It's not observation but theory that led me to this result that experience has confirmed afterwards.

Ce n'est point l'observation mais la théorie qui m'a conduit à ce résultat que l'expérience a ensuite confirmé.

Original text (French)

Notes from Wikiquote

Explaining how he was led to discover the law characterizing interference fringes, in Œuvres complètes d'Augustin Fresnel (1866), p. 61 | "Google Translate" (2020·05·09)

More quotes by Augustin-Jean Fresnel

I find nothing so painful as having to lead men.

If we have sometimes gone astray in wanting to simplify the elements of a science, it is because we have established systems before having gathered a large number of facts.

In choosing a theory, one should pay attention to simplicity in hypotheses only. Simplicity in computation can be of no weight in the balance of probabilities. Nature is not embarrassed by difficulties of analysis. She avoids complication only in means. Nature seems to have proposed to do much with little: it is a principle that the development of physics constantly supports by new evidence.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Augustin-Jean Fresnel (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.

It's not observation but theory that led me to this result that experience has confirmed afterwards.

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