Favorite Maxwell Quotation

“I have no reason to believe that the human intellect is able to weave a system of physics out of its own resources without experimental labour. Whenever the attempt has been made it has resulted in an unnatural and self-contradictory mass of rubbish.” — James Clerk Maxwell

When string theoreticians say their “multiverse” requires us to relinquish experimentation and observation in favor of abstract aesthetics, I think of this quotation and laugh. The Siren song of mathematics has led more than a few onto the rocks of self-delusion.

The non-mathematical Faraday observed nature carefully and did experiments that showed Maxwell the correct path to understanding electricity and magnetism. Faraday led the way to field theory. There is an important lesson here.