C'est parce que la simplicite, parce que la grandeur est belle, que nous rechercherons de preference les faits simples et les faits grandioses, que nous nous complairons tantot a suivre la course gigantesque des astres, tantot a scruter avec le microscope cette prodigieuse petitesse qui est aussi une grandeur, tantot a rechercher dans les temps geologiques les traces d'un passe qui nous attire parce qu'il est lointain.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Poincare states that simplicity and greatness are beautiful, driving scientists to study vast celestial movements or minute particles and distant past.
- In plain terms
- Scientists seek simple and grand facts because they find beauty in them.
- What can you take from it?
- The pursuit of science is driven by an appreciation for the beautiful and the grand in nature.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Does beauty guide scientific discovery?
- Why do humans value simplicity in complex systems?
Another view
This view prioritizes aesthetic appeal over purely utilitarian or functional criteria in science.
More from Henri Poincare
Le savant n'etudie pas la nature parce que cela est utile; il l'etudie parce qu'il y prend plaisir et il y prend plaisir parce qu'elle est belle. Si la nature …
Permalink to quote #14 Le but principal de l'enseignement mathematique est de developper certaines facultes de l'esprit et parmi elles l'intuition n'est pas la moins precieuse. C'est…
Permalink to quote #16 La sociologie est la science qui possede le plus de methodes et le moins de resultats.
Permalink to quote #13
Related quotes
The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanations of complex facts. We are apt to fall into the error of thinking that the facts are simple because simpl…
Alfred North WhiteheadAlfred North Whitehead quote #4 The progress of science requires the growth of understanding in both directions, downward from the whole to the parts and upward from the parts to the whole. A…
Freeman DysonFreeman Dyson quote #6 The idealistic tinge in my conception of the physical world arose out of mathematical researches on the relativity theory. In so far as I had any earlier philo…
Arthur Stanley EddingtonArthur Stanley Eddington quote #9