“Rutherford's discovery was the beginning of the science that came to be called nuclear physics. … The projectiles that he used to explore the nucleus were particles produced in the disintegration of radium … discovered by Marie Curie in 1898. The particles are helium nuclei that are emitted at high speed when radium atoms decay … The twenty years between 1909 and 1929 were the era of tabletop nuclear physics. … Small and simple experiments were sufficient to establish the basic laws of nuclear physics.”

—  Freeman Dyson

The Scientist As Rebel (2006)

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theoretical physicist and mathematician 1923

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“About 70 years ago, only a small number of “elementary particles”, thought to be the basic building blocks of matter, were known: the proton, the electron, and the photon as the quantum of radiation. All these particles are stable (the neutron is stable only in nuclear matter, the free neutron decays by beta decay: n→p+e−+\overline{\nu}). Owing to the availability of large accelerators, this picture of a few elementary particles has profoundly changed: today, the standard reference Review of Particle Properties lists more than 100 particles. The number is still growing as the energies and luminosities of accelerators are increased.”

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“The development of quantum mechanics in the 1920s was the greatest advance in physical science since the work of Isaac Newton. It was not easy; the ideas of quantum mechanics present a profound departure from ordinary human intuition. Quantum mechanics has won acceptance through its success. It is essential to modern atomic, molecular, nuclear, and elementary particle physics, and to a great deal of chemistry and condensed matter physics as well.”

Steven Weinberg (1933) American theoretical physicist

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“It was my responsibility that this world got itself an atom bomb, because there were only a handful of nuclear physicists in the thirties — only a handful. And we were all beating the desk and saying "How wonderful it will be if we discover atomic fission."”

L. Ron Hubbard Dianetics

Dianetics (1952).

Marie Curie photo

“We must not forget that when radium was discovered no one knew that it would prove useful in hospitals. The work was one of pure science. And this is a proof that scientific work must not be considered from the point of view of the direct usefulness of it. It must be done for itself, for the beauty of science, and then there is always the chance that a scientific discovery may become like the radium a benefit for humanity.”

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“The period and era of using nuclear weapons is over ... Nuclear bombs are not anymore helpful and those who are stockpiling nuclear weapons, politically they are backward, and they are mentally retarded.”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (1956) 6th President of the Islamic Republic of Iran

2012

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“With the era of great ideological confrontation behind us, mankind has managed to decrease the threat of self-destruction by nuclear conflagration and to establish sufficiently reliable mechanisms of international security.”

Leonid Kuchma (1938) Second president of Ukraine

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“What is the only provocation that could bring about the use of nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. What is the priority target for nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. What is the only established defense against nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. How do we prevent the use of nuclear weapons? By threatening to use nuclear weapons. And we can't get rid of nuclear weapons, because of nuclear weapons. The intransigence, it seems, is a function of the weapons themselves.”

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“Rutherford did not pretend to understand quantum mechanics, but he understood that the Gamow formula would give his accelerator a crucial advantage. Even particles accelerated at much lower energies … would be able to penetrate into nuclei. Rutherford invited Gamow to Cambridge in January 1929 … [They] became firm friends and Gamow's insight gave Rutherford the impetus to go full steam ahead with the building of his accelerator.”

Freeman Dyson (1923) theoretical physicist and mathematician

The Scientist As Rebel (2006)

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“For a hundred and fifty years or so democracy, or something like it, could flourish safely. The issues were such as to be settled without disaster by votes of common men, befogged and ignorant as they were. But now, if the race is simply to stay alive, political decisions depend on real knowledge of such things as nuclear physics, planetary ecology, genetic theory, even system mechanics. They aren’t up to it, Joe. With goodness and more will than they possess less than one in a thousand could stay awake over one page of nuclear physics; they can’t learn what they must know.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Gulf

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“Neutrinos are fundamental subatomic particles produced in nuclear reactions, like those in the sun. We always talk about the fact that we can’t see neutrinos or dark matter and that basically they’re invisible, but if you think about it from the other side, we’re also invisible to them.”

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Quoted in Most Interesting People 2012: Evalyn Gates http://clevelandmagazine.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=E73ABD6180B44874871A91F6BA5C249C&nm=Article+Archives&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=1578600D80804596A222593669321019&tier=4&id=1A0E4E5D5FA548418C5BA0BFFE28C6A8, Cleveland Magazine (January 2012)

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