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Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index F > Category: Flame

Flame Quotes (11 quotes)

At the moment I am occupied by an investigation with Kirchoff which does not allow us to sleep. Kirchoff has made a totally unexpected discovery, inasmuch as he has found out the cause for the dark lines in the solar spectrum and can produce these lines artificially intensified both in the solar spectrum and in the continuous spectrum of a flame, their position being identical with that of Fraunhofer’s lines. Hence the path is opened for the determination of the chemical composition of the Sun and the fixed stars.
— Robert Bunsen
Letter to H.E. Roscoe (Nov 1859). In The Life and Experiences of Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe (1906), 71.
Science quotes on:  |  Absorption Line (2)  |  Biography (196)  |  Composition (29)  |  Discovery (318)  |  Kirchoff_Gustav (3)  |  Sleep (23)  |  Solar Spectrum (3)  |  Spectrum (17)  |  Star (114)  |  Sun (99)

At the moment I am occupied by an investigation with Kirchoff which does not allow us to sleep. Kirchoff has made a totally unexpected discovery, inasmuch as he has found out the cause for the dark lines in the solar spectrum and can produce these lines artificially intensified both in the solar spectrum and in the continuous spectrum of a flame, their position being identical with that of Fraunhofer’s lines. Hence the path is opened for the determination of the chemical composition of the Sun and the fixed stars.
— Robert Bunsen
Letter to H.E. Roscoe (Nov 1859). In The Life and Experiences of Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe (1906), 81.
Science quotes on:  |  Absorption Line (2)  |  Biography (196)  |  Composition (29)  |  Discovery (318)  |  Kirchoff_Gustav (3)  |  Sleep (23)  |  Solar Spectrum (3)  |  Spectrum (17)  |  Star (114)  |  Sun (99)

Briefly, in the act of composition, as an instrument there intervenes and is most potent, fire, flaming, fervid, hot; but in the very substance of the compound there intervenes, as an ingredient, as it is commonly called, as a material principle and as a constituent of the whole compound the material and principle of fire, not fire itself. This I was the first to call phlogiston.
— Georg Ernst Stahl
Specimen Beccherianum (1703). Trans. J. R. Partington, A History of Chemistry (1961), Vol. 2, 668.
Science quotes on:  |  Composition (29)  |  Compound (34)  |  Fire (53)  |  Hot (4)  |  Ingredient (5)  |  Intervention (3)  |  Material (47)  |  Phlogiston (8)  |  Potency (3)  |  Principle (87)  |  Substance (33)

Firm support has been found for the assertion that electricity occurs at thousands of points where we at most conjectured that it was present. Innumerable electrical particles oscillate in every flame and light source. We can in fact assume that every heat source is filled with electrons which will continue to oscillate ceaselessly and indefinitely. All these electrons leave their impression on the emitted rays. We can hope that experimental study of the radiation phenomena, which are exposed to various influences, but in particular to the effect of magnetism, will provide us with useful data concerning a new field, that of atomistic astronomy, as Lodge called it, populated with atoms and electrons instead of planets and worlds.
— Pieter Zeeman
'Light Radiation in a Magnetic Field', Nobel Lecture, 2 May 1903. In Nobel Lectures: Physics 1901-1921 (1967), 40.
Science quotes on:  |  Assertion (16)  |  Astronomy (98)  |  Atom (157)  |  Conjecture (14)  |  Data (40)  |  Electricity (69)  |  Electron (40)  |  Experiment (346)  |  Light (99)  |  Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge (12)  |  Particle (42)  |  Ray (16)  |  Research (319)  |  Support (19)

I took a glass retort, capable of containing eight ounces of water, and distilled fuming spirit of nitre according to the usual method. In the beginning the acid passed over red, then it became colourless, and lastly again all red: no sooner did this happen, than I took away the receiver; and tied to the mouth of the retort a bladder emptied of air, which I had moistened in its inside with milk of lime lac calcis, (i.e. lime-water, containing more quicklime than water can dissolve) to prevent its being corroded by the acid. Then I continued the distillation, and the bladder gradually expanded. Here-upon I left every thing to cool, tied up the bladder, and took it off from the mouth of the retort.— I filled a ten-ounce glass with this air and put a small burning candle into it; when immediately the candle burnt with a large flame, of so vivid a light that it dazzled the eyes. I mixed one part of this air with three parts of air, wherein fire would not burn; and this mixture afforded air, in every respect familiar to the common sort. Since this air is absolutely necessary for the generation of fire, and makes about one-third of our common air, I shall henceforth, for shortness sake call it empyreal air, [literally fire-air] the air which is unserviceable for the fiery phenomenon, and which makes abut two-thirds of common air, I shall for the future call foul air [literally corrupted air].
— Carl Wilhelm Scheele
Chemische Abhandlung von der Luft und dem Feuer (1777), Chemical Observations and Experiments on Air and Fire (1780), trans. J. R. Forster, 34-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (15)  |  Air (75)  |  Bladder (2)  |  Burning (12)  |  Candle (9)  |  Corrosion (3)  |  Dazzling (5)  |  Distillation (6)  |  Fire (53)  |  Fume (3)  |  Generation (39)  |  Glass (17)  |  Light (99)  |  Mixture (8)  |  Nitric Acid (2)  |  Oxygen (30)  |  Receiver (3)  |  Spirit (42)  |  Vivid (6)  |  Water (99)

If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.
— David Hume
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge (1894), section 12, part 3, 165.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (16)  |  Existence (126)  |  Experiment (346)  |  Fact (277)  |  Illusion (12)  |  Number (74)  |  Quantity (20)  |  Reason (146)  |  Sophistry (2)  |  Volume (5)

In August, 1896, I exposed the sodium flame to large magnetic forces by placing it between the poles of a strong electromagnet. Again I studied the radiation of the flame by means of Rowland's mirror, the observations being made in the direction perpendicular to the lines of force. Each line, which in the absence of the effect of the magnetic forces was very sharply defined, was now broadened. This indicated that not only the original oscillations, but also others with greater and again others with smaller periods of oscillation were being radiated by the flame. The change was however very small. In an easily produced magnetic field it corresponded to a thirtieth of the distance between the two sodium lines, say two tenths of an Angstrom, a unit of measure whose name will always recall to physicists the meritorious work done by the father of my esteemed colleague.
— Pieter Zeeman
'Light Radiation in a Magnetic Field', Nobel Lecture, 2 May 1903. In Nobel Lectures: Physics 1901-1921 (1967), 34-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Magnetic Field (2)  |  Sodium (9)  |  Spectral Line (2)  |  Spectroscopy (9)

See with what force yon river's crystal stream
Resists the weight of many a massy beam.
To sink the wood the more we vainly toil,
The higher it rebounds, with swift recoil.
Yet that the beam would of itself ascend
No man will rashly venture to contend.
Thus too the flame has weight, though highly rare,
Nor mounts but when compelled by heavier air.
— Titus Lucretius
De Rerum Natura, second book, as quoted in translation in Thomas Young, A Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts (1845), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (75)  |  Beam (4)  |  Buoyancy (4)  |  Contend (2)  |  Force (60)  |  Higher (14)  |  Mass (19)  |  Rare (9)  |  Rashness (2)  |  Recoil (2)  |  River (27)  |  Sink (5)  |  Stream (8)  |  Swift (2)  |  Toil (6)  |  Vain (10)  |  Venture (5)  |  Water (99)  |  Weight (35)  |  Wood (15)

Take an arrow, and hold it in flame for the space of ten pulses, and when it cometh forth you shall find those parts of the arrow which were on the outsides of the flame more burned, blacked, and turned almost to coal, whereas the midst of the flame will be as if the fire had scarce touched it. This is an instance of great consequence for the discovery of the nature of flame; and sheweth manifestly, that flame burneth more violently towards the sides than in the midst.
[Observing, but not with the knowledge, that a flame burns at its outside in contact with air, and there is no combustion within the flame which is not mixed with air.]
— Sir Francis Bacon
Sylva Sylvarum; or a Natural History in Ten Centuries (1627), Century 1, Experiment 32. Collected in The Works of Francis Bacon (1826), Vol 1, 254.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (75)  |  Arrow (6)  |  Burn (10)  |  Charcoal (5)  |  Combustion (10)

That ability to impart knowledge ... what does it consist of? ... a deep belief in the interest and importance of the thing taught, a concern about it amounting to a sort of passion. A man who knows a subject thoroughly, a man so soaked in it that he eats it, sleeps it and dreams it—this man can always teach it with success, no matter how little he knows of technical pedagogy. That is because there is enthusiasm in him, and because enthusiasm is almost as contagious as fear or the barber's itch. An enthusiast is willing to go to any trouble to impart the glad news bubbling within him. He thinks that it is important and valuable for to know; given the slightest glow of interest in a pupil to start with, he will fan that glow to a flame. No hollow formalism cripples him and slows him down. He drags his best pupils along as fast as they can go, and he is so full of the thing that he never tires of expounding its elements to the dullest.
This passion, so unordered and yet so potent, explains the capacity for teaching that one frequently observes in scientific men of high attainments in their specialties—for example, Huxley, Ostwald, Karl Ludwig, Virchow, Billroth, Jowett, William G. Sumner, Halsted and Osler—men who knew nothing whatever about the so-called science of pedagogy, and would have derided its alleged principles if they had heard them stated.
— H. L. Mencken
In Prejudices: third series (1922), 241-2.
For a longer excerpt, see H. L. Mencken on Teaching, Enthusiasm and Pedagogy.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (29)  |  Attainment (17)  |  Barber (3)  |  Belief (116)  |  Theodor Billroth (2)  |  Concern (24)  |  Contagion (4)  |  Dream (32)  |  Enthusiasm (19)  |  Fear (47)  |  Formalism (4)  |  Glow (4)  |  William Stewart Halsted (2)  |  Thomas Henry Huxley (74)  |  Importance (85)  |  Interest (58)  |  Itch (4)  |  Benjamin Jowett (2)  |  Knowledge (593)  |  Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig (3)  |  Men Of Science (88)  |  News (4)  |  Sir William Osler (16)  |  Ostwald_Carl (2)  |  Passion (20)  |  Pupil (9)  |  Sleep (23)  |  Specialty (5)  |  Subject (37)  |  Teaching (51)  |  Value (50)  |  Rudolf Virchow (26)

We find it hard to picture to ourselves the state of mind of a man of older days who firmly believed that the Earth was the centre of the Universe, and that all the heavenly bodies revolved around it. He could feel beneath his feet the writhings of the damned amid the flames; very likely he had seen with his own eyes and smelt with his own nostrils the sulphurous fumes of Hell escaping from some fissure in the rocks. Looking upwards, he beheld ... the incorruptible firmament, wherein the stars hung like so many lamps.
— Anatole France
The Garden of Epicurus (1894) translated by Alfred Allinson, in The Works of Anatole France in an English Translation (1920), 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Hell (12)  |  Man (239)  |  Star (114)  |  Sulphur (9)  |  Universe (249)



Carl Sagan Thumbnail At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes--an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense. -- Carl Sagan

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