The fact that mathematics does such a good job of describing the Universe is a mystery that we don't understand. And a debt that we will probably never be able to repay.

Fourier's theorem is not only one of the most beautiful results of modern analysis, but it may be said to furnish an indispensable instrument in the treatment of nearly every recondite question in modern physics.

Science is bound, by the everlasting vow of honour, to face fearlessly every problem which can be fairly presented to it.

It is conceivable that animal life might have the attribute of using the heat of surrounding matter, at its natural temperature, as a source of energy for mechanical effect . . . .The influence of animal or vegetable life on matter is infinitely beyond the range of any scientific enquiry hitherto entered on. Its power of directing the motions of moving particles, in the demonstrated daily miracle of our human free-will, and in the growth of generation after generation of plants from a single seed, are infinitely different from any possible result of the fortuitous concurrence of atoms.

There cannot be a greater mistake than that of looking superciliously upon practical applications of science. The life and soul of science is its practical application.

The more thoroughly I conduct scientific research, the more I believe that science excludes atheism.

When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it.