Atoms Quotes - Page 3

• That the universe was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, I will no more believe than that the accidental jumbling of the alphabet would fall into a most ingenious treatise of philosophy.

  Jonathan Swift

  Philosophy, Believe, Fall

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• Compare ... the various quantities of the same element contained in the molecule of the free substance and in those of all its different compounds and you will not be able to escape the following law: The different quantities of the same element contained in different molecules are all whole multiples of one and the same quantity, which always being entire, has the right to be called an atom.

  Stanislao Cannizzaro

  Science, Law, Molecules

  Stanislao Cannizzaro (1910). “Sketch of a Course of Chemical Philosophy”

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• By convention sweet is sweet, by convention bitter is bitter, by convention hot is hot, by convention cold is cold, by convention color is color. But in reality there are atoms and the void. That is, the objects of sense are supposed to be real and it is customary to regard them as such, but in truth they are not. Only the atoms and the void are real.

  Democritus

  Sweet, Truth, Real

  "Source Book in Ancient Philosophy". Book by Charles Montague Bakewell, 1907.

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• The question whether atoms exist or not... belongs rather to metaphysics. In chemistry we have only to decide whether the assumption of atoms is an hypothesis adapted to the explanation of chemical phenomena... whether a further development of the atomic hypothesis promises to advance our knowledge of the mechanism of chemical phenomena... I rather expect that we shall some day find, for what we now call atoms, a mathematico-mechanical explanation, which will render an account of atomic weight, of atomicity, and of numerous other properties of the so-called atoms.

  August Kekule

  Knowledge, Science, Promise

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• Why are atoms so small? ... Many examples have been devised to bring this fact home to an audience, none of them more impressive than the one used by Lord Kelvin: Suppose that you could mark the molecules in a glass of water, then pour the contents of the glass into the ocean and stir the latter thoroughly so as to distribute the marked molecules uniformly throughout the seven seas; if you then took a glass of water anywhere out of the ocean, you would find in it about a hundred of your marked molecules.

  Erwin Schrodinger

  Ocean, Home, Science

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• Although we know nothing of what an atom is, yet we cannot resist forming some idea of a small particle, which represents it to the mind ... there is an immensity of facts which justify us in believing that the atoms of matter are in some way endowed or associated with electrical powers, to which they owe their most striking qualities, and amongst them their mutual chemical affinity.

  Michael Faraday

  Believe, Science, Electrical Power

  Michael Faraday (1839). “Experimental Researches in Electricity: Series 1-14 [Phil. trans., 1831-38] 1839”, p.249

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• Atoms for peace. Man is still the greatest miracle and the greatest problem on earth. [Message tapped out by Sarnoff using a telegraph key in a tabletop circuit demonstrating an RCA atomic battery as a power source.]

  David Sarnoff

  Science, Men, Keys

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• [Decoding the human genome sequence] is the most significant undertaking that we have mounted so far in an organized way in all of science. I believe that reading our blueprints, cataloguing our own instruction book, will be judged by history as more significant than even splitting the atom or going to the moon.

  Francis Collins

  Believe, Book, Reading

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• Consider now the Milky Way. Here also we see an innumerable dust, only the grains of this dust are no longer atoms but stars; these grains also move with great velocities, they act at a distance one upon another, but this action is so slight at great distances that their trajectories are rectilineal; nevertheless, from time to time, two of them may come near enough together to be deviated from their course, like a comet that passed too close to Jupiter. In a word, in the eyes of a giant, to whom our Suns were what our atoms are to us, the Milky Way would only look like a bubble of gas.

  Henri Poincare

  Stars, Distance, Moving

  Henri Poincare (2012). “The Value of Science: Essential Writings of Henri Poincare”, p.905, Modern Library

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• Life is not found in atoms or molecules or genes as such, but in organization; not in symbiosis but in synthesis.

  Edwin Conklin

  Life, Science, Organization

  "Evolution by Association : A History of Symbiosis: A History of Symbiosis" by Edwin Grant Conklin, Oxford University Press, August 22, 1994.

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• Each atom of the Holy Spirit is intelligent, and like all other matter has solidity, form, and size, and occupies space.

  Orson Pratt

  Intelligent, Space, Matter

  Orson Pratt (2015). “The Kingdom of God, part 1”, p.18, Latter-day Strength

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• The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.

  Muriel Rukeyser

  Peace, Science, Technology

  Muriel Rukeyser (1994). “Out of Silence: Selected Poems”, p.135, Northwestern University Press

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• The atom bomb is a paper tiger which the United States reactionaries use to scare people. It looks terrible, but in fact it isn't.

  Mao Zedong

  People, Scare, United States

  Interview by Anne Louise Strong, Aug. 1946

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• The savages don't have atom bombs.

  Friedrich Durrenmatt

  Savages, Bombs, Literature

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  We are part of this universe; we are in this universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts, is that the universe is in us.

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  Nature, Important, Facts

  "The Most Astounding Fact About The Universe, As Told By Neil DeGrasse Tyson", www.huffingtonpost.com. March 12, 2012.

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• The atoms become like a moth, seeking out the region of higher laser intensity.

  Steven Chu

  Lasers, Intensity, Moths

  "Lasers Slow Atom for Scrutiny". The New York Times, July 13, 1986.

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• Football tactics are rapidly becoming as complicated as the chemical formula for splitting the atom.

  Jimmy Greaves

  Football, Tactics, Becoming

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• One might talk about the sanity of the atom the sanity of space the sanity of the electron the sanity of water- For it is all alive and has something comparable to that which we call sanity in ourselves. The only oneness is the oneness of sanity.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Science, Oneness, Space

  D. H. Lawrence (2008). “Complete Poems by Lawrence: Easyread Super Large 24pt Edition”, p.386, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• But it is necessary to insist more strongly than usual that what I am putting before you is a model-the Bohr model atom-because later I shall take you to a profounder level of representation in which the electron instead of being confined to a particular locality is distributed in a sort of probability haze all over the atom.

  Arthur Eddington

  Science, Usual, Levels

  Arthur Eddington (2012). “New Pathways in Science: Messenger Lectures (1934)”, p.34, Cambridge University Press

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• But I must confess I am jealous of the term atom; for though it is very easy to talk of atoms, it is very difficult to form a clear idea of their nature, especially when compounded bodies are under consideration.

  Michael Faraday

  Jealous, Science, Ideas

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• There are infinite worlds both like and unlike this world of ours. For the atoms being infinite in number... are borne on far out into space.

  Epicurus

  Science, Numbers, Space

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• A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms.

  George Wald

  Wisdom, Science, Knowing

  Foreword to L. J. Henderson, The Fitness of the Environment (1958)

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• The radical novelty of modern science lies precisely in the rejection of the belief... that the forces which move the stars and atoms are contingent upon the preferences of the human heart.

  Walter Lippmann

  Stars, Lying, Moving

  Walter Lippmann (1960). “A Preface To Morals”, p.127, Transaction Publishers

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• I try to identify myself with the atoms ... I ask what I would do If I were a carbon atom or a sodium atom.

  Linus Pauling

  Science, Trying, Sodium

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• An atom-blaster is a good weapon, but it can point both ways.

  Isaac Asimov

  Weapons, Way

  Isaac Asimov (1951). “Foundation”

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