A Quote by Alan Turing

Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition.

Alan Turing

Quote Topics

Religion Science Boundary Condition Differential Equation

Quote Author

Alan Turing
English - Mathematician
June 23, 1912 - June 7, 1954

There's no doubt that scientific training helps many authors to write better science fiction. And yet, several of the very best were English majors who could not parse a differential equation to save their lives.

David Brin

It must be admitted that science has its castes. The man whose chief apparatus is the differential equation looks down upon one who uses a galvanometer, and he in turn upon those who putter about with sticky and smelly things in test tubes.

Gilbert Newton Lewis

How did Biot arrive at the partial differential equation? [the heat conduction equation] . . . Perhaps Laplace gave Biot the equation and left him to sink or swim for a few years in trying to derive it. That would have been merely an instance of the way great mathematicians since the very beginnings of mathematical research have effortlessly maintained their superiority over ordinary mortals.

Clifford Truesdell

In order to solve this differential equation you look at it until a solution occurs to you.

George Polya

The boundary condition of the universe is that it has no boundary.

Stephen Hawking

But my favorite of Einstein's words on religion is "Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind." I like this because both science and religion are needed to answer life's great questions.

Temple Grandin

One could say: "The boundary condition of the universe is that it has no boundary." The universe would be completely self-contained and not affected by anything outside itself. It would neither be created nor destroyed. It would just BE.

Stephen Hawking

Science is global. Einstein's equation, E=mc2, has to reach everywhere. Science is a beautiful gift to humanity, we should not distort it. Science does not differentiate between multiple races.

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

I don't think there's an interesting boundary between philosophy and science. Science is totally beholden to philosophy. There are philosophical assumptions in science and there's no way to get around that.

Sam Harris

When trying to teach someone a boundary, they learn less from the enforcement of the boundary and more from the way the boundary was established.

Bryant H. McGill

Science is like society and trade, in resting at bottom upon a basis of faith. There are some things here, too, that we can not prove, otherwise there would be nothing we can prove. Science is busy with the hither-end of things, not the thither-end. It is a mistake to contrast religion and science in this respect, and to think of religion as taking everything for granted, and science as doing only clean work, and having all the loose ends gathered up and tucked in. We never reach the roots of things in science more than in religion.

Charles Henry Parkhurst

Science has only two things to contribute to religion: an analysis of the evolutionary, cultural, and psychological basis for believing things that aren't true, and a scientific disproof of some of faith's claims (e.g., Adam and Eve, the Great Flood). Religion has nothing to contribute to science, and science is best off staying as far away from faith as possible. The "constructive dialogue" between science and faith is, in reality, a destructive monologue, with science making all the good points, tearing down religion in the process.

Jerry A. Coyne

There is no harmony between religion and science. When science was a child, religion sought to strangle it in the cradle. Now that science has attained its youth, and superstition is in its dotage, the trembling, palsied wreck says to the athlete: "Let us be friends."

Robert Green Ingersoll

Science without religion is dangerous because it necessarily entails a mechanization of humanity and consequent loss of individual autonomy and spirituality. On the other hand, religion without science is powerless because it lacks an effective means through which to actualize the ultimate reality. Science and religion must work together harmoniously.