Paul Allen Quotes

Certainly to me it has been valuable to have to think through the basics of physics in order to present them in a halfway coherent form for a course. That has led me to ideas in research. Even freshman physics leads to thoughts that lead to other thoughts that are stimulating.

Intellectual curiosity drove Einstein to some of the world's most important discoveries.

It would be wrong to assume that one must stay with a research programme until it has exhausted all its heuristic power, that one must not introduce a rival programme before everybody agrees that the point of degeneration has probably been reached.

If one has curiosity, then one stands the chance of attain a high level of scientific inquiry.

We need to be pro-science; we have to go back to science.

You learn that the interest is in what you don't yet know and that theories evolve. But we nonetheless have progress and improved knowledge over time.

The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.

The best scientists that I've met are those that are humanists and scientists at the same time.

Throughout history, people have studied pure science from a desire to understand the universe rather than practical applications for commercial gain. But their discoveries later turned out to have great practical benefits.

Science literacy is the artery through which the solutions of tomorrow's problems flow.

Science has become something that everybody knows he has to pay attention to, but not everybody is a believer. So I don't think we should equate science with religion. But, that science is progressively playing a more and more important part in the life of every individual is obvious.

If you're an adult and you choose not to believe in science, fine, but please don't prevent your children from learning about it and letting them draw their own conclusions.

The intellectual takes as a starting point his self and relates the world to his own sensibilities; the scientist accepts an existing field of knowledge and seeks to map out the unexplored terrain.

Mediocre theoretical physicists make no progress. They spend all their time understanding other people's progress.

Anybody who has been seriously engaged in scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: 'Ye must have faith.'

In science, every question answered leads to 10 more. I love that science can never, ever be finished. From a young age, people think, 'Science is hard and boring.' We don't tell children, 'Yes, you have to learn these formulae and theorems, but then you go on to learn about nuclear reactions and stars.'

Understanding science and pushing the boundaries of science is what makes me immensely satisfied.

Only by ignorance is science threatened.

Research in the natural sciences operates in successive approximations. We are glad to be able to offer many good problems for research by generations to come.

Discovery follows discovery, each both raising and answering questions, each ending a long search, and each providing the new instruments for a new search.

We are just in the kindergarten of uncovering things; there is no downcurve in science.

The sciences, even the best,-mathematics and astronomy,-are like sportsmen, who seize whatever prey offers, even without being able to make any use of it.

It can be said with complete confidence that any scientist of any age who wants to make important discoveries must study important problems. Dull or piffling problems yield dull or piffling answers. It is not enough that a problem should be "interesting".

The history of science knows scores of instances where an investigator was in the possession of all the important facts for a new theory but simply failed to ask the right questions.

The world today is made, it is powered by science; and for any man to abdicate an interest in science is to walk with open eyes towards slavery.