Along with the Irishmen of his time, he was aware of the cultural unity of Europe. 與那個時代的愛爾蘭人一樣,他意識到歐洲文化的統一性。
Because of this underlying unity of physics, progress in one subfield usually illuminates other subfields as well. 由於物理學的這種根本上的統一性,在一個分支學科中取得的進展通常也會啟發其它分支學科。