Utilisateur:Malik2Mars/Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin

Citations

« The Scholar and the World », Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, American Scientist, vol. 31 nº 4, octobre 1943, p. . (lire en ligne)

Introduction to astronomy, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, éd. Prentice-Hall, 1954, chap. I., p. 1 (lire en ligne)

(en) The reward of the young scientist is the emotional thrill of being the first person in the history of the world to see something or understand something. Nothing can compare with that experience; it engenders what Thomas Huxley called the Divine Dipsomania. The reward of the old scientist is the sense of having seen a vague sketch grow into a masterly landscape. Not a finished picture, of course: a picture that is still growing in scope and detail with the application of new techniques and new skills. The old scientist cannot claim that the masterpiece is his own work. He may have roughed out part of the design, laid on a few strokes, but he has learned to accept the discoveries of others with the same delight that he experienced for his own when he was young.

« Fifty years of novae », Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, Astronomical Journal, vol. 82 nº 9, septembre 1977, p. 665 (lire en ligne)

(en) I knew, as I had always known, that I wanted to be a scientist. I resolved to concentrate on the studies that would help me to reach that goal.[…] My forbears had been historians, not scientists, and though we had thousands of books, few were devoted to science. At last I found two that helped to fill the void. One was an old treatise on botany, using the Linnean System of classification, with text in German and French. The other was Newton's Principia. With the aid of a dictionary I laboriously translated the botany into English, under the impression that its contents were up-to-date, and I absorbed the Propositions of the Principia, though of course I could not follow the proofs. Here were beliefs that I could accept whole-heartedly. Two other groups of books offered some help. One was the works of Emmanuel Swedenborg, especially the volume entitled Chemistry, Physics, Philosophy, which gave me a mystical view of Science that I never lost. The other was the collected essays of Thomas Huxley, a complimentary copy (sent to my Father?), decidedly out of place dans cette galère. Huxley quickly became one of my idols. I still read his essays periodically. If I learned to develop the spirit of a scientist, it is largely due to his influence.

(en) « The dyer's hand: an autobiography » (1979), dans Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin : an autobiography and other recollections, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin et Katherine Haramundanis (ed.), éd. Cambridge University Press, 1996 (ISBN 0-521-48390-5), partie I. The vision slendid, chap. 4. Birth of a dream, p. 98 (lire en ligne)

(en) An admission of ignorance may well be a step to a new discovery. To realize one's limitations marks the awakening of intellectual integrity, without which imagination, ingenuity and assiduity are barren. Why does a man want to be a scientist ? There are many goals: fame, position, a thirst for understanding. The first two can be attained without intellectual integrity; the third cannot. […] The thirst for knowledge, what Thomas Huxley called the 'Divine dipsomania' can only be satisfied by complete intellectual integrity. It seems to me the only one of the three goals that continues to reward the pursuer. He presses on, 'knowing that Nature never did betray the heart that loved her'^[1]. Here is another kind of love, that has so many faces. Love is neither passion, nor pride, nor pity, nor blind adoration, but it can be any or all of these if they are transfigured by deep and unbiased understanding.

(en) « The dyer's hand: an autobiography » (1979), dans Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin : an autobiography and other recollections, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin et Katherine Haramundanis (ed.), éd. Cambridge University Press, 1996 (ISBN 0-521-48390-5), partie I. The vision slendid, chap. 7. Pathway to the stars, p. 123 (lire en ligne)

(en) I had given in to Authority when I believed I was right. That is another example of How Not To Do Research. I note it here as a warning to the young. If you are sure of your facts, you should defend your position.

(en) « The dyer's hand: an autobiography » (1979), dans Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin : an autobiography and other recollections, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin et Katherine Haramundanis (ed.), éd. Cambridge University Press, 1996 (ISBN 0-521-48390-5), partie II. The light of common day, chap. 13. Spectra and luminosities, p. 169 (lire en ligne)

(en) Young people, especially young women, often ask me for advice. Here it is, valeat quantum. Do not undertake a scientific career in quest of fame or money. There are easier and better ways to reach them. Undertake it only if nothing else will satisfy you; for nothing else is probably what you will receive. Your reward will be the widening of the horizon as you climb. And if you achieve that reward you will ask no other.

(en) « The dyer's hand: an autobiography » (1979), dans Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin : an autobiography and other recollections, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin et Katherine Haramundanis (ed.), éd. Cambridge University Press, 1996 (ISBN 0-521-48390-5), partie IV. Reflections, chap. 22. On being a woman, p. 227 (lire en ligne)

(en) We spend our lives in trying to overthrow obsolete ideas and to replace them with something that represents Nature better. There is no joy more intense than that of coming upon a fact that cannot be understood in terms of currently accepted ideas. No excitement is comparable to that of devising, or learning of, a new theory. Einstein remarks somewhere that the finest fate for a scientific theory is to pave the way for a completer one, in which it survives as a special case. But every new fact must come under merciless scrutiny, every step in reasoning under meticulous criticism. Only those who have shared in this activity can understand the joy of it. Science is a living thing, not a dead dogma. It follows that no idea should be suppressed. That I totally disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it, must be our underlying principle. And it applies to ideas that look like nonsense. We must not forget that some of the best ideas seemed like nonsense at first. The truth will prevail in the end. Nonsense will fall of its own weight, by a sort of intellectual law of gravitation. If we bat it about, we shall only keep an error in the air a little longer. And a new truth will go into orbit.

(en) « The dyer's hand: an autobiography » (1979), dans Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin : an autobiography and other recollections, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin et Katherine Haramundanis (ed.), éd. Cambridge University Press, 1996 (ISBN 0-521-48390-5), partie IV. Reflections, chap. 23. Science and myth, p. 232-233 (lire en ligne)

(en) « The dyer's hand: an autobiography » (1979), dans Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin : an autobiography and other recollections, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin et Katherine Haramundanis (ed.), éd. Cambridge University Press, 1996 (ISBN 0-521-48390-5), partie IV. Reflections, chap. 24. Worlds not realized, p. 237-238 (lire en ligne)

↑ ^1,0 et ^1,1 « Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey », de William Wordsworth, Lyrical Ballads, 1798 (lire sur Wikisource).

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