Hermann von Helmholtz Quotes

Another thing I must point out is that you cannot prove a vague theory wrong.

The difference between physics and metaphysics is not that the practitioners of one are smarter than the practitioners of the other. The difference is that the metaphysicist has no laboratory.

A soul might very well exist, but we, as physicists, try to measure and quantify everything. So far, no one has been able to create an experiment to do this for the soul. Efforts have been made to weigh the body after death, but each time we find no evidence of a soul. So a soul may very well exist, but it is not a testable theory.

The Syllogism consists of propositions, propositions consist of words, words are symbols of notions. Therefore if the notions themselves (which is the root of the matter) are confused and over-hastily abstracted from the facts, there can be no firmness in the superstructure. Our only hope therefore lies in a true induction.

Faith in reason as a prime motor is no longer the criterion of the sound mind, any more than faith in the Bible is the criterion of righteous intention.

There will be well-testable theories, hardly testable theories, and non-testable theories. Those which are non-testable are of no interest to empirical scientists. They may be described as metaphysical.

no matter how many instances of white swans we may have observed, this does not justify the conclusion that all swans are white.

There is no dogma, there isn't anything about how the universe works.

Belief Systems contradict both science and ordinary "common sense." B.S. contradicts science, because it claims certitude and science can never achieve certitude: it can only say, "This model"- or theory, or interpretation of the data- "fits more of the facts known at this date than any rival model." We can never know if the model will fit the facts that might come to light in the next millennium or even in the next week.

Physics is unable to stand on its own feet, but needs a metaphysics on which to support itself, whatever fine airs it may assume towards the latter.

It is within science itself, and not in some prior philosophy, that reality is to be identified and described.

Skepticism must go hand in hand with rationality. When theories are shown to be false, the correct thing to do is to move on.

Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art; it arises in hypothesis and flows into achievement.

It was while teaching philosophy that I saw how easily one can say ... what one wants to say. ... In fact, I became particularly aware if the dangers of speculation ... It's so much easier than digging out the facts. You sit in your office and build a system. But with my training in biology, I felt this kind of undertaking precarious.

Science is a combination of theory and experiment and the two together are how you make progress.

What can give us more sure knowledge than our senses? How else can we distinguish between the true and the false?

The so-called law of induction cannot possibly be a law of logic, since it is obviously a proposition with a sense.--Nor, therefore, can it be an a priori law.

Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis: you can never prove it.

Both art and science are bent on the understanding of the forces that shape existence, and both call for a dedication to what is. Neither of them can tolerate capricious subjectivity because both are subject to their criteria of truth. Both require precision, order, and discipline because no comprehensible statement can be made without these. Both accept the sensory world as what the Middle Ages called signatura regrum, the signature of things, but in quite different ways.

It is impossible for someone to dispel his fears about the most important matters if he doesn't know the nature of the universe but still gives some credence to myths. So without the study of nature there is no enjoyment of pure pleasure.

It is a very long and very difficult road from a fact to a conclusion. But it is a million times longer from a theory to a fact.

What if there were no hypothetical questions?

A mere inference or theory must give way to a truth revealed; but a scientific truth must be maintained, however contradictory it may appear to the most cherished doctrines of religion.

Not only are facts and theories in constant disharmony, they are never as neatly separated as everyone makes them out to be.

If the evidence says you're wrong, you don't have the right theory. You change the theory, not the evidence.