William Thomson

Also known as William Thompson, G. Thomson, Guglielmo Thomson

English physician and geologist

Top works

Thomson's dictionary of banking
Mammuth, or Human nature displayed on a grand scale
Sermons preached in Lincoln's Inn Chapel
Memoirs of the life and gallant exploits of the old Highlander
An CVIII years of the life, and a relation of the gallant exploits of the Old Highlander, Serjeant Donald Macleod

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5 total works indexed

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“I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be.”
“Quaternions came from Hamilton after his really good work had been done, and though beautifully ingenious, have been an unmixed evil to those who have touched them in any way.”
“I am afraid I am not in the flight for “aerial navigation”. I was greatly interested in your work with kites; but I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning or of expectation of good results from any of the trials we hear of. So you will understand that I would not care to be a member of the aëronautical Society.”
“Symmetrical equations are good in their place, but 'vector' is a useless survival, or offshoot from quaternions, and has never been of the slightest use to any creature.”
“Mathematics is the only true metaphysics.”
“Do not imagine that mathematics is hard and crabbed, and repulsive to common sense. It is merely the etherealization of common sense.”