Simple Quotes (7)
A lot of prizes have been awarded for showing the universe is not as simple as we might have thought.
In A Brief History of Time, (1988, 1998), 80.
Anybody can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple.
In David Pressman. Patent it Yourself (2008), 37.
It always bothers me that according to the laws as we understand them today, it takes a computing machine an infinite number of logical operations to figure out what goes on in no matter how tiny a region of space and no matter how tiny a region of time ... I have often made the hypothesis that ultimately physics will not require a mathematical statement, that in the end the machinery will be revealed and the laws will turn out to be simple. ... But this speculation is of the same nature as those other people make - 'I like it','I don't like it' - and it is not good to be too prejudiced about these things.
The Character of Physical Law (1965), 57. Quoted in Brian Rotman, Mathematics as Sign (2000), 82.
See also: | Computer (25) | Hypothesis (96) | Infinity (13) | Law (145) | Logic (69) | Machinery (5) | Mathematics (226) | Physics (70) | Prejudice (12) | Reveal (3) | Space (25) | Speculation (21) | Time (57)
My experiments with single traits all lead to the same result: that from the seeds of hybrids, plants are obtained half of which in turn carry the hybrid trait (Aa), the other half, however, receive the parental traits A and a in equal amounts. Thus, on the average, among four plants two have the hybrid trait Aa, one the parental trait A, and the other the parental trait a. Therefore, 2Aa+ A +a or A + 2Aa + a is the empirical simple series for two differing traits.
Letter to Carl Nägeli, 31 Dec 1866. In Curt Stern and Eva R. Sherwood (eds.), The Origin of Genetics: A Mendel Source Book (1966), 63.
See also: | Difference (30) | Empiricism (11) | Equal (6) | Experiment (218) | Genetics (64) | Hybrid (6) | Parent (10) | Plant (42) | Series (8) | Trait (7)
The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it
The Philosophy of Logical Atomism (1959), 10.
There is no foundation in geological facts, for the popular theory of the successive development of the animal and vegetable world, from the simplest to the most perfect forms.
Principles of Geology (1830-3), Vol. 1, 153.
See also: | Development (27) | Fact (146) | Form (8) | Foundation (10) | Geology (114) | Perfect (6) | Theory (192)
Unity of plan everywhere lies hidden under the mask: of diversity of structure—the complex is everywhere evolved out of the simple.
'A Lobster; or, the Study of Zoology' (1861). In Collected Essays (1894). Vol. 8, 205-6.