Aller au contenu

Utilisateur:Malik2Mars/Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin

Une page de Wikiquote, le recueil des citations libres.

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin

Citations

[modifier]

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


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


  • « 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) One winter evening my Mother was wheeling me in my pram, and we saw a brilliant meteorite blaze across the sky above Boddington Wood. She told me what it was, and taught me the right name for it by making a little rhyme
    As we were walking home that night
    We saw a shining meteorite.
    It was my first encounter with astronomy.
  • (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. 2. Beginnings, p. 86 (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) At a very early age […] I made up my mind to do research, and was seized with panic at the thought that everything might be found out before I was old enough to begin !
  • (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. 114 (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) The young are in too great a hurry, too eager to be the first to get the credit for a new discovery, a new idea. […] Only gradually have I come to appreciate that « L'homme, c'est rien; l'œuvre, c'est tout ». I used to think : « This is my problem ». I guarded it jealously ; I snarled at anyone who dared to approach it. I have come to know that a problem does not belong to me, or to my team, or to my Observatory, or to my country; it belongs to the world. I should like to be remembered not for any observation, any idea, but for what I immodestly call « Payne-Gaposchkin's Principle », the criterion by which one's work should be examined. Am I thinking of myself, or of the advancement of knowledge ? Professional jealousies, struggles for priority, wither before that question.
  • (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. 12. Stellar atmospheres, p. 162 (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) It is true that we base our work on observed facts. If nothing were observed, there would be nothing to understand. But the facts are not the reality : that is something that lies beneath the facts and gives them coherence. If science, as I know it, can be described in a few words, it might be called a search for the Unseen
  • (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 (lire en ligne)


  • (en) Nature has always had a trick of surprising us, and she will continue to surprise us. But she has never let us down yet. We can go forward with confidence
    Knowing that Nature never did betray
    The heart that loved her.[1]
  • (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. 238 (lire en ligne)

Citations sur

[modifier]
  • (en) her famous book Stellar Atmospheres, for which she was awarded the degree of Ph.D. from Radcliffe College. It is undoubtedly the most brilliant Ph.D. thesis ever written in astronomy.


  • (en) throughout her life she realized that she was taking steps never before open to a woman, and accepted them as part of the difficulties of being first. As a pioneer, she suffered from many of the prejudices of her male colleagues. But she also must have recognized that her achievements not only advanced science, but also opened doors for succeeding generations of women astronomers.


Gracieuse et humble, pleine d'humour mais exigeante envers elle-même, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin aura fait preuve toute sa vie durant d'une grande ouverture d'esprit, combattant les idées reçues jusqu'à son décès […]. Son souhait le plus cher ? Que l'on se souvienne d'elle, non pour ses idées ou ses découvertes, mais pour ce qu'elle appelle le « principe de Payne-Gaposchkin » : un scientifique doit constamment se demander si ce qu'il recherche est son propre avancement ou celui de la Connaissance…


  • (en) She was also learning about ­things far beyond science. Pursuing the kind of study she wanted to do certainly would require intellectual integrity, but it also would require perseverance. She had to believe that pressing on would be rewarded, and that she would eventually uncover truths about the universe. For that kind of confidence, Cecilia turned not to science, but to poetry. When it got dark, she would recall the words of Words­worth : « Knowing that Nature never did betray / The heart that loved her[1]. »
  • What Stars Are Made Of : The Life of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, Donovan Moore, éd. Harvard University Press, 2020  (ISBN 9780674245242), partie II. Preparing. Cambridge, 1919–1923, chap. 10, p. 104 (lire en ligne)


Notes et références

[modifier]
  1. ↑ 1,0 1,1 et 1,2 « Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey », de William Wordsworth, Lyrical Ballads, (lire sur Wikisource).

Voir aussi

[modifier]

Vous pouvez également consulter les articles suivants sur les autres projets Wikimédia :

Récupérée de « https://fr.wikiquote.org/w/index.php?title=Utilisateur:Malik2Mars/Cecilia_Payne-Gaposchkin&oldid=406611 »