Patrick Moore (1923–2012) English writer, broadcaster and astronomer
As quoted in Ramez Naam (2013), "The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet", ISBN 978-1611682557 p. 235
“The most interesting thing I learned during this time was how small a nuclear warhead was.”
On his experiences in the military during his training on how to fire Pershing missiles.
Nobel Prize autobiography (1998)
Context: Oklahoma is laid back and rather beautiful, with rolling brown hills not unlike the ones in California. The Pershing missiles, on the other hand, were not beautiful. They were horrible weapons of war — solid-fuel rockets five feet in diameter at the base, long as a moving van, and capable of throwing a tactical nuclear warhead 500 miles. They were launched from trucks and required a team of 10 men to service and fire. The most interesting thing I learned during this time was how small a nuclear warhead was. The nose cone of a Pershing is only about 18 inches in diameter at the base. I had not been interested at all in nuclear weaponry as a student, and so I had never thought through carefully about their "efficiency". It is sobering thought that these missiles were actually deployed in continental Europe in those days and that on at least one occasion, namely the 1973 Arab-Israel war, there was an alert serious enough to leave the commanding officers trembling.
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Robert B. Laughlin14
American physicist 1950Related quotes
Hans Bethe (1906–2005) German-American nuclear physicist
Bethe's testimony to the U. S. Senate's Foreign Relations Committee on 13 May 1982, as reported in the New York Review of Books: The Inferiority Complex, 10 June 1982 http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1982/06/10/the-inferiority-complex/
“Interest can produce learning on a scale compared to fear as a nuclear explosion to a firecracker.”
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Introduction, p. 2-3. http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=17&itemID=F1357&viewtype=image <br class="br">The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms (1881)
“The most interesting thing about artists is how they live”
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“Most important thing in life is learning how to fall.”
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Source: Half Broke Horses
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Context: Go around — listen to how many times a day you say, "I love" instead of, "I hate." Isn't it interesting that children, as they learn the process of language, always learn the word "no" years before they learn the word "yes"? Ask linguists where they hear it. Maybe if they heard more of "I love, I love, I love" they'd hear it sooner and more often.
Clair Cameron Patterson (1922–1995) American chemist and geochemist
In a Interview With Shirley K. Cohen http://oralhistories.library.caltech.edu/32/1/OH_Patterson.pdf
