A witty saying proves nothing.

Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.

All civilizations become either spacefaring or extinct.

Every generation of humans believed it had all the answers it needed, except for a few mysteries they assumed would be solved at any moment. And they all believed their ancestors were simplistic and deluded. What are the odds that you are the first generation of humans who will understand reality?

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.

There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

A scientist can discover a new star, but he cannot make one. He would have to ask an engineer to do that.

Listen; there's a hell of a good universe next door: let's go.

Last night as I lay in bed looking at the stars I thought 'Where the hell is the ceiling?'

When you reach for the stars, you may not quite get one, but you won't come up with a handful of mud either.

Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you will land among the stars.

Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings.

There are eight planets, unless of course you still count Pluto in which case there are nine million planets.

The solar system consists of Jupiter plus debris.

The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program.

The exploration and ultimate colonization of the solar system is the only future worthy of truly great nations at this time in history. The Soviets, who cannot even feed themselves, seem to understand this.

NASA should simply send an unmanned probe to Mars containing a well-sealed, well-protected capsule containing a check for $1,000,000,[insert your favorite number of zeroes here], payable to bearer. The first person who manages to get there and collect it gets to keep it.

On Earth, curiosity drives scientists. On Mars, scientists drive Curiosity.

Why don't you light that candle?

My goal is simple. It is complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.

When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.

It's a good thing the guy in charge of naming galaxies was into chocolate bars and not Chinese food. Otherwise, the Milky Way might have been named Moo Goo Gui Pan, and who wants to have to learn about that?

The rocket worked perfectly except for landing on the wrong planet.

I have learned to use the word 'impossible' with the greatest caution.

There is just one thing I can promise you about the outer-space program: your tax dollar will go farther.

Crash programs fail because they are based on theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby in a month.

We can lick gravity, but the paperwork's a bit tougher.

Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department.

Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.

Our german scientists are better than their german scientists.

If you stacked all the US currency together, you could probably reach the moon, but I bet the Apollo program was still more economical.

'cos try as I might I don't seem to be able to phone home!'cuz I'm too lazy to actually DO something with this computer of mine...I can't get a date on this planet. Might as well try to find another oneIt would be interesting to introduce a new sexual position or three if alien females were discoveredA few years ago some extraterrestrial sent me a bad cheque. With SETI I hope to find the bastard!After they abducted me, they told me don't call us, we'll call you. I've been waiting for five years.

seti@home was fun. seti@work got me fired...

I'm sick of people making fun of 'Uranus' Let's rename it! Let's call it Urrektum...

Fifty-five crystal spheres geared to God's crankshaft is my idea of a satisfying universe. I can't think of anything more trivial than quarks, quasars, big bangs and black holes.

We are still too close to the birth of the universe to be certain about its death.

God could cause us considerable embarrassment by revealing all the secrets of nature to us: we should not know what to do for sheer apathy and boredom.

It is impossible to transcend the laws of nature. You can only determine that your understanding of nature has changed.

Why is it that if someone tells you that there are 1 billion stars in the universe you will believe them, but if they tell you a wall has wet paint you will have to touch it to be sure?

The universe is simple; it's the explanation that's complex.

The scientific method makes one assumption, and one assumption only: the Universe obeys a set of rules. That's it. There is one corollary, and that is that if the Universe follows these rules, then those rules can be deduced by observing the way Universe behaves.

The scientific theory I like best is that the rings of Saturn are composed entirely of lost airline luggage.

Louise: How did you get here?Johnny: Well, basically, there was this little dot, right? And the dot went bang and the bang expanded. Energy formed into matter, matter cooled, matter lived, the amoeba to fish, to fish to fowl, to fowl to frog, to frog to mammal, the mammal to monkey, to monkey to man, amo amas amat, quid pro quo, memento mori, ad infinitum, sprinkle on a little bit of grated cheese and leave under the grill till Doomsday.

Astronomers say the universe is finite, which is a comforting thought for those people who can't remember where they leave things.

If you want to create an apple pie from scratch, you must first create an universe.

In answer to the question of why it happened, I offer the modest proposal that our Universe is simply one of those things which happen from time to time.

The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest.

Only in the US will you find people who think the moon landing was fake and wrestling is real.

Photons have mass?!? I didn't even know they were Catholic...

There is no light. The Sun sucks dark. In fact it sucks dark so hard that the friction of the dark moving to the Sun causes the Sun to be very hot. The flow of dark towards the Sun interrupted by the Earth causes the side of the Earth away from the Sun to accumulate dark, thus causing Night. As the Earth rotates the dark caught on the night side can then be pulled off, this causing the absence of dark known as Day.What we call light bulbs are truly dark suckers as well. That is why light bulbs are hot, just like the Sun. When a light bulb is full of dark and won't suck dark any more, it cools off. If you look in old light bulbs you can even seen the accumulation of dark.Dark is also heavier than water. This can be seen in the oceans where the deeper you go the darker it gets.

I'm astounded by people who want to 'know' the universe when it's hard enough to find your way around Chinatown.

We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.

I look forward to the invention of faster-than-light travel. What I'm not looking forward to is the long wait in the dark once I arrive at my destination.

OK, so what's the speed of dark?

Black holes are where God divided by zero.

What happens if a big asteroid hits Earth? Judging from realistic simulations involving a sledge hammer and a common laboratory frog, we can assume it will be pretty bad.

We have seen pictures [of mars] where there there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe.

Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.

The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.

The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.

READ THIS BEFORE OPENING PACKAGE: According to certain suggested versions of the grand unified theory, the primary particles constituting this product may decay to nothingness within the next 1032 Years.

Living on Earth may be expensive, but it includes an annual free trip around the Sun.

The Earth is the cradle of Humanity. But one doesn't always live in the cradle.

Man is an artifact designed for space travel. He is not designed to remain in his present biologic state any more than a tadpole is designed to remain a tadpole.

If you think there are no new frontiers, watch a boy ring the front doorbell on his first date.

During the heat of the space race in the 1960's, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration decided it needed a ball point pen to write in the zero gravity confines of its space capsules. After considerable research and development, the Astronaut Pen was developed at a cost of about $1 million U.S. The pen worked and also enjoyed some modest success as a novelty item back here on Earth.The Soviet Union, faced with the same problem, used a pencil.

With every passing hour our solar system comes forty-three thousand miles closer to globular cluster M13 in the constellation Hercules, and still there are some misfits who continue to insist that there is no such thing as progress.

If the Earth is the size of a pea in New York, then the Sun is a beachball 50m away, Pluto is 4km away, and the next nearest star is in Tokyo. Now shrink Pluto's orbit into a coffee cup; then our Milky Way Galaxy fills North America.

Whenever anyone says, 'theoretically', they really mean, 'not really'.

The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination

Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.

Nothing is faster than the speed of light. To prove this to yourself, try opening the refrigerator door before the light comes on.

New ideas pass through three periods:• It can't be done.• It probably can be done, but it's not worth doing.• I knew it was a good idea all along!

If it's green or wriggles, it's biology.If it stinks, it's chemistry.If it doesn't work, it's physics...

In science there is only physics, all the rest is just stamp collecting.

A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms.

According to BBC Horizon, the UK spends more on ring tones than the world spends on fusion research.

A mystic is someone who wants to understand the universe, but is too lazy to study physics.

The New Scientist is to Nature what the National Enquirer is to the New York Times. But, hey, lots of people read the National Enquirer...

The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.

Experiments should be reproducible

Numbers in physics are just convenient ways to express a measurement; they are not of numerological significance (well, maybe the fine structure constant...)

What in the world is electricity? And where does it go after it leaves the toaster?

I could tell that my parents hated me. My bath toys were a toaster and a radio.

Electrical force is defined as something which causes motion of electrical charge; an electrical charge is something which exerts electric force.

Her own mother lived the latter years of her life in the horrible suspicion that electricity was dripping invisibly all over the house.

If I could go back in time to meet anyone, I'm pretty sure I'd choose Tesla. He's kinda like Edgar Allen Poe, Ghandi and Einstein all in one.

I like you, but I wouldn't want to see you working with subatomic particles.

Wave if you've met Schrodinger.

Radioactive cats have 18 half-lives.

When I hear of Schrödinger's cat, I reach for my pistol.

There may be more than one way to skin a cat, but you only get one try per cat.

Don't bother me, I'm busy conserving energy, momentum, and angular momentum.

A policeman pulls Werner Heisenberg over on the autobahn for speeding.Policeman: Sir, do you know how fast you were going?Heisenberg: No, but I know exactly where I am.

When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity.

If my theory of relativity is proven correct, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.

The faster you go, the shorter you are.

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.

The physicist's greatest tool is his wastebasket.

I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.

I don't like electrons; they've always had a negative influence on society.

Distance / time = Velocity; Velocity / time = Acceleration. Acceleration / time = Jerk. Jerk / time = Upper Management.

Nothing in this world is to be feared... only understood.

Give me a firm place to stand and I will move the earth.

Research! A mere excuse for idleness; it has never achieved, and will never achieve any results of the slightest value.

Physics is to math what sex is to masturbation.

The only physics Computer Science majors should comment on is maybe a brief discussion on the issues of electrons, physical limitations of spinning platters, and maybe what would happen if the dvd were to crash into the cd-rom.

With the bomb squad, you can usually stop running after the first couple of blocks. If it involves the physics department, keep going.

We're pleased to announce we are still here to report the results.

We haven't the money, so we've got to think.

Nature, and Nature's laws lay hid in night:God said: 'Let Newton be!' and all was light.

That is how the atom is split. But what does it mean? To us who think in terms of practical use it means

Man is slightly nearer to the atom than the stars. From his central position he can survey the grandest works of Nature with the astronomer, or the minutest works with the physicist.

All that glitters is not gold, but at least it contains free electrons.

I believe my theory of relativity to be true. But it will only be proved for certain in 1981, when I am dead.

If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?

They say that something as small as a butterfly beating its wings in China can cause a hurricane in America, so maybe we should go to China and kill all the butterflies, just to be safe.

A vacuum can only exist, I imagine, by the things which enclose it.

Shelley and Keats were the last English poets who were at all up to date in their chemical knowledge.

I have a quantum car. Every time I look at the speedometer I get lost...

If you aren't confused by quantum mechanics, you haven't really understood it.

Quantum Mechanics: The stuff dreams are made of.

He thought the formula for water was H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O (H-to-O).

Love is a matter of chemistry, but sex is a matter of physics.

Science has 'explained' nothing; the more we know the more fantastic the world becomes and the profounder the surrounding darkness.

We have no right to assume that any physical laws exist, or if they have existed up to now, that they will continue to exist in a similar manner in the future.

Prediction is difficult, especially the future.

The simplest schoolboy is now familiar with truths for which Archimedes would have sacrificed his life.

People must understand that science is inherently neither a potential for good nor for evil. It is a potential to be harnessed by man to do his bidding.

Modern Physics is an instrument of Jewry for the destruction of Nordic science... True physics is the creation of the German spirit.

Whenever science makes a discovery, the devil grabs it while the angels are debating the best way to use it.

Classical physics has been superseded by quantum theory: quantum theory is verified by experiments. Experiments must be described in terms of classical physics.

If silicon had been a gas I should have been a major-general.

The airplane stays up because it doesn't have the time to fall.

Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.

Physics is like sex: I just don't get it.

I canna change the laws of physics, Captain

Some things have to be believed to be seen.

The human race likes to give itself airs. One good volcano can produce more greenhouse gases in a year than the human race has in its entire history.

It is odd, but on the infrequent occasions when I have been called upon in a formal place to play the bongo drums, the introducer never seems to find it necessary to mention that I also do theoretical physics.

The mole is a quantity of substance. The new prefix 'guaca' is defined such that one guacamole equals Avocado's Number.

My goal is to be a meteorologist. But since I possess no training in meteorology, I suppose I should try stock brokerage.

A seminar on time travel will be held two weeks ago.

We are each entitled to our own opinion, but no one is entitled to his own facts.

Facts are stubborn things.

Facts are stupid things.

If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts.

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.

You won't like me when I'm angry. Because I always back up my rage with facts and documented sources.

Science is facts; just as houses are made of stones, so is science made of facts; but a pile of stones is not a house and a collection of facts is not necessarily science.

The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. Instead of altering their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views... which can be very uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering.

Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!

When it comes to science, thou shalt ban the verb 'to believe' out of thy vocabulary.

It's a poorly understood fact that any unwanted facts can simply go 'poof' if you scream LIBURAL LIBURAL LIBURAL over and over.

Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.

The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'evidence'.

Facts mean nothing when they are preempted by appearance. Do not underestimate the power of impression over reality.

There are two possible outcomes: if the result confirms the hypothesis, then you've made a measurement. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you've made a discovery.

The great tragedy of Science

As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life

Facts speak louder than statistics.

Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'.

That's not right. That's not even wrong.

Reason, Observation, and Experience

There's a common myth that evidence speaks for itself. It doesn't. It just sits there on the lab table, incapable of speaking.

An approximate answer to the right problem is worth a good deal more than an exact answer to an approximate problem.

Many persons nowadays seem to think that any conclusion must be very scientific if the arguments in favor of it are derived from twitching of frogs' legs (especially if the frogs are decapitated) and that, on the other hand, any doctrine chiefly vouched for by the feelings of human beings (with heads on their shoulders) must be benighted and superstitious.

Never face facts; if you do, you'll never get up in the morning.

There is no doubt that great revolutions of human scientific thought will occur in the next century, and in the century after that, and in thousands of centuries afterward. So which of our current pet scientific dogmas will be among the first washed away by new facts and sudden clarities?

A hypothesis or theory is clear, decisive, and positive, but it is believed by no one but the man who created it. Experimental findings, on the other hand, are messy, inexact things, which are believed by everyone except the man who did that work.

These, Gentlemen, are the opinions upon which I base my facts.

Figures won't lie, but liars will figure.

My God what have we done?

Now we are all sons of bitches.

The way to win an atomic war is to make certain it never starts.

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.

A nuclear war can ruin your whole day.

If that's the only thing that's stopping war then thank God for the bomb.

Of course the whole point is lost if you keep it a secret! Why didn't you tell the world, eh?

Some of the more environmentally aware dinosaurs were worried about the consequences of an accident with the new Iridium enriched fusion reactor. 'If it goes off only the cockroaches and mammals will survive' they said.

If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.

Surely the right course is to test the Russians, not the bombs.

Hitherto man had to live with the idea of death as an individual; from now onward mankind will have to live with the idea of its death as a species.

I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.

Never pick a fight with a country that believes in reincarnation and has nuclear weapons.

To adopt nuclear disarmament would be akin to behaving like a virgin in a brothel.

We gave you an atomic bomb, what do you want, mermaids?

More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.

The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.

Building up arms is not a substitute for diplomacy.

You may reasonably expect a man to walk a tightrope safely for ten minutes; it would be unreasonable to do so without accident for two hundred years.

I don't know how the third world war will be fought, but I do know that the fourth one will be fought with sticks and stones...

Nuclear war could alleviate some of the factors leading to today's ecological disturbances that are due to current high population concentrations and heavy industrial production.

It's summit time again... They're talking of partial nuclear disarmament. This is also like talking about partial circumcision. It's a strange thing. You either go all the way or you fucking forget it.

The only way to reduce the number of nuclear weapons is to use them.

A nuclear war can ruin your whole day.

When you've seen one nuclear war, you've seen them all.

It will be a great day when our schools have all the money they need and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a new bomber.

If we get involved in a nuclear war, would the electromagnetic pulses from exploding bombs damage my videotapes?

Nuke them till they glow, then shoot them in the dark.

I sometimes feel like I missed out by being born after the golden age of radium enemas.

The bad news is that the Iranians have the bomb; the good news is that they're going to have to drop it from the back of a camel.

An encounter with a beautiful woman is good medicine for the well organized logical mind a little jolt never hurt. Note that the anarchists have been saying this for years about the A-bomb and civilization.

I have a sore throat.2000 BC : Eat this root1200 AD : That root is heathen, say this prayer.1500 AD : That prayer is superstition, drink this elixir.1800 AD : That elixir is snake oil, Take this pill.1950 AD : That pill is ineffective, Take this antibiotic.2000 AD : That antibiotic is artificial, here why don't you eat this root.

It has recently been discovered that research causes cancer in rats.

If rats are experimented on they will develop cancer.

Cancer research is a growth industry.

A mouse is an animal that, if killed in sufficiently many and creative ways, will generate a PhD.

Does the name Doctor Pavlov ring a bell?

In the last analysis the entire field of psychology may reduce to biological electrochemistry.

Back in my biology graduate school days, an important question upon opening the refrigerator was, 'Is this dinner or a project?'.

Stem cells are like toenail clippings with a better career plan.

Anyone who believes that the laws of physics are mere social conventions is invited to try transgressing those conventions from the windows of my apartment. (I live on the twenty-first floor).

Evolution is a 'theory', just like gravity. If you don't like it, go jump off a bridge.

There is no theory of evolution. Evolution is a fact. The theory is of how it happened.

It is a lot better to come from an evolved monkey than from a fallen angel.

What is notable about creation 'scientists' is that they never seem to accomplish anything of note in biology. Hardly any of them have publications in major scientific peer-reviewed journals. None have won any of the major scientific awards. While scientists who use evolution as a research tool are making discoveries not merely in evolution, but in fields as far afield as biochemistry, genetics, pharmacology, and molecular biology, creation 'scientists' don't seem to do anything but creation science. The ultimate test of a theory is how useful it is in providing a basis for discovery. Many scientists don't even care about evolutionary issues per se, any more than they care about number theory. They use evolutionary theory for the same reason that they use mathematics

Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.

You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching.

Creationism is not a scientific alternative to natural selection any more than the stork theory is an alternative to sexual reproduction.

People who believe the earth was created 6000 years ago, when it's actually 4.5 billion years old, should also believe the width of North America is 8 yards. That is the scale of the error.

Keep your stickers out of my science book; I don't paste crap in your bible.

Believe in Darwin; cancer cures smoking.

Evolution is cleverer than you are.

Anthropocentrism is a vice biologists are broken of early on. Religious people often find the idea that humans aren't special, that the world wasn't made just for us, positively abhorrent. Strangely these same religions often preach humility. What a contradiction.

It is the creationists who blasphemously are claiming that God is cheating us in a stupid way.

Personally I'd rather be adopted. Since it would mean that I was picked instead of randomly produced.

I have a hunch that the unknown sequences of DNA will decode into copyright notices and patent protections.

I think scientists should stop wasting valuable resources trying to cure cancer and focus on more important issues, like keeping me from drooling in my sleep.

Saying that we should circumcise babies to protect them from HIV makes as much sense as saying we should give mastectomies to all young women to protect them from breast cancer.

Make no doubt, we have the finest medical/patent science system in the United State of America that human greed can fashion.

Support bacteria, it's the only culture some people have.

It is not a simple life to be a single cell, although I have no right to say so, having been a single cell so long ago myself that I have no memory at all of that stage of my life.

Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.

A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.

Soon it will be a sin for parents to have a child which carries the heavy burden of genetic disease.

Staph only.

I am not a medical practitioner, but i do distribute rohypnol to coeds on occasion.

That's the problem with nature. Something's always stinging you or oozing mucus on you. Let's go watch TV.

A polar bear is a rectangular bear after a coordinate transform.

Polaroids /nm./: what polar bears get from sitting on ice caps.

Campaigns to bearproof all garbage containers in wild areas have been difficult because, as one biologist put it, 'There is a considerable overlap between the intelligence levels of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists'.

The human body was designed by a civil engineer. Who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area?

An elephant is a mouse, built to government specifications.

I think animal testing is a terrible idea; they get all nervous and give the wrong answers.

I sleep better at night knowing that scientists can clone sheep.

Already for thirty-five years he had not stopped talking and almost nothing of fundamental value had emerged.

Along with many scientists he considered the discovery of psychedelics one of the three major scientific breakthroughs of the twentieth century, the other two being the splitting of the atom and the manipulation of genetic structures.

There are more microbes per person than the entire population of the world. Imagine that. Per person. This means that if the time scale is diminished in proportion to that of space it would be quite possible for the whole story of Greece and Rome to be played out between farts.

Medical scientists are nice people, but you should not let them treat you.

Life exists in the universe only because the carbon atom possesses certain exceptional properties.

Water is H2O, hydrogen two parts, oxygen one, but there is also a third thing, that makes it water and nobody knows what that is.

It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast.

There are no such things as applied sciences, only applications of science.

You are 87% water; the other 13% keeps you from drowning.

Imagine a survivor of a failed civilization with only a tattered book on aromatherapy for guidance in arresting a cholera epidemic. Yet, such a book would more likely be found amid the debris than a comprehensible medical text.

We've made great medical progress in the last generation. What used to be merely an itch is now an allergy.

Why is it that doctors call what they do 'practice'?

Measure twice, cut once... and apply a firm pressure to stop the bleeding until the paramedics arrive.

Organic life, we are told, has developed gradually from the protozoon to the philosopher, and this development, we are assured, is indubitably an advance. Unfortunately it is the philosopher, not the protozoon, who gives us this assurance.

Medicine, the only profession that labors incessantly to destroy the reason for its own existence.

My parents went to Zaire and all I got was this damn retrovirus...

One of the chief triumphs of modern mathematics consists in having discovered what mathematics really is.

The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the bonds of Hell.

Math illiteracy strikes 8 out of 5 people.

Dear algebra: stop asking us to find your X: he's not coming back.

Life is good for only two things, discovering mathematics and teaching mathematics.

Arithmetic is being able to count up to twenty without taking off your shoes.

Algebra: A weapon of math destruction.

Q: Why couldn't Pythagoras get a car loan? A: He couldn't find anyone to cosine!

God is real, unless declared integer.

I don't like numbers that can't be written as a fraction. It's an irrational fear.

The above proposition is occasionally useful.

Biology is really chemistry.Chemistry is really physics.Physics is really math.And math is really hard.

According to my calculations, this problem doesn't exist.

Belief is no substitute for arithmetic.

I never could make out what those damned dots meant.

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.

I'd like a large order of FiboNachos.Okay sir, that'll cost as much as a small order and a medium order combined.

Möbius strippers never show you their backsides.

Why did the Chicken Cross the Mobius strip?To get to the same side.

All over China, parents tell their children to stop complaining and to finish their quadratic equations and trigonometric functions because there are sixty-five million American kids going to bed with no math at all.

The creator of the universe works in mysterious ways. But he uses a base ten counting system and likes round numbers.

What's it going to take for mathematicians to get some mainstream coverage? A sex scandal?

My math teacher staples burger king applications to failed tests.

Gentlemen, e^(i*pi) + 1 = 0 is surely true, it is absolutely paradoxical; we cannot understand it, and we don't know what it means. But we have proved it, and therefore we know it must be truth.

Which University department is second-cheapest to run? Mathematics

Alcohol and calculus don't mix. Never drink and derive.

The mathematician has reached the highest rung on the ladder of human thought.

I think sex is better than logic, but I can't prove it.

One has to be able to count, if only so that at fifty one doesn't marry a girl of twenty.

One geometry cannot be more true than another; it can only be more convenient. Geometry is not true, it is advantageous.

A physicist is someone who averages the first 3 terms of a divergent series...

I love only nature, and I hate mathematicians.

Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.

I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe

The whole is more than the sum of the parts.

I knew a mathematician who said 'I do not know as much as God. But I know as much as God knew at my age'.

Round numbers are always false.

Math is to physics like masturbation is to sex.

No, it is a very interesting number, it is the smallest number expressible as a sum of two cubes in two different ways.

Circle: A line that meets its other end without ending.

Do you like mathematics? If you do, then stand up, subtract your clothing, add a bed, divide your legs and let's multiply!

A sine curve goes off to infinity, or at least the end of the blackboard.

Mathematicians do it in theory.Mathematicians take it to the limit.

Engineers think that equations approximate the real world.Scientists think that the real world approximates equations.Mathematicians are unable to make the connection.

Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin.

You aren't a real engineer until you make one $50000 mistake.

The optimist says the glass is half full, the pessimist say the glass is half empty, the engineer says the glass is too large, the optometrist says the glasses are half-price and the thirsty guy says: 'Hey, who drank my water?'

Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.

It is rare to find learned men who are clean, do not stink and have a sense of humour.

The reason that every major university maintains a department of mathematics is that it's cheaper than institutionalizing all those people.

It was mentioned on CNN that the new prime number discovered recently is four times bigger than the previous record.

Algoreithm /n/ a computational procedure whereby a majority is made equivalent to a minority by factoring in nine.

Q: Do you know what is the square root of 69? A: Ate something (8.xxxxxxx....)

There are 3 kinds of people: those who can count and those who can't.

Chess is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever when they are only wasting their time.

The number you have dialed is imaginary. Rotate phone 90 degrees and try again.

Sobriété, rigueur et exactitude sont les trois mamelles des mathématiques.

The average human has about one breast and one testicle.

There are two popes per square kilometer in Vatican.

Most people have more than the average number of legs.

Chance is the pseudonym God uses when He'd rather not sign His own name.

Statistics: The only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions.

The probability of the bread falling buttered side down is directly proportional to the price of the carpet.

97.25% of statistics are wrong.

If you place a statistician's head in ice and his feet in boiling water, then on the average he is quite comfortable (but his comfort has a large variance).

Surveys are lies compounded by statistics.

96.37% of the people who use statistics in arguments make them up.

Medical statistics are a little bit like a bikini: what they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts

Law of Probability Dispersal: Whatever it is that hits the fan will not be evenly distributed.

Statistics are no substitute for judgment.

All generalizations are false, including this one.

Statisticians do it with 95% confidence.

You cannot feed the hungry on statistics.

Statistics will prove anything, even the truth.

I am one of the unpraised, unrewarded millions without whom Statistics would be a bankrupt science. It is we who are born, who marry, who die, in constant ratios.

A single death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic.

It is bad luck to be superstitious.

Anybody can win, unless there happens to be a second entry.

I feel like a fugitive from the law of averages.

It is now proved beyond doubt that smoking is one of leading causes of statistics.

There are two kinds of statistics, the kind you look up and the kind you make up.

I gather, young man, that you wish to be a Member of Parliament. The first lesson that you must learn is, when I call for statistics about the rate of infant mortality, what I want is proof that fewer babies died when I was Prime Minister than when anyone else was Prime Minister. That is a political statistic.

There was the high-ranking officer in WWII who spent months counting all the bullet holes on the returning bombers, then did a big presentation on how those areas should have armor added. At the end of his presentation a lower-ranking officer asked 'Shouldn't we, instead, add more armor to those areas that are only lightly holed? After all, this sample represents only the planes that came back'.

Depend on the rabbit's foot if you will, but remember, it didn't work for the rabbit!

Statistics: on average, not very useful.

Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.

Entropy isn't what it used to be.

Things get worse under pressure.

The three laws of thermodynamics: (1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.

Any inanimate object, regardless of its composition or configuration, may be expected to perform at any time in a totally unexpected manner for reasons that are either totally obscure or completely mysterious.

Numbers written on restaurant bills within the confines of restaurants do not follow the same mathematical laws as numbers written on any other pieces of paper in any other parts of the Universe.

WARNING: Do not look into laser with remaining eye!

We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.

The future, according to some scientists, will be exactly like the past, only more expensive.

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.

A corollary of Finagle's law, normally taking the form Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

If you have a difficult task, give it to a lazy person; they will find an easier way to do it.

In order for something to become clean, something else must become dirty.

If you cannot measure, then your knowledge is meager and unsatisfactory.

What you cannot measure doesn't exist.

What hasn't been tested doesn't work.

The percentage of working hardware in the world is constant.

A person who lives in luxury and has clearly spent a lot of money must obviously have sufficient income to pay as tax. Alternatively, a person who lives frugally and shows no sign of being wealthy must have substantial savings and can therefore afford to pay it as tax.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

No scientific discovery, not even Stigler's law, is named after its original discoverer.

When a body is immersed in water

Be an optimist, at least until they start moving animals in pairs to Cape Kennedy.

The Union of Concerned Scientists says the Bush administration manipulates and suppresses science. The administration points out that the Union of Bought and Paid for Scientists disagrees.

Enough research will tend to support your theory.

I just got lost in thought. It was unfamiliar territory.

It always takes longer than you think even when you take Hofstadter's Law into account.

Nothing is so simple that it cannot be misunderstood.

Anything that happens enough times to irritate you will happen at least once more.

Art is 'I'; science is 'we'.

Just because you can't understand something, it doesn't mean that it's wrong.

I can't understand it. I can't even understand the people who can understand it.

When you are a student, it's called plagiarism; when you are a professor, it's called scholarship.

Research is the transformation of money to knowledge. Innovation is the transformation of knowledge to money.

Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low.

The usual rejoinder to someone who says 'They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Galileo' is to say 'But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown'.

Science is merely an extremely powerful method of winnowing what's true from what feels good.

Of course there is learning without teaching. It's just commonly referred to by another name: science.

When something is used to its full potential it will break.

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is.

Grantarctica /n./ The cold, isolated place where scientists without funding dwell.

The Science Graduate asks How does it work?The Economics Graduate asks How much does it cost?The Engineering Graduate asks How can we make it?The Liberal Arts Graduate asks Do you want fries with that?

An engineer makes a $500 item with $50 worth of parts. A designer then adds $450 worth of crap.

There are many questions which fools can ask that wise men cannot answer.

The 2 most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.

If Einstein was so smart how come people only call you 'Einstein' when you do something really stupid?

Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live in the real world.

No one wants to learn from mistakes, but we cannot learn enough from successes to go beyond the state of the art.

Science is a good thing. News reporters are good things too. But it's never a good idea to put them in the same room.

The best substitute for brains is silence.

The country is accustomed to having foreign workers come here for unpleasant, low-paying jobs such as fruit picking. Why shouldn't engineering go the same way?

We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

Better to understand a little than to misunderstand a lot.

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

The gene pool could use a little chlorine.

The problem with the gene pool is that there is no life guard.

Neurotics build dream castles, psychotics live in them and psychiatrists collect the rent.

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

Very few people do anything creative after the age of thirty-five. The reason is that very few people do anything creative before the age of thirty-five.

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' ('I found it!') but rather 'hmm....that's funny...'

Science seldom renders men amiable; women, never.

Private practice and marriage

A first-rate laboratory is one in which mediocre scientists can produce outstanding work.

That is the essence of science: ask an impertinent question, and you are on the way to the pertinent answer.

No one should approach the temple of science with the soul of a money changer.

Mystics always hope that science will some day overtake them.

Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don't know.

The term Science should not be given to anything but the aggregate of the recipes that are always successful. All the rest is literature.

It is, of course, a bit of a drawback that science was invented after I left school.

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

When, however, the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists and supports that idea with great fervor and emotion

Science is always wrong. It never solves a problem without creating ten more.

Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.

Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.

But in science the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurs.

Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce.

Science may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification.

Should we force science down the throats of those that have no taste for it? Is it our duty to drag them kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century? I am afraid that it is.

The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.

What is the use of a new-born child?

If A equals success, then the formula is: A = X+Y+Z. X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut.

The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.

The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.

If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.

Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined.

The function of an expert is not to be more right than other people, but to be wrong for more sophisticated reasons.

An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field.

An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less.

Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists?

The Sept. 11 attacks of 2001 left a lingering psychological impact on the nation....

There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking.

Theft from a single author is plagiarism

For the scientific acquisition of knowledge is almost as tedious as the routine acquisition of wealth.

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.

Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think.

It is not so much that I have confidence in scientists being right, but that I have so much in nonscientists being wrong.

You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.

Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it.

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.

The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.

As far as I'm concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue.

The function of genius is not to give new answers, but to pose new questions which time and mediocrity can resolve.

You know Einstein got really terrible grades? Well, mine are even worse!

You know how people are. They only recognize greatness when some authority confirms it.

Some scholars are like donkeys, they merely carry a lot of books.

I've always wanted to be a scientist. That way, I could get a bunch of grants and do research into whether money can really buy happiness.

No problem is so formidable that you can't walk away from it.

A good catchword can obscure analysis for fifty years.

Everybody is talking about the weather but nobody does anything about it.

An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't.

We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.

Thus the metric system did not really catch on in the States, unless you count the increasing popularity of the 9mm bullet.

If God had wanted us to use the metric system, Jesus would have had 10 apostles.

If God wanted us to use the metric system, he would have given us 10 fingers and toes.

The most dangerous thing in the world is to try to leap a chasm in two jumps.

It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.

One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.

In science, read, by preference, the newest works; in literature the oldest.

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent full of doubt.

We have stopped believing in progress. What progress that is!

I once cheated on a metaphysics exam. I looked deep into the soul of the student beside me.

All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.

The important thing is not to stop questioning.

Science sans conscience n'est que ruine de l'âme.

Conclusion /nm./: the place where you got tired of thinking.