"Unknown quantity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... unconscious of the fact that the eyes of many of the students were fixed upon him with keen observation. The self-contained young professor was as much an unknown quantity as any he asked them to find in the recitation-room. They were baffled by the impersonal attitude he had brought from the university, where the individual counted for little, and were inclined to attribute it to a disposition to be severe ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... it is an unknown quantity here, as we in Australia understand it. These people simply squat down wherever they can find a natural catchment for water. There is no clearing to be done, as the land is quite devoid of timber. They put nigger labour on, and build a farmhouse. ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... at the time of its upper or lower culmination, it would give the true meridian at once, but this involves a knowledge of the true local time of transit, or the longitude of the place of observation, which is generally an unknown quantity; and moreover, as the star is then moving east or west, or at right angles to the place of the meridian, at the rate of 15 of arc in about one hour, an error of so slight a quantity as only four seconds ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... contended that out of four million children of school age only one-half were receiving instruction, whilst not more than one-eighth were attending schools which were subject to inspection. The vast majority were to be found in schools where the standard of education, if not altogether an unknown quantity, was deplorably low. He proposed that the number of inspectors should be increased, and that a rate should be levied by the local authorities for supplying adequate instruction in places where it was unsatisfactory. He contended ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... native with his omnipotence and magic. This system of the application of political science as well as of military science, of course, was sound, save for a temperamental error: the lack of sufficient imagination to realize the unknown quantity of chance, the inevitable mistake of military scientists who are loath to admit the artist to their counsels, exemplified by men of genius, such as Napoleon and Leonardo da Vinci, who were both mathematicians ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... I can make out," he replied smoothly, "YOUR brother has fallen under the sway of a pair of great dark eyes, two pink cheeks, and an unknown quantity of curly hair, all of which in its entirety is his namesake, is lonesome, and is in ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... detain her. Even now he was far more concerned about himself and the business of his mission than he was for the women in his charge. He was much afraid, however, of the horseman's visible gun. He was not at all a person of courage, and the man before him presented such an unknown quantity that he found himself more or less helpless. At most he could merely attempt ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... word as nearly as possible synonymous. Now, in the case of a child, it is at least an even chance that that other word is just as unknown as the one it is intended to explain. It is like, in algebra, solving an equation with two unknown quantities, by giving the value of one unknown quantity in terms of the other. A child, for instance, is told that "potent" means "efficacious," that "power" means "ability," that "potion" means a "physical draught," that "potential" means "existing in possibility, not in act." These are definitions taken at random from a ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... very scarce; and there is no other alternative but for the family to move on. Transportation is by means of sledges drawn by a team of dogs. Alcoholic drinks are not known among this tribe; but, of late, tobacco is extensively used. Previous to 1902, before the arrival of the Danes, tobacco was an unknown quantity. ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... my companion suggested, "that our unknown quantity not only knew that the dog was blind, but also knew that I was coming or had arrived, and would probably experiment on the beast. It argues a very terrible urgency that the animal disappeared within an hour or two of my arrival. From all ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... closely to it in "Fanshawe." There is some dark secret between the two villains of the piece, which he leaves to the reader as an exercise for the imagination. This is a characteristic of all his longer stories. There is an unknown quantity, an insoluble point, in them, ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... more menacingly he went out of his way to meet them, the greater would be his advantage. If Matthews were another Hickok the situation would have been vastly different. If there were any real fighting men on Hardman's side Pan would recognize them in a single glance. He was an unknown quantity to them, that most irritating of newcomers to a wild place, the man ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... viewed as a hammer; when he wishes to place his paper on the ground, it becomes a weight; when he is threatened by the strange dog, it becomes a weapon of defence. In like manner the sign x suggests an unknown quantity in relation to the algebraic problem; in relation to phonics it is a double sound; in relation to numeration, the number ten. It is evident that in all these cases, what determines the meaning given to the presented object is the need, or problem, that is at the moment ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education
... money lost may not have been great, but it had the irritating feature of being an unknown quantity and the additional vague risk of making all his winter work fruitless. It is useless to set traps if some one else is to follow around and rob them. So that night he told his wife the whole story. Discuss it as they would, there was no ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... them? Had they been able to hold their own between the enemy and the coast? What had happened to the Philippines and to Hawaii? Where was the fleet? None of these questions could be answered, simply because all telegraphic connection was cut off. The strength of the enemy was an absolutely unknown quantity, unless one cared to rely on the figures found in the ordinary military statistics, which had probably been doctored by the Japanese. Was this the Japanese army at all? Was it an invading force? Could such a force have pushed ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... complication. Had Mrs. Savareen been a student of Moliere, the fitting reply to such a question under such circumstances would doubtless have risen to her lips. But I shrewdly suspect that she had never heard of the famous Frenchman, whose works were probably an unknown quantity in Millbrook in those days. After a momentary hesitation she fenced with the question, and put one in ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... living (in a large measure) an artificial life. In his barbaric state man obeyed the calls of nature without regard to time or place, and it is safe to assert that under those conditions an obstructed colon was an unknown quantity. But in deference to the demands of civilized life we disregard Nature's calls and defer the response until a convenient opportunity presents itself, and for this violation of natural ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... solution of the impasse, the one thing he could not do was retreat. We were fewer in number, but much better armed than the gipsy party, so that it was unlikely they would rally to their man's aid. Kagig was an unknown quantity, but except that his black eyes glittered rather more brightly than usual he made no sign; and we kept quiet because we did not want to start a free-for-all fight. Will was quite able to take care of any single opponent, and would ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... common. One great cultural value the professional quartet has for the musical community is the fact that it gives a large circle a measure of acquaintance with the mode of thought and style of composers whose symphonic and larger works are often an unknown quantity. This applies to Debussy, Reger, the modern Russians, Bloch and others. When we played the Stravinsky pieces here, for instance, his Petrouschka and Firebird had not ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... her emotions, whether anger or shame shook her, or whether she gave way to desperate longings for the sound of Stephen Bocqueraz's voice, and the touch of his hand again, she was equally miserable. Perhaps the need of him brought the keenest pang, but, after all, love with Susan was still the unknown quantity, she was too closely concerned with actual discomforts to be able to afford the necessary hours and leisure for brooding over a disappointment in love. That pain came only at intervals,—a voice, overheard in the street, would make her feel cold and weak with sudden memory, a poem or a bit ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... and may, if you choose, play havoc with the priceless gift God baa bestowed upon each one of you. I only desire to impress upon you all, with the utmost earnestness, that it is idle to say among yourselves 'We have no souls,' or 'The soul is an unknown quantity and cannot be proved.' The soul is as and actual a part of you as the main artery is of the body,—and that you cannot see it, touch it, or put it under the surgeon's dissecting knife is no proof that it is not ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... away thin and oily, it is probably good. Of course the oiliest of oils are animal fats, good lard, and genuine sperm; but they work down very thin and run away, and genuine sperm oil is almost an unknown quantity. Lard can be obtained at every farmhouse, and may be used, if necessary, ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... town of their origin. But the circumstances that surrounded the Elisabethgrad outbreak were of a specific character. It took place one month after the assassination of the Czar, Alexander II. The actual size and influence of the "underground" revolutionary organization being an unknown quantity, St. ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... Christian faith. His friend Clark, whom he consulted in the matter, strongly urged him to decide in favour of the latter alternative. His speculative and literary faculties, he urged, had already been tested with brilliant results; his powers as a preacher, on the other hand, were as yet an unknown quantity, and Clark thought it doubtful if they would be appreciated by an average congregation. The struggle was severe while it lasted, but it ended in Cairns deciding to go on to the ministry in the ordinary way. In November 1844 be applied to the Edinburgh Presbytery ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... of the spot, he lingered some time. Nature's charm was almost an unknown quantity to him, but it held him in close bonds to-night. After a while, as it darkened, he rose from the fallen log upon which he had been sitting, and began to follow the little stream, still wrapped in far-away thoughts. The twilight had settled into a night that was moonless, but ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... it's intended to help things in that direction. Unfortunately, you see, there's still a factor—what we call an unknown quantity——" He lapsed into technical explanations. The other listened for a while ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... unknown amount—an unknown quantity of doubloons. And perhaps we are fated never to know the amount of the pirate's hoard," and she laughed again. Then, suddenly, she clutched his arm more tightly as they paced the deck together, crying under her breath: "Oh! ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... to us stupid boys?" "Yes, Charles, and how Samuel Pomuchelskopp used to get behind the stove and snore till he nearly took the roof off, while we were learning the three R's. Don't you remember when we got to the rule of three in our sums, and tried to get the fourth unknown quantity? ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... together by "becoming in general." But of course I cannot stop there. What is not determinable is not representable: of "becoming in general" I have only a verbal knowledge. As the letter x designates a certain unknown quantity, whatever it may be, so my "becoming in general," always the same, symbolizes here a certain transition of which I have taken some snapshots; of the transition itself it teaches me nothing. Let me then concentrate myself wholly on the transition, ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... the Squire shaking his head dubiously, "but it seems to me a very fanciful scheme. Horses are good enough for me. I shouldn't like to trust myself to an unknown quantity like ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... place I saw that one of the animals ahead had stopped and was obstinately refusing to go forward again. I had a great fear it was Chinaman, the unknown quantity, but to my relief found it was my old friend 'Nobby' in obstinate mood. As he is very strong and fit the matter was soon adjusted with a little persuasion from Anton behind. Poor little Anton found it difficult to keep the pace with ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... tobacco and matches; for their kindness I gave the pretty lubras some tea and sugar. Our old Jimmy went up to them and shook hands, and they became great friends. These blacks could not comprehend where we could possibly have come from, Fowler's Bay being an unknown quantity to them. We had still a good day's stage before us to reach the Finniss, but at dusk we arrived, and were very kindly received and entertained by Mr. Coulthard, who was in charge. His father had been an unfortunate explorer, who ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... whether serious or superficial; the details and the particulars. When these have been carefully gathered, you classify them, and put them in their order and date. You thus know the victim, the crime, and the circumstances; it remains to find the third term of the problem, that is, x, the unknown quantity—the guilty party. The task is a difficult one, but not so difficult as is imagined. The object is to find a man whose guilt explains all the circumstances, all the details found—all, understand me. Find such a man, and it is ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... billion kWh; note - exports an unknown quantity to Georgia; includes exports to Nagorno-Karabakh region in ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... a nation, completely lost beyond the horizon of history. When we speak of the Vedic hymns as representing the religion, the thoughts and customs of India three thousand years ago, we cannot mean by India more than some unknown quantity of which the poets of the Veda are the only spokesmen left. When we now speak of India, we think of 250 millions, a sixth part of the whole human race, peopling the vast peninsula from the Himalayan mountains between the arms of the Indus ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... warily. "We sort of inclined to the opinion that either a railroad was being cut through the hills over to the north, or else there might be some sort of mining or quarrying being carried on there. I told Toby that while it was an unknown quantity to us now, the chances were in our scouting around while camping here for two weeks or more, we stood to learn just what caused that ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... consists in the solution of equations. The distinction between algebraical and arithmetical reasoning then lies mainly in the fact that the former is in a more condensed form than the latter; an unknown quantity being represented by a special symbol, and other symbols being used as a kind of shorthand for verbal expressions. This form of algebra was extensively studied in ancient Egypt; but, in accordance with the practical tendency of the Egyptian mind, the study consisted largely in the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... and debt being, as yet, unknown quantities to young Tom Verity, it followed that insomnia, with its thousand and one attendant miseries, was an unknown quantity likewise. Upon the eve of the stiffest competitive examination those, now outlived, years of tutelage had imposed on him, he could still tumble into bed secure of lapsing into unconsciousness as soon as his head fairly touched the pillow. Dreams might, and usually ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... had actually published a set of 'Pastorals' which had attracted some attention. He was already known to the literary set of London coffeehouses as a young man of keen wit and high promise, but to the reading public at large he was as yet an unknown quantity. With the appearance of the 'Essay', Pope not only sprang at once into the full light of publicity, but seized almost undisputed that position as the first of living English poets which he was to retain unchallenged till his death. Even after his death ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... not ostentatiously, avoided it, instead of laying himself out to make himself agreeable—though indications were not wanting that he could so make himself if he chose. For the second, the fact that he remained an unknown quantity was in his favour, if only that the unfamiliarity of reserve—mystery—never fails to appeal strongly to the minds ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... much of an unknown quantity. But that, Malone told himself with elation, was exactly what he was looking for. Could a sane telepath do what an insane one couldn't—and project thoughts, or at least ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the unknown quantity. Did you see that ship of his? Never saw anything more streamlined ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman
... all ideas of asking Link to intervene, and resolved to risk a personal interview with the tenant of the Jersey Street house. It would be time enough to invite Link's assistance, he thought, when Mrs. Bensusan—as yet an unknown quantity in the case—proved obstinate in replying ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... unknown quantity; a, the horses; b, the sheep; then per simple equations x, plus a, plus b, minus tods, plus sheepskins, equal one thousand—then minus sheep, plus horses, minus wool, plus tods, equal one million. Lastly, horses ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 13, No. 359, Saturday, March 7, 1829. • Various
... fluffy curls, and not to engage itself in abstruse problems. I don't advise you to worry yourself over this, unless you can turn it to some account. If the Hornet should ask you for an original example, you might begin: 'Let A represent a fountain pen, and B my schoolmate, C standing for an unknown quantity——'" ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... his vanity, his childish pleasure in his position and his cook, his vanity in his own smart appearance! It would be difficult to find words adequate for the scorn with which the Archdeacon regarded that elegant little man. Then Byle, the Precentor. He was, to some extent, an unknown quantity. His chief characteristic perhaps was his hatred of quarrels—he would say or do anything if only he might not be drawn into a "row." "Peace at any price" was his motto, and this, of course, as with the famous Vicar of Bray, involved a good deal of insincerity. The Archdeacon ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... straightforward. To begin with, I don't place you, Mr. Kirkwood. You are an unknown quantity, a new factor. Won't you please tell me what you are and.... Are you a ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... it in the following proportion; let Ac equal acting length of fork, and x the unknown quantity; 28:10.25 :: Ac:x; the answer will be the theoretical impulse radius. Having found the required radius we plant one jaw of our measuring instrument on the point of intersection of c c with k A or m A and ...
— An Analysis of the Lever Escapement • H. R. Playtner |
