The life and soul of science is its practical application, and just as the great advances in mathematics have been made through the desire of discovering the solution of problems which were of a highly practical kind in mathematical science, so in physical science many of the greatest advances that have been made from the beginning of the world to the present time have been made in the earnest desire to turn the knowledge of the properties of matter to some purpose useful to mankind.
Lord KelvinDo not imagine that mathematics is hard and crabbed, and repulsive to common sense. It is merely the etherealization of common sense.
Lord KelvinSymmetrical equations are good in their place, but ' vector ' is a useless survival, or offshoot from quaternions, and has never been of the slightest use to any creature.
Lord KelvinThe more thoroughly I conduct scientific research, the more I believe that science excludes atheism.
Lord Kelvin