The Plain Fact Is That There Are

Sciences Usually Advances By A Succession Of Small Steps, Through A Fog In Which Even The Most Keen-sighted Explorer Can Seldom See More Than A Few Paces Ahead. Occasionally The Fog Lifts, An Eminence Is Gained, And A Wider Stretch Of Territory Can Be Surveyed-sometimes With Startling Results. A Whole Science May Then Seem To Undergo A Kaleidoscopic Rearrangement, Fragments Of Knowledge Sometimes Being Found To Fit Together In A Hitherto Unsuspected Manner. Sometimes The Shock Of Readjustment May Spread To Other Sciences; Sometimes It May Divert The Whole Current Of Human Thought.

The Motion Of The Stars Over Our Heads Is As Much An Illusion As That Of The Cows, Trees And Churches That Flash Past The Windows Of Our Train.

Science Should Leave Off Making Pronouncements: The River Of Knowledge Has Too Often Turned Back On Itself.

We May As Well Cut Out Group Theory. That Is A Subject That Will Never Be Of Any Use In Physics.

The Essential Fact Is That All The Pictures Which Science Now Draws Of Nature, And Which Alone Seem Capable Of According With Observational Facts, Are Mathematical Pictures.