Portable Wisdom

Author: Lord Kelvin

Brief Info: British mathematical physicist and engineer

Years Lived: 1824-1907

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Quotations


When you can measure what you are speaking about

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 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.

From the lecture “Popular Lectures”

— 3 May 1883

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