When you can measure what you are speaking about

I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be.

From the Lecture Popular Lectures, “Electrical Units of Measurement”, 3 May 1883

Tags:

No. 286