Wilhelm Ostwald
He made significant contributions to catalysis, chemical equilibria, and reaction velocities, winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Most quoted
"All scientific work is incomplete — whether it be observational or experimental. All scientific work is liable to be upset or modified by advancing knowledge. That does not confer upon us a freedom to ignore the knowledge we already have, or to postpone the action that it appears to demand at a given time."
— from Essays
"The true method of discovery is like the flight of an aeroplane. It starts from the ground of particular observation; it makes a flight in the thin air of imaginative generalization; and it again lands for renewed observation rendered acute by rational interpretation."
— from The Philosophy of Science
"The laws of thermodynamics control, in the last resort, the rise and fall of political systems, the freedom or bondage of nations, the movements of commerce and industry, the origins of wealth and poverty, and the general physical welfare of the human race."
— from Der energetische Imperativ, 1912
All quotes by Wilhelm Ostwald (387)
The progress of chemistry is measured by the increasing number of industries it creates.
The color of a substance is one of its most characteristic properties and often a guide to its constitution.
The time is not far distant when we shall be able to predict the properties of a compound from its chemical formula.
The aim of education should be to teach us how to think, not what to think.
The greatest discoveries are often those which seem most obvious after they have been made.
The laws of thermodynamics control, in the last resort, the rise and fall of political systems, the freedom or bondage of nations, the movements of commerce and industry, the origins of wealth and poverty, and the general physical welfare of the human race.
The future will judge our present scientific theories not by their truth, but by their usefulness in leading to better ones.
Contemporaries of Wilhelm Ostwald
Other Chemistrys born within 50 years of Wilhelm Ostwald (1853–1932).