Proton Quotes

• Protons give an atom its identity, electrons its personality.

  Bill Bryson

  Giving, Personality, Identity

  Bill Bryson (2014). “A Short History of Nearly Everything”, p.130, Lulu Press, Inc

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• The universe consists of 5% protons, 5% neutrons, 5% electrons and 85% morons.

  Frank Zappa

  Neutrons, Moron, Electrons

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• To see the world for a moment as something rich and strange is the private reward of many a discovery.

  Edward Mills Purcell

  Discovery, World, Rewards

  "Research in Nuclear Magnetism". Edward Mills Purcell's Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1952.

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• You see, the chemists have a complicated way of counting: instead of saying "one, two, three, four, five protons", they say, "hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron."

  Richard P. Feynman

  Two, Numbers, Three

  Richard P. Feynman (2014). “QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter”, p.113, Princeton University Press

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• Mathematics is not only real, but it is the only reality. That is that entire universe is made of matter, obviously. And matter is made of particles. It's made of electrons and neutrons and protons. So the entire universe is made out of particles. Now what are the particles made out of They're not made out of anything. The only thing you can say about the reality of an electron is to cite its mathematical properties. So there's a sense in which matter has completely dissolved and what is left is just a mathematical structure.

  Martin Gardner

  Real, Math, Justice

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• How do we get from electrons to elections and from protons to presidents?

  John Searle

  President, Election, Electrons

  John Searle (2010). “Making the Social World: The Structure of Human Civilization”, p.12, Oxford University Press

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• ...realize in your daily life that 'matter' is merely an aggregation of protons and electrons subject entirely to the control of Mind; that your environment, your success, your happiness, are all of your own making... All wealth depends upon a clear understanding of the fact that mind- thought - is the only creator. The great business of life is thinking. Control your thoughts and you control circumstance.

  Robert Collier

  Thinking, Understanding, Mind

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• In the tail above the giant resonance, you can get not just one neutron emitted but two, three, four or five, and so there are a lot of things one can measure, looking at the competition with the emission of neutrons and protons and so on.

  John Henry Carver

  Two, Competition, Giants

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• Science is a part of culture. Indeed, it is the only truly global culture because protons and proteins are the same all over the world, and it's the one culture we can all share.

  Martin Rees

  Culture, World, Share

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• I have not yet lost a feeling of wonder, and of delight, that the delicate motion should reside in all the things around us, revealing itself only to him who looks for it.

  Edmund Burke

  Feelings, Looks, Delight

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• The world, the human world, is bound together not by protons and electrons, but by stories. Nothing has meaning in itself: all the objects in the world would be shards of bare mute blankness, spinning wildly out of orbit, if we didn't bind them together with stories.

  Brian Morton

  Together, Orbit, Would Be

  Brian Morton (1999). “Starting Out in the Evening”, Berkley Publishing Group

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• There are thousands of proteins in the cells, some of them very large chains of molecules. And the cell doesn't function if one of those chains of molecules isn't there, and you start looking at the complexity of life and the mystery of life, and then start thinking about things like the twenty universal constants, that if any one of them from Plank's minimum to the mass of a proton, if one of them is the tiniest bit off, there would be no life or possibility of it in the universe.

  Dean Koontz

  Thinking, Cells, Twenties

  "The Rumpus Interview With Dean Koontz". Interview with Ben Pfeiffer, therumpus.net. December 21, 2015.

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• If the strong nuclear force were slightly weaker, multi-proton nuclei would not hold together. Hydrogen would be the only element in the universe.

  Hugh Ross

  Strong, Together, Would Be

  Hugh Ross (1989). “The Fingerprint of God: Recent Scientific Discoveries Reveal the Unmistakable Identity of the Creat”, p.82, BookBaby

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• The flash would prove that proton decay really happens. The flash would mean that the matter of the proton - the solid stuff - had turned into the energy of the flash (E-mc2). Totally. Nothing left behind. No ash. No smoke. No smell. Nada. One moment it's there, the next moment - pffft - gone. What would it mean? Only this: Nothing lasts. Nothing. Because everything that exists is made of protons.

  Jerry Spinelli

  Mean, Smell, Energy

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• Love is the glue that holds the world together.

  Starhawk

  Love Is, Together, Glue

  Starhawk (1999). “Spiral Dance: Slipcase”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• The Goddess falls in love with Herself, drawing forth her own emanation, which takes on a life of its own. Love of self for self is the creative force of the universe. Desire is the primal energy, and that energy is erotic: the attraction of lover to beloved, of planet to star, the lust of electron for proton. Love is the glue that holds the world together.

  Starhawk

  Falling In Love, Inspirational Love, Stars

  Starhawk (1999). “Spiral Dance: Slipcase”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• I believe there are 15, 747, 724, 136, 275, 002, 577, 605, 653, 961, 181, 555, 468, 044, 717, 914, 527, 116, 709, 366, 231, 425, 076, 185, 631, 031, 296 protons in the universe and the same number of electrons.

  Arthur Eddington

  Believe, Numbers, Mathematics

  1938 Tarner Lecture.

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• Atoms have a nucleus, made of protons and neutrons bound together. Around this nucleus shells of electrons spin, and each shell is either full or trying to get full, to balance with the number of protons-to balance the number of positive and negative charges. An atom is like a human heart, you see.

  Kim Stanley Robinson

  Heart, Science, Numbers

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• Scientists have just built the world's biggest supercollider, and they're doing experiments to see what makes up protons. I hope that if the experiment's successful, the whole of our reality will dissolve, and a big sign will up come that says: Level Two.

  Frankie Boyle

  Funny, Humor, Successful

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• The laws of science, as we know them at present, contain many fundamental numbers, like the size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton and the electron .... The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been finely adjusted to make possible the development of life.

  Stephen Hawking

  Law, Numbers, Fundamentals

  Stephen W. Hawking (1990). “A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes”, Bantam

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• Nevertheless, all of us who work in quantum physics believe in the reality of a quantum world, and the reality of quantum entities like protons and electrons.

  John Polkinghorne

  Believe, Reality, World

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• It's extraordinary to think that if you walked into a room and said you had never heard of Hamlet, you would be regarded as a Philistine. But you could walk into the same room and say, 'I don't know what a proton is,' and people would just laugh and say, 'Why should you know?'

  Robert Winston

  Thinking, People, Laughing

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• There are endless planes of attention, endless realities and endless mind states. They're like collections of atoms and protons and neutrons, nuclei. They just go on forever. They're plasma, they're fluid ... they're alive.

  Frederick Lenz

  Buddhism, Reality, Other Worlds

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• I remember, in the winter of our first experiments, just seven years ago, looking on snow with new eyes.

  Edward Mills Purcell

  Eye, Winter, Years

  "Research in Nuclear Magnetism". Edward Mills Purcell's Nobel Lecture, Decemebr 11, 1952.

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• Over the last century, physicists have used light quanta electrons, alpha particles, X-rays, gamma-rays, protons, neutrons and exotic sub-nuclear particles for this purpose. Much important information about the target atoms or nuclei or their assemblage has been obtained in this way. In witness of this importance one can point to the unusual concentration of scattering enthusiasts among earlier Nobel Laureate physicists. One could say that physicists just love to perform or interpret scattering experiments.

  Clifford Shull

  Science, Light, Important

  Clifford G. Shull's Speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, www.nobelprize.org. December 10, 1994.

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