“The inconsistency of first explaining matter by atoms and then explaining atoms by matter was only slowly realised, and it is only comparatively recently that we have come to see that there is nothing paradoxical in the fact that an atom or an electron, which are not matter, may have properties different from those of matter, and must be allowed to do things that a material particle could not do.”

— Willem de Sitter

Kosmos (1932), Above is Beginning Quote of the Last Chapter: Relativity and Modern Theories of the Universe -->

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Willem de Sitter 44

Dutch cosmologist 1872–1934

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“1. Small particles called atoms exist and compose all matter; 2. They are indivisible and indestructible; 3. Atoms of the same chemical element have the same chemical properties and do not transmute or change into different elements.”

John Dalton (1766–1844) English chemist, meteorologist and physicist

A New System of Chemical Philosophy, Part I http://books.google.com/books?id=Wp7QAAAAMAAJ (1808) as quoted by Richard Reeves, A Force of Nature The Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford (2008)

“As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clearheaded science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about the atoms this much: There is no matter as such! All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particles of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together…. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Spirit. This Spirit is the matrix of all matter.”

Max Planck (1858–1947) German theoretical physicist

Das Wesen der Materie [The Nature of Matter], a 1944 speech in Florence, Italy, Archiv zur Geschichte der Max‑ Planck‑ Gesellschaft, Abt. Va, Rep. 11 Planck, Nr. 1797; the German original is as quoted in The Spontaneous Healing of Belief https://archive.org/stream/GreggBradenTheSpontaneousHealingOfBelief/Gregg%20Braden/Gregg%20Braden%20-%20The%20Spontaneous%20Healing%20Of%20Belief#page/n1 (2008) by Gregg Braden, p. 212; Braden mistranslates intelligenten Geist as "intelligent Mind", which is an obvious tautology.

“The quantum world is a world of waves, not particles. So we have to think of electron waves and proton waves and so on. Matter is 'incoherent' when all its waves have a different wavelength, implying a different momentum. On the other hand, if you take a pure quantum system – the electrons in a superconducting magnet, or the atoms in a laser – they are all in phase with one another, and they demonstrate the wave nature of matter on a large scale. Then you can see quite visibly what matter is down at its heart.”

Carver Mead (1934) American computer scientist

"An Interview with Carver Mead", American Spectator, Sep/Oct2001, Vol. 34 Issue 7, p68.

“The atoms in the philosophy of do not move merely by chance. Leucippus seems to have believed in complete determinism, since he is known to have said: "Naught happens for nothing, but everything from a ground and of necessity." The atomists did not give any reason for the original motion of the atoms, which just shows that they thought of a causal description of the atomic motion; causality can only explain later events by earlier events, but it can never explain the beginning.”

Werner Heisenberg (1901–1976) German theoretical physicist

Physics and Philosophy (1958)

“If we are merely matter intricately assembled, is this really demeaning? If there's nothing here but atoms, does that make us less or does that make matter more?”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Source: The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God

“We in the Western world have grown to understand matter as imprisoned light, and light as liberated matter, yet this has had no influence on our spiritual thought. In practical terms it only led to the creation of the atom bomb.”

Yehudi Menuhin (1916–1999) American violinist and conductor

Source: Sushama Londhe A Tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and Wisdom Spanning Continents and Time about India and Her Culture http://books.google.co.in/books?id=G3AMAQAAMAAJ, Pragun Publications, 2008, p. 341

“If Atomes are as small, as small can bee,
They must in quantity of Matter all agree.”

Margaret Cavendish The Blazing World

'The weight of Atomes', in The Atomic Poems of Margaret (Lucas) Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, from her Poems, and Fancies, 1653, an electronic edition. Edited with an introduction by Leigh Tillman Partington. http://womenwriters.digitalscholarship.emory.edu/toc.php?id=atomic

“In the interior of the atom, Bohr had tried the plan of retaining the particle-electron and modifying the classical mechanics. Heisenberg took the opposite course, his procedure amounting in effect to retaining the classical mechanics, at least in form, and modifying the electron. Actually, the electron dropped out all together, because it exists only as a matter of inference and not of direct observation. For the same reason, the new theory contains no mention of atoms, nuclei, protons, or of electricity in any shape or form. The existences of all these are matters of inference, and Heisenberg's purely mathematical theory could no more make contact with them than with the efficiency of a turbine or with the price of wheat.”

James Jeans (1877–1946) British mathematician and astronomer

Physics and Philosophy (1942)

“If there's nothing in here but atoms, does that make us less or does that make matter more?”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God (2006)

“Quantum mechanics explains the physical stability of the atom by predicting its allowed discrete energy levels and defining the wave functions (also called atomic orbitals) associated with each energy level. The orbitals determine the probability density for finding the electrons at particular locations in the atom when the electrons are in a specific quantum state.”

David W. Oxtoby (1951) President of Pomona college

Principles of Modern Chemistry (7th ed., 2012), Ch. 5 : Quantum Mechanics and Atomic Structure

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