“It was a great achievement of the early chemists — with the crude experimental techniques available also with the ever-astonishing power of human reason (as potent then as now) — to discover this reduction of the world to its components, the chemical elements. Such reduction does not destroy its charm but adds understanding to sensation, and this understanding only deepens our delight.”

— Peter Atkins

Source: Periodic Kingdom (1995), p. 147-148

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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British chemist 1940

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