Talk:Ernest Rutherford

From Wikiquote

I have to say that some of these are among the most stupid and/or arrogant quotes about science I have ever heard, especially the one about physics and stamp collecting. I doubt the man had any understanding of how most knowledge in most sciences is actually gained.

165.247.226.237 23:46, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Weakly sourced quotations

I think these quotations are not complete enough. Three of the four 'sourced' quotations have no date associated (and none of the unsourced quotations), most give no information about where the statement was made, and nearly all are a minimal length giving no context. For such a well-known physicist, I would hope this page can be expanded and better referenced. Pathh

[edit] Unsourced

• All scientific men will be delighted to extend their warmest congratulations to Tesla and to express their appreciation of his great contributions to science.

• I have always been very proud of the fact that I am a New Zealander.

• I have broken the machine and touched the ghost of matter.
  • On splitting the atom

• I'm a simple man myself.

• If your result needs a statistician then you should design a better experiment.
  • Variant: If you need statistics, you did the wrong experiment.
  • Variant: If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment.

• It was as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a sheet of tissue paper and it came back to hit you.
  • On the scattering of alpha particles from gold foil.

• That man is an Euclidian point: position without substance.
  • About a self-important person

• That's the last potato I will ever dig.
  • Upon being admitted to Cambridge University - family anecdote

• The energy produced by breaking down the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformations of these atoms is taking moonshine.

• The more physics you have the less engineering you need.

• The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the "social sciences" is: some do, some don't.

• We don’t have the money, so we have to think. (or "We didn't have the money, so we had to think.")
  • On his experimental apparatus and innovation

• You should never bet against anything in science at odds of more than about 10 or 12 to 1.

• If you can't explain your research to the cleaning lady, it's not worth doing
  • i.e. if you can't explain your research in laymans terms, you probably don't understand it yourself