Millikan Quotes & Sayings

Indeed, nothing more beautifully simplifying has ever happened in the history of science than the whole series of discoveries culminating about 1914 which finally brought practically universal acceptance to the theory that the material world contains but two fundamental entities, namely, positive and negative electrons, exactly alike in charge, but differing widely in mass, the positive electron-now usually called a proton-being 1850 times heavier than the negative, now usually called simply the electron. — Robert Andrews Millikan

Civilization consists in the multiplication and refinement of human wants. — Robert Andrews Millikan

One of the chief inhibitions to human progress arises because of the extreme slowness with which the advances in knowledge become translated into action for the benefit of society as a whole. There is no step more important for the removal of that inhibition than that of providing for intimate contact between the leaders in the fields of pure and applied science. — Robert Andrews Millikan

There is no likelihood that man can ever tap the power of the atom — Robert Andrews Millikan

Willard Gibbs did for statistical mechanics and for thermodynamics what Laplace did for celestial mechanics and Maxwell did for electrodynamics, namely, made his field a well-nigh finished theoretical structure. — Robert Andrews Millikan

We have been forced to admit for the first time in history not only the possibility of the fact of the growth and decay of the elements of matter. With radium and with uranium we do not see anything but the decay. And yet, somewhere, somehow, it is almost certain that these elements must be continuously forming. They are probably being put together now in the laboratory of the stars ... Can we ever learn to control the process. Why not? Only research can tell. — Robert Andrews Millikan

The pathetic thing about it is that many scientists are trying to prove the doctrine of evolution, which no science can do. — Robert Andrews Millikan

Religion and science, then, in my analysis are the two great sister forces which have pulled, and are still pulling, mankind onward and upward. — Robert Andrews Millikan

There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom. The glib supposition of utilizing atomic energy when our coal has run out is a completely unscientific Utopian dream, a childish bug-a-boo. Nature has introduced a few fool-proof devices into the great majority of elements that constitute the bulk of the world, and they have no energy to give up in the process of disintegration. — Robert Andrews Millikan

The purpose of science is to develop, without prejudice or preconception of any kind, a knowledge of the facts, the laws, and the processes of nature. The even more important task of religion, on the other hand, is to develop the consciences, the ideals, and the aspirations of mankind. — Robert Andrews Millikan

I consider an intimate knowledge of the Bible an indispensable quality of a well educated man. — Robert Andrews Millikan

My idea of an educated person is one who can converse on one subject for more than two minutes. — Robert Andrews Millikan

To me it is unthinkable that a real atheist could be a scientist. — Robert Andrews Millikan

Perhaps the Mad Hatter had a reason for calling time Him. — Robert Andrews Millikan

The fact that Science walks forward on two feet, namely theory and experiment, is nowhere better illustrated than in the two fields for slight contributions to which you have done me the great honour of awarding the the Nobel Prize in Physics for the year 1923. Sometimes it is one foot that is put forward first, sometimes the other, but continuous progress is only made by the use of both - by theorizing and then testing, or by finding new relations in the process of experimenting and then bringing the theoretical foot up and pushing it on beyond, and so on in unending alterations. — Robert Andrews Millikan

Two erroneous impressions ... seem to be current among certain groups of uninformed persons. The first is that religion today stands for mediaeval theology; the second that science is materialistic and irreligious. — Robert Andrews Millikan

Fullness of knowledge always means some understanding of the depths of our ignorance; and that is always conducive to humility and reverence. — Robert Andrews Millikan

This much I can say with definiteness - namely, that there is no scientific basis for the denial of religion - nor is there in my judgment any excuse for a conflict between science and religion, for their fields are entirely different. Men who know very little of science and men who know very little of religion do indeed get to quarreling, and the onlookers imagine that there is a conflict between science and religion, whereas the conflict is only between two different species of ignorance. — Robert Andrews Millikan

Science walks forward on two feet, namely theory and experiment. — Robert Andrews Millikan

Fullness of knowledge always and necessarily means some understanding of the depths of our ignorance, and that is always conducive to both humility and reverence. — Robert Andrews Millikan

The chemist in America has in general been content with what I have called a loafer electron theory. He has imagined the electrons sitting around on dry goods boxes at every corner [viz. the cubic atom], ready to shake hands with, or hold on to similar loafer electrons in other atoms. — Robert Andrews Millikan

Cultivate the habit of attention and try to gain opportunities to hear wise men and women talk. Indifference and inattention are the two most dangerous monsters that you ever meet. Interest and attention will insure to you an education. — Robert Andrews Millikan

Three ideas stand out above all others in the influence they have exerted and are destined to exert upon the development of the human race: The idea of the Golden Rule; the idea of natural law; the idea of age-long growth or evolution. — Robert Andrews Millikan

Just how we fit into the plans of the Great Architect and how much He has assigned us to do, we do not know, but if we fail in our assignment it is pretty certain that part of the job will be left undone. But fit in we certainly do somehow, else we would not have a sense of our own responsibility. A purely materialistic philosophy is to me the height of unintelligence. — Robert Andrews Millikan

I suspect that the changes that have taken place during the last century in the average man's fundamental beliefs, in his philosophy, in his concept of religion. in his whole world outlook, are greater than the changes that occurred during the preceding four thousand years all put together ... because of science and its applications to human life, for these have bloomed in my time as no one in history had had ever dreamed could be possible. — Robert Andrews Millikan

From that night on, the electron-up to that time largely the plaything of the scientist-had clearly entered the field as a potent agent in the supplying of man's commercial and industrial needs ... The electronic amplifier tube now underlies the whole art of communications, and this in turn is at least in part what has made possible its application to a dozen other arts. It was a great day for both science and industry when they became wedded through the development of the electronic amplifier tube. — Robert Andrews Millikan

Around the lab I heard that publicity was measured in an absolute unit, the "kan". That unit was too large for ordinary application and a practical unit one one-thousandth of the size served in its place, the "millikan". — Luis W. Alvarez