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Quotes by Simon Newcomb

Simon Newcomb

“The demonstration that no possible combination of known substances, known forms of machinery and known forms of force, can be united in a practical machine by which men shall fly along distances through the air, seems to the writer as complete as it is possible for the demonstration to be.”

Simon Newcomb

“Aerial flight is one of that class of problems with which men will never have to cope”

Simon Newcomb

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

Simon Newcomb

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

Simon Newcomb

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

One hardly knows where, in the history of science, to look for an important movement that had its effective start in so pure and simple an accident as that which led to the building of the great Washington telescope, and went on to the discovery of the satellites of Mars.

Simon Newcomb

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

Simon Newcomb

What we now call school training, the pursuit of fixed studies at stated hours under the constant guidance of a teacher, I could scarcely be said to have enjoyed.

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

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

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

Simon Newcomb