Simon Newcomb quotes

Simon Newcomb was a Canadian-American mathematician and astronomer known for his contributions to celestial mechanics and mathematical astronomy. His extensive work on astronomical tables improved the accuracy of navigation and timekeeping. He also formulated Newcomb's law of logarithms, now commonly known as Benford's Law. Here are 35 of his quotes:

In 1858 I received the degree of D. S. from the Lawrence Scientific School, and thereafter remained on the rolls of the university as a resident graduate.

Simon Newcomb

As years passed away I have formed the habit of looking back upon that former self as upon another person, the remembrance of whose emotions has been a solace in adversity and added zest to the enjoyment of prosperity.

Simon Newcomb

My father was the most rational and the most dispassionate of men.

Simon Newcomb

Astronomers are greatly disappointed when, having traveled halfway around the world to see an eclipse, clouds prevent a sight of it; and yet a sense of relief accompanies the disappointment.

Simon Newcomb

The opinion is widely prevalent that even if the subjects are totally forgotten, a valuable mental discipline is acquired by the efforts made to master them. While the Conference admits that, considered in itself this discipline has a certain value, it feels that such a discipline is greatly inferior to that which may be gained by a different class of exercises, and bears the same relation to a really improving discipline that lifting exercises in an ill-ventilated room bear to games in the open air. The movements of a race horse afford a better model of improving exercise than those of the ox in a tread-mill.

Simon Newcomb

One of the most curious of these cases [geometrical paradoxers] was that of a student, I am not sure but a graduate, of the University of Virginia, who claimed that geometers were in error in assuming that a line had no thickness. He published a school geometry based on his views, which received the endorsement of a well-known New York school official and, on the basis of this, was actually endorsed, or came very near being endorsed, as a text-book hi the public schools of New York.

Simon Newcomb

Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible.

Simon Newcomb

So far as the economic condition of society and the general mode of living and thinking were concerned, I might claim to have lived in the time of the American Revolution.

Simon Newcomb

We are probably nearing the limit of all we can know about astronomy.

Simon Newcomb

In 1860 a total eclipse of the sun was visible in British America.

Simon Newcomb

Quite likely the twentieth century is destined to see the natural forces which will enable us to fly from continent to continent with a speed far exceeding that of a bird.

Simon Newcomb

The reports of the eclipse parties not only described the scientific observations in great detail, but also the travels and experiences, and were sometimes marked by a piquancy not common in official documents.

Simon Newcomb

Until I was four years old I lived in the house of my paternal grandfather, about two miles from the pretty little village of Wallace, at the mouth of the river of that name.

Simon Newcomb

The result was that, if it happened to clear off after a cloudy evening, I frequently arose from my bed at any hour of the night or morning and walked two miles to the observatory to make some observation included in the programme.

Simon Newcomb

My father followed, during most of his life, the precarious occupation of a country school teacher.

Simon Newcomb

I had not yet gotten into the world of light. But I felt as one who, standing outside, could knock against the wall and hear an answering knock from within.

Simon Newcomb

If my impressions are correct, our educational planing mill cuts down all the knots of genius, and reduces the best of the men who go through it to much the same standard.

Simon Newcomb

I finally reached the conclusion that mathematics was the study I was best fitted to follow, though I did not clearly see in what way I should turn the subject to account.

Simon Newcomb

When about fifteen I once made a great scandal by taking out my knife in prayer meeting and assaulting a young man who, while I was kneeling down during the prayer, stood above me and squeezed my neck.

Simon Newcomb

Though born in Nova Scotia, I am of almost pure New England descent.

Simon Newcomb

My first undertaking in the way of scientific experiment was in the field of economics and psychology.

Simon Newcomb

The time was not yet ripe for the growth of mathematical science among us, and any development that might have taken place in that direction was rudely stopped by the civil war.

Simon Newcomb