Arthur Schuster Quotes

United Kingdom, Physicist
September 12, 1851 – October, 17, 1934.

Sir Franz Arthur Friedrich Schuster FRS FRSE was a German-born British physicist known for his work in spectroscopy, electrochemistry, optics, X-radiography and the application of harmonic analysis to physics. Schuster's integral is named after him. He contributed to making the University of Manchester a centre for the study of physics.

In the expressions we adopt to prescribe physical phenomena we necessarily hover between two extremes. We either have to choose a word which implies more than we can prove, or we have to use vague and general terms which hide the essential point, instead of bringing it out. The history of electrical theories furnishes a good example.

Arthur Schuster
- Prove
- Point
- Expressions
Most probably some law hitherto undiscovered exists.

Arthur Schuster

Even originally well-defined pencils of cathode rays from the Sun cannot reach the Earth. For Birkeland's theories to be correct, the existance of such cathode rays is clearly presupposed to be necessary...and this assumption is untenable.

Arthur Schuster
- Sun
- Assumption
- Theories
One of the principal obstacles to the rapid diffusion of a new idea lies in the difficulty of finding suitable expression to convey its essential point to other minds. Words may have to be strained into a new sense, and scientific controversies constantly resolve themselves into differences about the meaning of words. On the other hand, a happy nomenclature has sometimes been more powerful than rigorous logic in allowing a new train of thought to be quickly and generally accepted.

Arthur Schuster
- Words
- Idea
- Expression