation, but it would cease to be used as a conventional numeraire in terms of which prices are expressed. Interest bearing money would emerge. Of course, the above does not happen in real life, precisely because uncertainty, contingency needs, non-synchronization of revenues and outlay, transaction frictions, etc., etc., all are with us. But the abstract special case analyzed above should warn us against the facile assumption that the average levels of the structure of interest rates are determined solely or primarily by these differential factors. At times they are primary, and at other times, such as the twenties in this country, they may not be. As a generalization I should hazard the hypothesis that they are likely to be of great importance in an economy in which there is a “quasi-zero" rate of interest. I think by this hypothesis one can explain many of the anomalies of the United States money market in the thirties.”

Paul A. Samuelson book Foundations of Economic Analysis

Source: 1940s, Foundations of Economic Analysis, 1947, Ch. 5 : Theory of Consumer’s Behavior

Life , Money , Way , Thinking

“In the hydraulic and optical part, may be enumerated an over flowing lamp; a simplification of the rules for finding the velocity of running water; remarks on the application of force to hydraulic machines; a mode of letting out air from water pipes; an analysis of the human voice; and some arrangements for solar microscopes, and for other optical instruments of a similar nature.”

Thomas Young (scientist) (1773–1829) English polymath

Preface
A Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts (1807)

Nature , Water , Parting

“Ambedkar was the first person to attain escape velocity and run away to US.”

Rahul Gandhi (1970) Indian politician

Times of India, Times of India https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Rahul-Gandhi-gives-a-lesson-in-escape-velocity-to-dalits/articleshow/23756795.cms

Personality

“I cannot refrain… from expressing my surprise that, according to the report in The Times there should be so much complaint about the difficulty of understanding the new theory. It is evident that Einstein's little book "About the Special and the General Theory of Relativity in Plain Terms," did not find its way into England during wartime. Any one reading it will, in my opinion, come to the conclusion that the basic ideas of the theory are really clear and simple; it is only to be regretted that it was impossible to avoid clothing them in pretty involved mathematical terms, but we must not worry about that. …
The Newtonian theory remains in its full value as the first great step, without which one cannot imagine the development of astronomy and without which the second step, that has now been made, would hardly have been possible. It remains, moreover, as the first, and in most cases, sufficient, approximation. It is true that, according to Einstein's theory, because it leaves us entirely free as to the way in which we wish to represent the phenomena, we can imagine an idea of the solar system in which the planets follow paths of peculiar form and the rays of light shine along sharply bent lines—think of a twisted and distorted planetarium—but in every case where we apply it to concrete questions we shall so arrange it that the planets describe almost exact ellipses and the rays of light almost straight lines.
It is not necessary to give up entirely even the ether. …according to the Einstein theory, gravitation itself does not spread instantaneously, but with a velocity that at the first estimate may be compared with that of light. …In my opinion it is not impossible that in the future this road, indeed abandoned at present, will once more be followed with good results, if only because it can lead to the thinking out of new experimental tests. Einstein's theory need not keep us from so doing; only the ideas about the ether must accord with it.”

Hendrik Lorentz (1853–1928) Dutch physicist

Theory of Relativity: A Concise Statement (1920)

Books , Way , Imagination , Mathematics

“As we all know, the singularity in the art of Bach is the fusion of both levels and lines, the horizontal and vertical line. It’s a real wonder to see that the creation and forming of the horizontal line, the polyphonic structure, also results in this perfect, beautiful vertical line, the harmonic line. As we also know, Bach already used the full harmonic range and radius as no composer before him. My artistic aim of course is to point out the horizontal line in soloistic manner in a dynamically elastic way, but in the same breath to form the harmonic line in a bright field of color (I would call it “harmonic articulation”), to achieve a particular atmosphere of emotions and moods, drama, velocity, vividness, and so on. As we can imagine, these are high demands …”

Burkard Schliessmann classical pianist

Talkings on Bach

Beauty , Art , Color , Way

“I have lately spent some Thoughts relative to the Nature of Light, whether it be subject to the common Laws of Motion. In this particular Newton seems to contradict himself. For in his Principia Sect. 14th he applies the common Laws of Motion to account for Reflection and Refraction, as he does also in one Part of his Optics where he proves the Sine of Incid. to Sine Refr, in a given in a given Ratio. But in another Part he says, “nothing more is requisite for producing all the Variety of Colours and Degrees of Refrangibility than that the Rays of Light be Bodies of different Sizes, the least of which may make Violet, and the Greatest the Red"; this manifestly is not consistent with the Theory of Motion applied to Bodies, where the Magnitude of the Bodies is of no Consequence. Now it is evident that if the common Theory of Motion can be applied to Light, the Red Light must have had the greatest Velocity before Incidence, as it suffers the least Deviation, for if the Vels of all the Difft colour'd Light were equal before Incidence, they must by Newton's Principia Sect. Sect. 8. Prop. 1. have continued equal after, and therefore must have suffered the same Deviation. The Determination of this Point seems to be of considerable Importance, as we so often apply the Theory of Motion to Light.”

Samuel Vince (1749–1821) British mathematician, astronomer and physicist

As quoted in: Russell McCormmach (2011) Weighing the World: The Reverend John Michell of Thornhill. p. 193

Law , Nature , Light , Suffering

“It is amazing how stupid one can be in graduate school, because while I was puzzling through L1(Y) = Y/V = M1, the income velocity of money, I missed all the fun.”

George Goodman (1930–2014) American author and economics commentator

Source: The Money Game (1968), Chapter 1, Why Did The master Say "Game"?, p. 8

Money , Stupidity , School

“It’s a perfect killing machine…A handgun [wound] is simply a stabbing with a bullet. It goes in like a nail…[With the high-velocity rounds of the AR-15 style rifle] it's as if you shot somebody with a Coke can.”

Peter Rhee (1961) American surgeon

[February 22, 2018, All-American Killer: How the AR-15 Became Mass Shooters’ Weapon of Choice, w:Tim Dickinson, Tim, Dickinson, Rolling Stone, September 4, 2018, https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/all-american-killer-how-the-ar-15-became-mass-shooters-weapon-of-choice-107819/]

Perfection

“[ Futurism's].. superficial expression of velocity, the aeroplane, the racing-car and so on, is but a weak expression of the inner velocity of thought compared to which the velocity of radium represents nothing but inertia... The mimetic expression of velocity (whatever its form may be: the aeroplane, the automobile, and so on) is diametrically opposed to the character of painting, the supreme origin of which is to be found in inner life.”

Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931) Dutch architect, painter, draughtsman and writer

Quote from Dutch art-magazine: 'Eenheid' (Dutch, for Unity) no. 127, 9 November 1912; as cited in Theo van Doesburg, Joost Baljeu, Studio Vista, London 1974, p. 16
1912 – 1919

Life , Cars , Future , Painting

“The theory of waves has been much simplified, and somewhat extended, and their motions have been illustrated by experiments… A similar method of reasoning has been applied to the circulation of the blood, to the propagation of sound, either in fluids or in solids, and to the vibrations of musical chords; the general principle of a velocity, corresponding to half the height of a certain modulus, being shown to be applicable to all these cases: and a connexion has been established between the sound to be obtained from a given solid, and its strength in resisting a flexure of any kind; or, in the case of ice and water, between the sound in a solid and the compressibility in a fluid state. The doctrine of sound and of sounding bodies in general has also received some new illustrations, and the theory of music and of musical intervals has been particularly discussed.”

Thomas Young (scientist) (1773–1829) English polymath

Preface
A Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts (1807)

Music , Water

“No one, to my knowledge, has suggested that the image must accelerate and decelerate or that the relation among torque, angular momentum, and angular velocity has a,1 analogue in the mental rotation case. Of course it may tum our that it takes subjects longer to rotate an object that they imagine to be heavier, thus increasing the predictive value of the metaphor. But in that case it seems clearer that, even if it was predictive, the metaphor could nor be explanatory (surely, no one believes that some images are heavier than others and the heavier ones accelerate more slowly).”

Zenon Pylyshyn (1937) Canadian philosopher

Zenon W. Pylyshyn, "The rate of “mental rotation” of images: A test of a holistic analogue hypothesis." Memory & Cognition 7.1 (1979): 19-28; p. 19-20

Imagination , Knowledge

“Relativity distorted classical expectations in a way that Clavain still did not find entirely intuitive. Slam two objects towards each other, each with individual velocities just below light-speed, and the classical result for their closing velocity would be the sum of their individual speeds: just under twice the speed of light. Yet the true result, confirmed with numbing precision, was that the objects saw each other approach with a combined speed that was still just below the speed of light. Similarly, the relativistic closing velocity for two objects moving towards each other with individual speeds of one-half of light-speed was not light-speed itself, but eight-tenths of it. It was the way the universe was put together, and yet it was not something the human mind had evolved to accept.”

Alastair Reynolds book Redemption Ark

Source: Redemption Ark (2002), Chapter 26 (p. 463)

Way , Light , Universe , Speed

“Hand took a breath and opened his palms, as if accepting the gift of rain. "YOU SHALL KNOW OUR VELOCITY!" he bellowed into the cold exhausted city.”

Dave Eggers (1970) memoirist, novelist, short story writer, editor, publisher

You Shall Know Our Velocity! (2002)

“Almost all of the material phenomena which occur under terrestrial conditions are recognized as quantum mechanical consequences of the electrical attraction between electrons and nuclei and of the gravitational attraction between massive objects. We should be able, therefore, to express all the relevant magnitudes which characterize the properties of matter in terms of the following six magnitudes: M, m, e, c, G, and h; M is the mass of the proton, m and e are the mass and electrical charge of the electron, c is the light velocity, G is Newton's gravitational constant, and—most importantly—h is the quantum of action …”

Victor Frederick Weisskopf (1908–2002) Austrian-born American theoretical physicist

[Of Atoms, Mountains, and Stars: A Study in Qualitative Physics, Victor F. Weisskopf, Science, 187, 4177, 21 February 1975, 605–612, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1739660]

Light

“Non-local influences do not diminish with distance. They are as potent at a million miles as at a millimeter.
Non-local influences act instantaneously. The speed of their transmission is not limited by the velocity of light.
A non-local interaction links up one location with another without crossing space, without decay, and without delay. A non-local interaction is, in short, unmediated, unmitigated, and immediate.”

Nick Herbert (1936) American physicist

Source: Quantum Reality - Beyond The New Physics, Chapter 12, Bell's Interconnectedness Theorem, p. 214

Light , Speed

“In 1763 a Croatian Jesuit named Roger Joseph Boscovich (1711 - 1787) identified the ultimate implication of this mechanical atomic theory. One of the crucial aspects of Isaac Newton's laws of motion is their predictive capability. If we know how an object is moving at any instant - how fast, and in which direction - and if, furthermore, we know the forces acting on it, we can calculate its future trajectory exactly. This predictability made it possible for astronomers to use Newton's laws of motion and gravity to calculate, for example, when future solar eclipses would happen.
Boscovich realized that if all the world is just atoms in motion and collision, then an all-seeing mind "could, from a continuous arc described in an interval of time, no matter how small, by all points of matter, derive the law [that is, a universal map] of forces itself … Now, if the law of forces were known, and the position, velocity and direction of all the points at any given instant, it would be possible for a mind of this type to foresee all the necessary subsequent motions and states, and to predict all the phenomena that necessarily followed from them."”

Roger Joseph Boscovich (1711–1787) Croat-Italian physicist

Philip Ball, Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another (2006).

World , Law , Universe , Time

“Brook Taylor… in his Methodus Incrementorum Directa et Inversa (1715), sought to clarify the ideas of the calculus but limited himself to algebraic functions and algebraic differential equations. …Taylor's exposition, based on what we would call finite differences, failed to obtain many backers because it was arithmetical in nature when the British were trying to tie the calculus to geometry or to the physical notion of velocity.”

Morris Kline (1908–1992) American mathematician

Source: Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times (1972), p. 427

Idea , Nature

“If the definition of simultaneity is given from a moving system, the spherical surface will result when Einstein's definition with є = 1/2 is used, since it is this definition which makes the velocity of light equal in all directions.”

Hans Reichenbach (1891–1953) American philosopher

The Philosophy of Space and Time (1928, tr. 1957)

Light

“[N]ot only must we seek the measure of motions and actions by themselves, but much more in comparison; for this is of excellent use and very general application. Now we find that the flash of a gun is seen sooner than its report is heard… and this is owing it seems to the motion of light being more rapid than that of sound. We find to that visible images are received by the sight faster than they are dismissed; thus the strings of the violin, when struck by the finger, are to appearance doubled and tripled, because the new image is received before the old one is gone; which is also why the reason why rings being spun round look like globes, and a lighted torch, carried hastily at night, seems to have a tail. And it was upon this inequality of motions in point of velocity that Galileo built his theory of flux and reflux of the sea; supposing that the earth revolved faster than the water could follow; and that the water was therefore first gathered in a heap and then fell down, as we see in a basin of water moved quickly. But this he devised upon an assumption which cannot be allowed, viz. that the earth moves; and also without being well informed as to the sexhorary motion of the tide.”

Francis Bacon book Novum Organum

Aphorism 46
Novum Organum (1620), Book II

Light , Water , Appearance , Sea

“The reason I threw a rock at Billy Walker’s stupid face was I had a crush on him. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been thirty years since my last confession. I threw a rock at Billy Walker’s beautiful face. How many times? At what velocity? The priest does not ask if I intended to mar the face. One of the things I love about the church is that motive is assumed: Because I am human. What alone interests the confessor is the form of humanity I wish to confess. Confession is constructed as we are constructed. The confessional box prefigures the American I. I am the sinner, irreducible. My soul is irreducible. Not my red hand.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Brown : The Last Discovery of America (2003)

Love , Stupidity , Beauty , Soul

“I must now explain what I mean by the quantity of action. A certain action is necessary for the carrying of a body from one point to another: this action depends on the velocity which the body has and the space which it describes; but it is neither the velocity nor the space taken separately. The quantity of action varies directly as the velocity and the length of path described; it is proportional to the sum of the spaces, each being multiplied by the velocity with which the body describes it. It is this quantity of action which is here the true expense (dépense) of nature, and which she economizes as much as possible in the motion of light.”

Pierre Louis Maupertuis (1698–1759) French mathematician, philosopher and man of letters

Histoire de l'Academie (1744) p. 423; Les Oeuvres De Mr. De Maupertuis (1752) vol. iv p. 17; as quoted by Philip Edward Bertrand Jourdain, The Principle of Least Action https://books.google.com/books?id=y3UVAQAAIAAJ (1913) p. 5.

Nature , Light , Dependency

“I would give a good deal of money, blood, books or years to be able to watch as Amanda, in a picture hat, looked back from the vantage of a long and productive career to reject her first published efforts as uneven or only halfway there or, worst of all, as promising, or to see her condescend to them, cuddle them almost, as mature writers sometimes do with their early books, the way we give our old stuffed pony or elephant, with its one missing shirt-button eye, a fond squeeze before returning it to the hatbox in the attic.At bottom of this kind of behavior on the part of old, established writers is the undeniable way in which our young selves, and the books that issued from them, invariably seem to reproach us: with the fading of our fire, the diminishment of our porousness to the world and the people in it, the compromises made, the friendships abandoned, the opportunities squandered, the loss of velocity on our fastball.”

Michael Chabon (1963) Novelist, short story writer, essayist

The New York Times Magazine http://wonderwhenyoullmissme.com/chabon.html (December 28th, 2003)
About Amanda Davis, who died at the age of 32 in a plane crash

Money , Friendship , People , Books

“The current cosmological paradigm, the cold dark matter model with a cosmological constant, requires that the mass-energy of the Universe be dominated by invisible components: dark matter and dark energy. An alternative to these dark components is that the law of gravity be modified on the relevant scales. A test of these ideas is provided by the baryonic Tully-Fisher relation (BTFR), an empirical relation between the observed mass of a galaxy and its rotation velocity. Here, I report a test using gas rich galaxies for which both axes of the BTFR can be measured independently of the theories being tested and without the systematic uncertainty in stellar mass that affects the same test with star dominated spirals. The data fall precisely where predicted a priori by the modified Newtonian dynamics.”

Stacy McGaugh Novel Test of Modified Newtonian Dynamics with Gas Rich Galaxies

[21 March 2011, Novel test of modified Newtonian dynamics with gas rich galaxies, Physical Review Letters, 106, 12, 121303, 10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.121303]

Law , Star , Idea , Universe

“In a theory in which parameters are added to quantum mechanics to determine the results of individual measurements, without changing the statistical predictions, there must be a mechanism whereby the setting of one measuring device can influence the reading of another instrument, however remote. Moreover, the signal involved must propagate instantaneously, so that such a theory could not be Lorentz invariant. Of course, the situation is different if the quantum mechanical predictions are of limited validity. Conceivably they might apply only to experiments in which the settings of the instruments are made sufficiently in advance to allow them to reach some mutual rapport by exchange of signals with velocity less than or equal to that of light. In that connection, experiments of the type proposed by Bohm and Aharonov, in which the settings are changed during the flight of the particles, are crucial.”

John S. Bell (1928–1990) Northern Irish physicist

On the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox (1964)

Light , Change , Reading

“A long standing prediction (Milgrom 1983) of MOND is that rotating galaxy curves will fall on a single mass-velocity relation with slope 4: Mb \propto Vf4. This prediction is realized in multiple independent data sets. Gas rich galaxies fall where predicted by MOND with no free parameters. There are not many predictions in extragalactic astronomy that fare so well a quarter century after their publication. … a physical understanding for why galaxy formation in the context of ΛCDM should pick out the particular phenomenology predicted a priori by MOND remains wanting.”

Stacy McGaugh (1964) American astronomer

[Stacy McGaugh, 2011, The Baryonic Tully-Fisher Relation of Gas-Rich Galaxies as a Test of ΛCDM and MOND, p. 16, ApJ, http://arxiv.org/abs/1107.2934]

Understanding

“Gravitation is entirely independent of everything that influences other natural phenomena. It is not subject to absorption or refraction, no velocity of propagation has been observed. You can do whatever you please with a body, you can electrify or magnetise it, you can heat it, melt or evaporate it, decompose it chemically, its behaviour with respect to gravitation is not affected. Gravitation acts on all bodies in the same way, everywhere and always we find it in the same rigorous and simple form, which frustrates all our attempts to penetrate into its internal mechanism.”

Willem de Sitter (1872–1934) Dutch cosmologist

Kosmos (1932), Above is Beginning Quote of the Last Chapter: Relativity and Modern Theories of the Universe -->

Way , Nature

“Adams proclaimed that in the last synthesis, order and anarchy were one, but that the unity was chaos. As anarchist, conservative and Christian, he had no motive or duty but to attain the end; and, to hasten it, he was bound to accelerate progress; to concentrate energy; to accumulate power; to multiply and intensify forces; to reduce friction, increase velocity and magnify momentum, partly because this was the mechanical law of the universe as science explained it; but partly also in order to get done with the present which artists and some others complained of; and finally — and chiefly — because a rigorous philosophy required it, in order to penetrate the beyond, and satisfy man's destiny by reaching the largest synthesis in its ultimate contradiction. Of course the untaught critic instantly objected that this scheme was neither conservative, Christian, nor anarchic, but such objection meant only that the critic should begin his education in any infant school in order to learn that anarchy which should be logical would cease to be anarchic. To the conservative Christian anarchist, the amiable doctrines of Kropotkin were sentimental ideas of Russian mental inertia covered with the name of anarchy merely to disguise their innocence.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

Education , School , Law , Motivation

“Objects are the real and conceptual things we find in the world around us. An object may be hardware, software, a concept (e. g., velocity), or even "flesh and blood." Objects are complete entities, i. e., they are not "simply information" or "simply information and actions." Software objects strive to capture as completely as possible the characteristics of the "real world" objects which they represent. Finally, objects are "black boxes," i. e., their internal implementations are hidden from the outside world, and all interactions with an object take place via a well-defined interface.”

Edward V. Berard

Source: Essays on object-oriented software engineering (1993), p. 335; as cited in Edward V. Berard (1995) " A Comparison of Object-Oriented Development Methodologies http://www.ipipan.gda.pl/~marek/objects/TOA/OOMethod/mcr.html". The Object Agency, Inc.

World , Box

“Much of the subtlety of baseball is derived from the fact that so much of the game is played in the region between definitely smooth flow and definitely turbulent flow, at ball velocities greater than 50 mph and smaller than 120 mph.”

Robert Adair (physicist) (1924) Physicist and author

Source: The Physics Of Baseball (Second Edition - Revised), Chapter 2, The Flight Of The baseball, p. 7

Game

“My father often told me, “It is better to have a gun and not need it than to need a gun and not have it.” I urge readers to use less than lethal means when safe and practicable, but at times there is not a satisfactory substitute for well-aimed lead going down range at high velocity.”

James Wesley Rawles (1960) Survivalist-fiction author and blogger

Source: How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It, Plume, New York (2009), p. 12.

Time

“The discovery that mass changes with velocity, a discovery made when minute bodies came under consideration, finally forced surrender of the notion that mass is a fixed and inalienable possession of ultimate elements or individuals, so that time is now considered to be their fourth dimension.”

John Dewey (1859–1952) American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer

Time and Individuality (1940)

Change , Time

“One can find meaning in poetry as well as in science in the contemplations of a flower as well as in the grasp of an equation. We can be filled with wonder as we stand under the majestic dome of the night sky and see the myriad lights that twinkle and shine in its seemingly infinite depths. We can also be filled wit awe as we behold the meaning of the formulae that define the propagation of light in space, the formation of galaxies, the synthesis of chemical elements, and the relation of energy, mass and velocity in the physical universe. The mystical perception of oneness and the religious intuition of a Divine intelligence are as much a construction of meaning as the postulation of the universal law of gravitation.”

Ervin László (1932) Hungarian musician and philosopher

Source: Evolution: the general theory (1996), p. 3.

Law , Intelligence , Flowers , Light

“One has been led to the conception of electrons, i. e. of extremely small particles, charged with electricity, which are present in immense numbers in all ponderable bodies, and by whose distribution and motions we endeavor to explain all electric and optical phenomena that are not confined to the free ether…. according to our modern views, the electrons in a conducting body, or at least a certain part of them, are supposed to be in a free state, so that they can obey an electric force by which the positive particles are driven in one, and the negative electrons in the opposite direction. In the case of a non-conducting substance, on the contrary, we shall assume that the electrons are bound to certain positions of equilibrium. If, in a metallic wire, the electrons of one kind, say the negative ones, are travelling in one direction, and perhaps those of the opposite kind in the opposite direction, we have to do with a current of conduction, such as may lead to a state in which a body connected to one end of the wire has an excess of either positive or negative electrons. This excess, the charge of the body as a whole, will, in the state of equilibrium and if the body consists of a conducting substance, be found in a very thin layer at its surface.
In a ponderable dielectric there can likewise be a motion of the electrons. Indeed, though we shall think of each of them as haying a definite position of equilibrium, we shall not suppose them to be wholly immovable. They can be displaced by an electric force exerted by the ether, which we conceive to penetrate all ponderable matter… the displacement will immediately give rise to a new force by which the particle is pulled back towards its original position, and which we may therefore appropriately distinguish by the name of elastic force. The motion of the electrons in non-conducting bodies, such as glass and sulphur, kept by the elastic force within certain bounds, together with the change of the dielectric displacement in the ether itself, now constitutes what Maxwell called the displacement current. A substance in which the electrons are shifted to new positions is said to be electrically polarized.
Again, under the influence of the elastic forces, the electrons can vibrate about their positions of equilibrium. In doing so, and perhaps also on account of other more irregular motions, they become the centres of waves that travel outwards in the surrounding ether and can be observed as light if the frequency is high enough. In this manner we can account for the emission of light and heat. As to the opposite phenomenon, that of absorption, this is explained by considering the vibrations that are communicated to the electrons by the periodic forces existing in an incident beam of light. If the motion of the electrons thus set vibrating does not go on undisturbed, but is converted in one way or another into the irregular agitation which we call heat, it is clear that part of the incident energy will be stored up in the body, in other terms [words] that there is a certain absorption. Nor is it the absorption alone that can be accounted for by a communication of motion to the electrons. This optical resonance, as it may in many cases be termed, can likewise make itself felt even if there is no resistance at all, so that the body is perfectly transparent. In this case also, the electrons contained within the molecules will be set in motion, and though no vibratory energy is lost, the oscillating particles will exert an influence on the velocity with which the vibrations are propagated through the body. By taking account of this reaction of the electrons we are enabled to establish an electromagnetic theory of the refrangibility of light, in its relation to the wave-length and the state of the matter, and to form a mental picture of the beautiful and varied phenomena of double refraction and circular polarization.
On the other hand, the theory of the motion of electrons in metallic bodies has been developed to a considerable extent…. important results that have been reached by Riecke, Drude and J. J. Thomson… the free electrons in these bodies partake of the heat-motion of the molecules of ordinary matter, travelling in all directions with such velocities that the mean kinetic energy of each of them is equal to that of a gaseous molecule at the same temperature. If we further suppose the electrons to strike over and over again against metallic atoms, so that they describe irregular zigzag-lines, we can make clear to ourselves the reason that metals are at the same time good conductors of heat and of electricity, and that, as a general rule, in the series of the metals, the two conductivities change in nearly the same ratio. The larger the number of free electrons, and the longer the time that elapses between two successive encounters, the greater will be the conductivity for heat as well as that for electricity.”

Hendrik Lorentz (1853–1928) Dutch physicist

Source: The Theory of Electrons and Its Applications to the Phenomena of Light and Radiant Heat (1916), Ch. I General principles. Theory of free electrons, pp. 8-10

Beauty , Way , Travel , Communication

“We--by whom I mean anyone over sixty--commit two offenses just bu existing. One is Lack of Velocity. We drive too slowly, walk to slowly, talk too slowly. The world will do business with dictators, perverts, and drugs barons of all stripes, but being slowed down it cannot abide. Our second offence is being Everyman's memento mori. The world can only get comfy in shiny-eyed denial if we are out of sight.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish", p. 315 (Nook edition)
Cloud Atlas (2004)

World , Business

“The sudden recent rise to prominence of cybernetics was due, immediately, to World War II. There existed then a series of problems which had not previously been met. The main one was that of range-finding for anti-aircraft guns in high-speed aerial warfare. The older systems involved human computers and these, with manually controlled locators, were wholly inadequate for the job in hand. The essence of the process involved was to track and predict the direction, velocity, and height of enemy aircraft. The human being's part in the operation was much too slow and inaccurate, and there were people available with machines already developed to do the job adequately; these machines were, of course, computing machines.”

Frank Honywill George (1921–1997) British psychologist

Source: The Brain As A Computer (1962), p.18

War , People , World , Problem

“… the only difference between Al Gore and George W. Bush is the velocity with which their knees hit the floor when corporations knock on their door.”

Ralph Nader (1934) American consumer rights activist and corporate critic

quoted in American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good (2015)

Source: [Woodard, Colin, American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good, 1980, Simon and Schuster, 0698181719]

“Classical science was based upon the belief that it is possible to formulate both the position and velocity at one time of any given particle. It followed that knowledge of the position and velocity of a given number of particles would enable the future behavior of the whole collection to be accurately predicted. The principle of Heisenberg is that given the determination of position, its velocity can be stated only as of a certain order of probability, while if its velocity is determined the correlative factor of position can be stated only as of a certain order of probability. Both cannot be determined at once, from which it follows necessarily that the future of the whole collection cannot possibly be foretold except in terms of some order of probability.”

John Dewey (1859–1952) American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer

Time and Individuality (1940)

Behavior , Knowledge , Science , Time

“Let us consider, for a moment, the world as described by the physicist. It consists of a number of fundamental particles which, if shot through their own space, appear as waves, and are thus… of the same laminated structure as pearls or onions, and other wave forms called electromagnetic which it is convenient, by Occam’s razor, to consider as travelling through space with a standard velocity. All these appear bound by certain natural laws which indicate the form of their relationship.
Now the physicist himself, who describes all this, is, in his own account, himself constructed of it. He is, in short, made of a conglomeration of the very particulars he describes, no more, no less, bound together by and obeying such general laws as he himself has managed to find and to record.
Thus we cannot escape the fact that the world we know is constructed in order (and thus in such a way as to be able) to see itself.
This is indeed amazing.
Not so much in view of what it sees, although this may appear fantastic enough, but in respect of the fact that it can see at all.
But in order to do so, evidently it must first cut itself up into at least one state which sees, and at least one other state which is seen. In this severed and mutilated condition, whatever it sees is only partially itself. We may take it that the world undoubtedly is itself (i. e. is indistinct from itself), but, in any attempt to see itself as an object, it must, equally undoubtedly, act so as to make itself distinct from, and therefore false to, itself. In this condition it will always partially elude itself.”

G. Spencer-Brown (1923–2016) British mathematician

Source: Laws of Form, (1969), p. 104-05; as cited in: David Phillip Barndollar (2004) The Poetics of Complexity and the Modern Long Poem https://www.lib.utexas.edu/etd/d/2004/barndollardp50540/barndollardp50540.pdf, The University of Texas at Austin, p. 12-13.

World , Law , Way , Travel

“Whence a geometrically moving point approaching a fixed one has its velocities proportionate to its distances from the fixed one.”

John Napier (1550–1617) Scottish mathematician

The Construction of the Wonderful Canon of Logarithms (1889)

“I have also cleared the electromagnetic theory of light from all unwarrantable assumption, so that we may safely determine the velocity of light by measuring the attraction between bodies kept at a given difference of potential, the value of which is known in electromagnetic measure.”

James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879) Scottish physicist

Letter to C. Hockin, Esq. (Sept 7, 1864) as quoted by Lewis Campbell, William Garnett, The Life of James Clerk Maxwell: With Selections from His Correspondence and Occasional Writings https://books.google.com/books?id=B7gEAAAAYAAJ (1884)

Light

“Let us suppose that an explosion occurs on Mars, which is observed by an astronomer on earth, who records the instant when he sees the flash. If light travelled instantaneously with an infinite velocity, this instant would coincide with the time… recorded by the… observer on Mars. In this way a meaning could be attached automatically to absolute time and the simultaneity of events at different places; indeed, the classical theory is now regarded as the limiting form of Einstein's theory when the velocity of light becomes infinite. But as there is a mass of experimental evidence supporting the view that light takes a finite time to travel… the terrestrial observer must correct the time recorded on his watch. This correction… will depend on assumptions concerning the velocity of light and the measurement of distance. Thus the concept of a world-wide simultaneity ceases to be a primitive idea.”

Gerald James Whitrow (1912–2000) British mathematician

p, 125
The Structure of the Universe: An Introduction to Cosmology (1949)

World , Way , Travel , Idea

“The big contemporary novel is a perpetual motion machine that appears to have been embarrassed into velocity. It seems to want to abolish stillness, as if ashamed of silence. Stories and sub-stories sprout on every page, and these novels continually flourish their glamorous congestion.”

James Wood (1965) literary critic

Hysterical realism
The Irresponsible Self (2004)

Silence , Appearance

“What struck me was some regularity in the anomaly. The rotational velocities were not just larger than expected, they became constant with radius. Why? Sure, if there was dark matter, the speed of stars would be greater, but the rotation curves, meaning the rotational speed drawn as a function of the radius, could still go up and down depending on its distribution. But they didn't. That really struck me as odd. So, in 1980, I went on my Sabbatical in the Institute for Advance Studies in Princeton with the following hunch: If the rotational speeds are constant, then perhaps we’re looking at a new law of nature. If Newtonian physics can’t predict the fixed curves, perhaps we should fix Newton, instead of making up a whole new class of matter just to fit our measurements.”

Mordehai Milgrom (1946) Israeli physicist

"The Physicist Who Denies that Dark Matter Exists," 2017

Law , Star , Nature , Study

“Arc, amplitude, and curvature sustain a similar relation to each other as time, motion, and velocity, or as volume, mass, and density.”

Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) German mathematician and physical scientist

"Gauss's Abstract of the Disquisitiones Generales circa Superficies Curvas presented to the Royal Society of Gottingen" (1827) Tr. James Caddall Morehead & Adam Miller Hiltebeitel in General Investigations of Curved Surfaces of 1827 and 1825 http://books.google.com/books?id=SYJsAAAAMAAJ& (1902)

Time

“As best demonstrated by Nature in the case of the aerofoil maple-seed, today's propeller is a pressure-screw and therefore a braking screw, whose purpose is to allow the heavy maple-seed to fall parachute-like slowly towards the ground and to be carried away sideways by the wind in the process. No bird has such a whirling thing on its head, nor a fish on its tail. Only man made use of this natural brake-screw for forward propulsion. As the propeller rotates, so does the resistance rise by the square of the rotational velocity. This is also a sign that this supposed propulsive device is unnaturally constructed and therefore out of place.”

Viktor Schauberger (1885–1958) austrian philosopher and inventor

Implosion Magazine, No. 112, p. 52 (Callum Coats: Energy Evolution (2000))
Implosion Magazine

Nature , Bird , Fish

“As the degree of observational accuracy at which general relativity becomes significantly different from Newtonian theory is far from being achieved in this field, and as stellar velocities are small compared with light, there is no sign yet that any non-Newtonian theory is required.”

Gerald James Whitrow (1912–2000) British mathematician

"Newton and the Stars" (10 Oct 1957)

Light

“Increase on productivity and decrease in unit costs (often identified with economies of scale) resulted far more from the increases in the volume and velocity of throughput then from a growth in the size of the factory and plant.”

Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. (1918–2007) American historian

Source: The Visible Hand (1977), p. 281; Cited in: Best (1990, p. 48).

“Suppose a surface to be part red and part blue; so that every point on it is either red or blue, and of course, no part can be both red and blue. What then, is the color of the surface in the immediate neighborhood of the point. …it follows that the boundary is half red and half blue. In like manner, we find it necessary to hold that consciousness essentially occupies time… Thus, the present is half past and half time to come. …Take another case: the velocity of a particle at any instant of time is its mean velocity during an infinitesimal instant in which that time is consumed. Just so, my immediate feeling is my feeling through an infinitesimal duration containing the present instant.”

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist

The Law of Mind (1892)

Color , Feeling , Time , Past

“I’ve gotten kicked in the face, got my nose broken, I’m constantly chipping teeth and there’s been a lot of very close calls with Hunter [the band’s bassist]. In a recent show, if our movement had’ve been inches different, I might be dead. I almost caught his bass to my head at full velocity. You laugh but it’s really scary.”

Davey Havok (1975) American singer

Southern Courier, February 2010 http://southern-courier.whereilive.com.au/lifestyle/story/body-on-the-line/

Dead

“According to the Special Theory of Relativity, the velocity of a moving body is always less than the velocity of light. Since the energy of motion of a body depends on its inertial mass and its velocity, it follows that if the energy of a body is increased indefinitely by the continual application of a force, the inertial mass of the body must be increased too; for, if not, the velocity would ultimately increase indefinitely and exceed the velocity of light. Einstein found that, corresponding to any increase in the energy content of a body, there is an equivalent increase in its inertial mass. Mass and energy thus appeared to be different names for the same thing, the energy associated with a mass M being Mc2, where c is the velocity of light; and the mass M of a body moving with velocity v he found to be given by the following formulaM = \frac {m}{\sqrt{(1 - \frac {v^2}{c^2}}}</center”

Gerald James Whitrow (1912–2000) British mathematician

The Structure of the Universe: An Introduction to Cosmology (1949)

Light , Appearance , Dependency

“There are particular movements in particular epochs in which the Divine Force manifests itself with supreme power shattering all human calculations, making a mock of the prudence of the careful statesman and the scheming politician, falsifying the prognostications of the scientific analyser and advancing with a vehemence and velocity which is obviously the manifestation of a higher than human force. The intellectual man afterwards tries to trace the reasons for the movement and lay bare the forces that made it possible, but at the time he is utterly at fault, his wisdom is falsified at every step and his science serves him not. These are the times when we say God is in the movement, He is its leader and it must fulfil itself however impossible it may be for man to see the means by which it will succeed.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

17 July 1909
India's Rebirth

Wisdom , God , Science , Time

“The universe has a finite velocity which limits not only the spread of its events, but also the speed of our perceptions. The moment of actuality slips too fast by the slow, coarse net of our senses.”

George Kubler (1912–1996) American art historian

Source: The Shape of Time, 1982, p. 18; as cited in Lee (2001, p. 47)

Sense , Universe , Speed

“…the famous assertion by Einstein that the length of a rod depends on its velocity and on the chosen definition of simultaneity. …is based on the fact that we do not measure the length of the rod, but its projection on a system at rest. How the length of the projection depends on the choice of simultaneity can be illustrated by reference to a photograph taken through a focal-plane shutter. Such a shutter… consists of a wide band with a horizontal slit, which slides down vertically. Different bands are photographed successively on the film. Moving objects are therefore strangely distorted; the wheels of a rapidly moving car for instance, appear to be slanted. The shape of the objects in the picture will evidently depend on the speed of the shutter. Similarly, the length of the moving segment depends on the definition of simultaneity. One definition of simultaneity differs from another because events that are simultaneous for one definition occur successively for another. What may be a simultaneity projection of a moving segment for one definition is a "focal-plane shutter photograph" for another.”

Hans Reichenbach (1891–1953) American philosopher

The Philosophy of Space and Time (1928, tr. 1957)

Cars , Appearance , Success , Dependency

“The words "position" and "velocity" of an electron… seemed perfectly well defined… and in fact they were clearly defined concepts within the mathematical framework of Newtonian mechanics. But actually they were not well defined, as seen from the relations of uncertainty.”

Werner Heisenberg (1901–1976) German theoretical physicist

Physics and Philosophy (1958)
Context: The words "position" and "velocity" of an electron... seemed perfectly well defined... and in fact they were clearly defined concepts within the mathematical framework of Newtonian mechanics. But actually they were not well defined, as seen from the relations of uncertainty. One may say that regarding their position in Newtonian mechanics they were well defined, but in their relation to nature, they were not. This shows that we can never know beforehand which limitations will be put on the applicability of certain concepts by the extension of our knowledge into the remote parts of nature, into which we can only penetrate with the most elaborate tools. Therefore, in the process of penetration we are bound sometimes to use our concepts in a way which is not justified and which carries no meaning. Insistence on the postulate of complete logical clarification would make science impossible. We are reminded... of the old wisdom that one who insists on never uttering an error must remain silent.

Mathematics

“It is of interest to inquire what happens when the aviator's speed… approximates to the velocity of light.”

Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882–1944) British astrophysicist

Space, Time and Gravitation (1920)
Context: It is of interest to inquire what happens when the aviator's speed... approximates to the velocity of light. Lengths in the direction of flight become smaller and smaller, until for the speed of light they shrink to zero. The aviator and the objects accompanying him shrink to two dimensions. We are saved the difficulty of imagining how the processes of life can go on in two dimensions, because nothing goes on. Time is arrested altogether. This is the description according to the terrestrial observer. The aviator himself detects nothing unusual; he does not perceive that he has stopped moving. He is merely waiting for the next instant to come before making the next movement; and the mere fact that time is arrested means that he does not perceive that the next instant is a long time coming.<!--p.26

Light , Speed

“This velocity is so nearly that of light, that it seems we have strong reason to conclude that light itself”

James Clerk Maxwell A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field

A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field (1864), §20.
Context: The general equations are next applied to the case of a magnetic disturbance propagated through a non-conductive field, and it is shown that the only disturbances which can be so propagated are those which are transverse to the direction of propagation, and that the velocity of propagation is the velocity v, found from experiments such as those of Weber, which expresses the number of electrostatic units of electricity which are contained in one electromagnetic unit. This velocity is so nearly that of light, that it seems we have strong reason to conclude that light itself (including radiant heat, and other radiations if any) is an electromagnetic disturbance in the form of waves propagated through the electromagnetic field according to electromagnetic laws.

Light , Strong

“After ten years of reflection such a principle resulted from a paradox upon which I had already hit at the age of sixteen: If I pursue a beam of light with the velocity c (velocity of light in a vacuum), I should observe such a beam as a spatially oscillatory electromagnetic field at rest. However, there seems to be no such thing, whether on the bases of experience or according to Maxwell's equations.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

1940s, "Autobiographical Notes" (1949)
Context: Reflections of this type made it clear to me as long ago as shortly after 1900, i. e., shortly after Planck's trailblazing work, that neither mechanics nor electrodynamics could (except in limiting cases) claim exact validity. By and by I despaired of the possibility of discovering the true laws by means of constructive efforts based on known facts. The longer and the more despairingly I tried, the more I came to the conviction that only the discovery of a universal formal principle could lead us to assured results.... How, then, could such a universal principle be found? After ten years of reflection such a principle resulted from a paradox upon which I had already hit at the age of sixteen: If I pursue a beam of light with the velocity c (velocity of light in a vacuum), I should observe such a beam as a spatially oscillatory electromagnetic field at rest. However, there seems to be no such thing, whether on the bases of experience or according to Maxwell's equations. From the very beginning it appeared to me intuitively clear that, judged from the stand-point of such an observer, everything would have to happen according to the same laws as for an observer who, relative to the earth, was at rest.

Age , Light

“An unexpected vision appeared to me. A circle not unlike a wreath woven from rainbow and lightnings, whirled from heaven to earth with a stupendous, velocity, blinding me by its brilliance.”

P. D. Ouspensky (1878–1947) Russian esotericist

Card XXI : The World http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot/sot/sot05.htm
The Symbolism of the Tarot (1913)
Context: An unexpected vision appeared to me. A circle not unlike a wreath woven from rainbow and lightnings, whirled from heaven to earth with a stupendous, velocity, blinding me by its brilliance. And amidst this light and fire I heard music and soft singing, thunderclaps and the roar of a tempest, the rumble of falling mountains and earthquakes.
The circle whirled with a terrifying noise, touching the sun and the earth, and, in the centre of it I saw the naked, dancing figure of a beautiful young woman, enveloped by a light, transparent scarf, in her hand she held a magic wand.
Presently the four apocalyptical beasts began to appear on the edges of the circle; one with the face of a lion, another with the face of a man, the third, of an eagle and the fourth, of a bull.

Appearance

“Other qualities of bodies are connected with simple energy of motion and energy of position. Such is heat, which we find by experiment can be turned into work. Finding it convertible with energy, we call it a form of energy. ...But as to heat, it is further established by experiment that in this case the energy of motion does really persist as such. Thus a gas consists of molecules flying about with velocity, rotating and vibrating, and so having energy motion. All this energy of motion is what we call heat, and thus heat is a repetition of a known meaning of energy. Again, heat exists between a radiating body and the thing it warms; now the intermediate space is filled by the luminiferous ether, which, being elastic, has in its ultimate parts both energy of motion energy of position. In these forms the heat exists in the space in question.”

William Kingdon Clifford (1845–1879) English mathematician and philosopher

"Energy and Force" (Mar 28, 1873)

Question , Parting , Flying

“Momentum may be roughly described as quantity motion. A body moving at a speed of say twenty an hour, has a certain quantity of motion. If the body goes forty miles an hour there is twice as motion; or if twice as much matter goes twenty miles hour, there is also twice as much motion. Momentum is measured by the quantity of matter moving at a rate mass \times velocity.”

William Kingdon Clifford (1845–1879) English mathematician and philosopher

"Energy and Force" (Mar 28, 1873)

Time , Speed

“Consider an event, for example the outburst if a nova… Suppose this event is observed from two stars in line with the nova, and suppose further that the two stars are moving uniformly with respect to each other in this line. Let the epoch at which these stars passed by each other be taken as the zero of time measurement, and let an observer A on one of the stars estimate the distance and epoch of the nova outburst to be x units of length and t units of time, respectively. Suppose the other star is moving toward the nova with velocity v relative to A.”

Gerald James Whitrow (1912–2000) British mathematician

Let an observer B on the star estimate the distance and epoch of the nova outburst to be x<nowiki>'</nowiki> units of length and t<nowiki>'</nowiki> units of time, respectively. Then the Lorentz formulae, relating x<nowiki>'</nowiki> to t<nowiki>'</nowiki>, are<center><math>x' = \frac {x-vt}{\sqrt{1-\frac{v^2}{c^2}}} ; \qquad t' = \frac {t-\frac{vx}{c^2}}{\sqrt{1-\frac{v^2}{c^2}}}</math></center>
These formulae are... quite general, applying to any event in line with two uniformly moving observers. If we let c become infinite then the ratio of v to c tends to zero and the formulae become<center><math>x' = x - vt ; \qquad t' = t</math></center>.
The Structure of the Universe: An Introduction to Cosmology (1949)

Star , Time

“We--by whom I mean anyone over sixty--commit two offenses just bu existing. One is Lack of Velocity. We drive too slowly, walk to slowly, talk too slowly. The world will do business with dictators, perverts, and drugs barons of all stripes, but being slowed down it cannot abide.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

Our second offence is being Everyman's memento mori. The world can only get comfy in shiny-eyed denial if we are out of sight.
"The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish", p. 315 (Nook edition)
Cloud Atlas (2004)

World , Business

“How can art be realized? Out of volumes, motion, spaces bounded by the great space, the universe. Out of different masses, tight, heavy, middling - indicated by variations of size or color - directional line - vectors which represent speeds, velocities, accelerations, forces, etc...”

Alexander Calder (1898–1976) American artist

these directions making between them meaningful angles, and senses, together defining one big conclusion or many. Spaces, volumes, suggested by the smallest means in contrast to their mass, or even including them, juxtaposed, pierced by vectors, crossed by speeds. Nothing at all of this is fixed. Each element able to move, to stir, to oscillate, to come and go in its relationships with the other elements in its universe. It must not be just a fleeting moment but a physical bond between the varying events in life. Not extractions, but abstractions. Abstractions that are like nothing in life except in their manner of reacting.
1930s, How Can Art Be Realized? (1932)

Universe , Color , Speed , Art

“What is new today is not globalization as such—we are too late for that. Rather, what is unique to our times is the widespread awareness of global processes among increasingly fragmented populations. That awareness grows everywhere, largely because of the increase in both the size and the velocity of global flows. Capital, populations, and information move in much greater mass and at increasing speed. At the same time, most human beings continue to act locally.

Thus, we are witnessing the rise of what I call "a fragmented globality."”

Michel-Rolph Trouillot (1949–2012) Haitian academic and anthropologist

World histories and local histories are at once becoming both increasingly intertwined and increasingly contradictory. The twenty-first century is likely to be marked by the speed and brutality of these contradictions.
Theorizing a Global Perspective (1996)

Time , Speed

“It is known that very distant nebulae, probably galactic systems like our own, show remarkably high receding velocities whose magnitude increases with the distance. This curious phenomenon promises to provide some important clues for the future development of our cosmological views. It maybe of advantage, therefore, to point out some of the principal facts which any cosmological theory will have to account for. Then a brief discussion will be given of different theoretical suggestions related to the above effect. Finally, a new effect of masses upon light will be suggested which is a sort of gravitational analogue of the Compton effect.”

Fritz Zwicky (1898–1974) Swiss astronomer

Source: Fritz Zwicky, [On the redshift of spectral lines through interstellar space, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 15, 10, 1929, 773–779, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC522555/] (quote from p. 773)

Light , Distant , Future