Douglas Adams Quotes

The true worth of an experimenter consists in his pursuing not only what he seeks in his experiment, but also what he did not seek.

Reason, observation, and experience; the holy trinity of science.

The scientist is a lover of truth for the very love of truth itself, wherever it may lead.

I love to watch how scientists' minds work.

In scientific work, those who refuse to go beyond fact rarely get as far as fact.

Hypotheses are what we lack the least.

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.

I am not here concerned with intent, but with scientific standards, especially the ability to tell the difference between a fact, an opinion, a hypothesis, and a hole in the ground.

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

As a true scientist, I have been proved wrong so many times that I'm very humble.

I realized there are no lobbyists for critical thinking, and I realized there are no lobbyists for bravery.

There is no other species on Earth that does science. It is, so far, entirely a human invention, evolved by natural selection in the cerebral cortex for one simple reason: it works. It is not perfect. It can be misused. It is only a tool. But it is by far the best tool we have, self-correcting, ongoing, applicable to everything.

Scientific inquiry shouldn't stop just because a reasonable explanation has apparently been found.

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 scientific spirit is of more value than its products, and irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors.

In academic life, false ideas are merely false, and useless ones can be fun to play with.

I learned quickly, as I tell my graduate students now, there are no answers in the back of the book when the equipment doesn't work or the measurements look strange.

I had learned that science is a rewarding, active process of discovery, not the passive absorption of what others had discovered.

Research programmes, besides their negative heuristic, are also characterized by their positive heuristic.

The process of science is difficult and challenging. It involves always being aware that your ideas might be right or they might be wrong. I think it's that kind of balance that makes science so interesting.

But in a broader sense, when I have more control, I want to expose people to new ideas.

Science by itself is about numbers, and it's about measuring things. It's very important but it's very dry.

What we want in students is creativity and a willingness to fail. I always say to students, 'If you've never at some point stayed up all night talking to your new boyfriend about the meaning of life instead of preparing for the test, then you're not really an intellectual.'

It is crucial for scientists to be willing to be wrong; otherwise, you might not do the most important experiments, or you may ignore your most important findings.

I'm doing physics because I'm curious about how it works - full speed ahead, damn the torpedoes, don't worry about whether somebody is going to be able to do an experiment next week, just figure it out.