Quotes about atom
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Alfred M. Mayer photo
Vitruvius photo
Carl Sagan photo
Aron Ra photo
Ervin László photo
Herman Wouk photo
Philip José Farmer photo

“Now we have lit a candle to the power
Of atoms; now we know we're heirs of light
Itself…”

Philip José Farmer (1918–2009) American science fiction writer

Sestina of the Space Rocket (1953)

Studs Terkel photo
Krist Novoselic photo
Carl David Anderson photo

“The atom can't be seen, yet its existence can be proved. And it is simple to prove that it can't ever be seen. It has to be studied by indirect evidence — and the technical difficulty has been compared to asking a man who has never seen a piano to describe a piano from the sound it would make falling downstairs in the dark.”

Carl David Anderson (1905–1991) American scientist

As quoted in Carl Anderson. Some notes about his life and work at Caltech. The first of a series of biographical sketches of Caltech faculty members. Engineering and Science, Vol. 15:1 (October 1951) http://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechES:15.1.0

John Maxson Stillman photo
Theodore Roszak photo
Jane Roberts photo
Mohamed ElBaradei photo

“The International Atomic Energy Agency and I are humbled, proud, delighted and above all strengthened in our resolve by this most worthy of honours.”

Mohamed ElBaradei (1942) Egyptian law scholar and diplomat, former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and Nobel …

Nobel lecture (2005)

Paul Davies photo
Dinah Craik photo
Marcus du Sautoy photo
Werner Heisenberg photo
Mao Zedong photo
Viktor Schauberger photo
James Jeans photo
James Jeans photo
Clifford D. Simak photo
Jean-Luc Godard photo

“The Urban Literate Southern California Sub-Group of the Early Atomic Period has not yet produced a distinct body of folk music of its own.”

Sam Hinton (1917–2009) folk singer, artist, marine biologist

"The Singer of Folk Songs and His Conscience" (Possibly an allusion to his recording of "Old Man Atom" ("Atomic Talking Blues") by Vern Partlow.)

Ray Comfort photo
William Trufant Foster photo
Aron Ra photo
Ganapathy Sachchidananda Swamiji photo
Neil deGrasse Tyson photo

“Do parallel universes exist? We don't know, uhm parallel universes are losing favor to the multiverse we have some cogent theoretical expectations that our universe might be just one of many spawned from this, sort of, this hyper-dimensional medium which we'll call the multiverse there's no data to support it but we have good theoretical premise to think that it's there and we have philosophical precedent we used to think Earth was special and unique. It wasn't, we got 8.. 9.. 8 planet we thought the Sun was special it's one of a hundred billion suns, the galaxy's special, no there's a hundred billion galaxies we have one universe or do we? The track record said why should there only be one? be open to the possibility that you don't live in the majority [looking? ] universe that's out there Would a separate universe.. when you say "different universe" slightly different laws of physics which (that's what I'm asking) oh this is the fun part because if you find, if you manage to get a portal to another universe don't be the first one to volunteer to go through because your atoms are working in this universe if a slightly different law of physics.. you could implode, explode come out with three heads who knows?”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

Neil deGrasse Tyson Stephen Colbert Interviews Neil deGrasse Tyson at Montclair Kimberley Academy - 2010-Jan-29 http://transcriptvids.com/v/YXh9RQCvxmg.html
2010s

John Kenneth Galbraith photo
Carver Mead photo
Willem de Sitter photo
Max Tegmark photo
Nick Herbert photo

“Physicists cannot explain atoms to their children, not because we are ignorant but because we know too much.”

Nick Herbert (1936) American physicist

Source: Quantum Reality - Beyond The New Physics, Chapter 10, Quantum Realities: Four More, p. 197

Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman photo
Harry Truman photo
Isaac Asimov photo

“It’s a poor atom blaster that won’t point both ways.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Part V, The Merchant Princes, section 18
The Foundation series (1951–1993), Foundation (1951)

Arthur Koestler photo
Isaac Barrow photo

“Mathematics is the fruitful Parent of, I had almost said all, Arts, the unshaken Foundation of Sciences, and the plentiful Fountain of Advantage to Human Affairs. In which last Respect, we may be said to receive from the Mathematics, the principal Delights of Life, Securities of Health, Increase of Fortune, and Conveniences of Labour: That we dwell elegantly and commodiously, build decent Houses for ourselves, erect stately Temples to God, and leave wonderful Monuments to Posterity: That we are protected by those Rampires from the Incursions of the Enemy; rightly use Arms, skillfully range an Army, and manage War by Art, and not by the Madness of wild Beasts: That we have safe Traffick through the deceitful Billows, pass in a direct Road through the tractless Ways of the Sea, and come to the designed Ports by the uncertain Impulse of the Winds: That we rightly cast up our Accounts, do Business expeditiously, dispose, tabulate, and calculate scattered 248 Ranks of Numbers, and easily compute them, though expressive of huge Heaps of Sand, nay immense Hills of Atoms: That we make pacifick Separations of the Bounds of Lands, examine the Moments of Weights in an equal Balance, and distribute every one his own by a just Measure: That with a light Touch we thrust forward vast Bodies which way we will, and stop a huge Resistance with a very small Force: That we accurately delineate the Face of this Earthly Orb, and subject the Oeconomy of the Universe to our Sight: That we aptly digest the flowing Series of Time, distinguish what is acted by due Intervals, rightly account and discern the various Returns of the Seasons, the stated Periods of Years and Months, the alternate Increments of Days and Nights, the doubtful Limits of Light and Shadow, and the exact Differences of Hours and Minutes: That we derive the subtle Virtue of the Solar Rays to our Uses, infinitely extend the Sphere of Sight, enlarge the near Appearances of Things, bring to Hand Things remote, discover Things hidden, search Nature out of her Concealments, and unfold her dark Mysteries: That we delight our Eyes with beautiful Images, cunningly imitate the Devices and portray the Works of Nature; imitate did I say? nay excel, while we form to ourselves Things not in being, exhibit Things absent, and represent Things past: That we recreate our Minds and delight our Ears with melodious Sounds, attemperate the inconstant Undulations of the Air to musical Tunes, add a pleasant Voice to a sapless Log and draw a sweet Eloquence from a rigid Metal; celebrate our Maker with an harmonious Praise, and not unaptly imitate the blessed Choirs of Heaven: That we approach and examine the inaccessible Seats of the Clouds, the distant Tracts of Land, unfrequented Paths of the Sea; lofty Tops of the Mountains, low Bottoms of the Valleys, and deep Gulphs of the Ocean: That in Heart we advance to the Saints themselves above, yea draw them to us, scale the etherial Towers, freely range through the celestial Fields, measure the Magnitudes, and determine the Interstices of the Stars, prescribe inviolable Laws to the Heavens themselves, and confine the wandering Circuits of the Stars within fixed Bounds: Lastly, that we comprehend the vast Fabrick of the Universe, admire and contemplate the wonderful Beauty of the Divine 249 Workmanship, and to learn the incredible Force and Sagacity of our own Minds, by certain Experiments, and to acknowledge the Blessings of Heaven with pious Affection.”

Isaac Barrow (1630–1677) English Christian theologian, and mathematician

Source: Mathematical Lectures (1734), p. 27-30

Robert Boyle photo
W. S. Gilbert photo
Ernesto Che Guevara photo
Thomas Guthrie photo
Bill Bryson photo
John F. Kennedy photo

“These burdens and frustrations are accepted by most Americans with maturity and understanding. They may long for the days when war meant charging up San Juan Hill-or when our isolation was guarded by two oceans — or when the atomic bomb was ours alone — or when much of the industrialized world depended upon our resources and our aid. But they now know that those days are gone — and that gone with them are the old policies and the old complacency's. And they know, too, that we must make the best of our new problems and our new opportunities, whatever the risk and the cost.
But there are others who cannot bear the burden of a long twilight struggle. They lack confidence in our long-run capacity to survive and succeed. Hating communism, yet they see communism in the long run, perhaps, as the wave of the future. And they want some quick and easy and final and cheap solution — now.
There are two groups of these frustrated citizens, far apart in their views yet very much alike in their approach. On the one hand are those who urge upon us what I regard to be the pathway of surrender-appeasing our enemies, compromising our commitments, purchasing peace at any price, disavowing our arms, our friends, our obligations. If their view had prevailed, the world of free choice would be smaller today.
On the other hand are those who urge upon us what I regard to be the pathway of war: equating negotiations with appeasement and substituting rigidity for firmness. If their view had prevailed, we would be at war today, and in more than one place.
It is a curious fact that each of these extreme opposites resembles the other. Each believes that we have only two choices: appeasement or war, suicide or surrender, humiliation or holocaust, to be either Red or dead. Each side sees only "hard" and "soft" nations, hard and soft policies, hard and soft men. Each believes that any departure from its own course inevitably leads to the other: one group believes that any peaceful solution means appeasement; the other believes that any arms build-up means war. One group regards everyone else as warmongers, the other regards everyone else as appeasers. Neither side admits that its path will lead to disaster — but neither can tell us how or where to draw the line once we descend the slippery slopes of appeasement or constant intervention.
In short, while both extremes profess to be the true realists of our time, neither could be more unrealistic. While both claim to be doing the nation a service, they could do it no greater disservice. This kind of talk and easy solutions to difficult problems, if believed, could inspire a lack of confidence among our people when they must all — above all else — be united in recognizing the long and difficult days that lie ahead. It could inspire uncertainty among our allies when above all else they must be confident in us. And even more dangerously, it could, if believed, inspire doubt among our adversaries when they must above all be convinced that we will defend our vital interests.
The essential fact that both of these groups fail to grasp is that diplomacy and defense are not substitutes for one another. Either alone would fail. A willingness to resist force, unaccompanied by a willingness to talk, could provoke belligerence — while a willingness to talk, unaccompanied by a willingness to resist force, could invite disaster.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1961, Address at the University of Washington

Paul Robeson photo
Mario Bunge photo
James Jeans photo
James Jeans photo
James Jeans photo
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky photo

“translation: Ethics of the Cosmos, ie. its conscious creatures means that there shouldn't be any suffering anywhere: neither for perfected nor for other immature ones or ones that are starting their development. It is an expression of pure selfishness (egoism). If there will be no ordeals or nuisances in the Universe, not even one atom will be a part of an imperfect, suffering or criminal organism.”

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857–1935) Russian and Soviet rocket scientist and pioneer of the astronautic theory

Этика космоса, т.е. ее сознательных существ состоит в том, чтобы не было нигде никаких страданий: ни для совершенных, ни для других недозрелых или начинающих своё развитие животных. Это есть выражение чистейшего себялюбия (эгоизма). Ведь если во вселенной не будет мук и неприятностей, то ни один ее атом не попадёт в несовершенный страдальческий или преступный организм.
from Научная этика http://tsiolkovsky.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Nauchnaya-etika.pdf

Freeman Dyson photo

“The two great conceptual revolutions of twentieth-century science, the overturning of classical physics by Werner Heisenberg and the overturning of the foundations of mathematics by Kurt Gödel, occurred within six years of each other within the narrow boundaries of German-speaking Europe. … A study of the historical background of German intellectual life in the 1920s reveals strong links between them. Physicists and mathematicians were exposed simultaneously to external influences that pushed them along parallel paths. … Two people who came early and strongly under the influence of Spengler's philosophy were the mathematician Hermann Weyl and the physicist Erwin Schrödinger. … Weyl and Schrödinger agreed with Spengler that the coming revolution would sweep away the principle of physical causality. The erstwhile revolutionaries David Hilbert and Albert Einstein found themselves in the unaccustomed role of defenders of the status quo, Hilbert defending the primacy of formal logic in the foundations of mathematics, Einstein defending the primacy of causality in physics. In the short run, Hilbert and Einstein were defeated and the Spenglerian ideology of revolution triumphed, both in physics and in mathematics. Heisenberg discovered the true limits of causality in atomic processes, and Gödel discovered the limits of formal deduction and proof in mathematics. And, as often happens in the history of intellectual revolutions, the achievement of revolutionary goals destroyed the revolutionary ideology that gave them birth. The visions of Spengler, having served their purpose, rapidly became irrelevant.”

Freeman Dyson (1923) theoretical physicist and mathematician

The Scientist As Rebel (2006)

Alain Aspect photo
Iain Banks photo
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky photo

“Nothing exists, save atoms and their combinations. There is no atom, which wouldn't periodically take part in life.”

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857–1935) Russian and Soviet rocket scientist and pioneer of the astronautic theory

Ничего нет, кроме атомов и их сочетаний. Нет атома, который периодически не принимал бы участия в жизни
from Новая этика (из монизма) http://tsiolkovsky.org/ru/kosmicheskaya-filosofiya/novaya-etika-iz-monizma/

Roger Joseph Boscovich photo
Linus Pauling photo
Michael Palin photo

“The use of the word "just" by an Australian means that whatever it is you have to do, it will not be easy, as in "Just pull that sword out of the stone" or "Just split that atom."”

Michael Palin (1943) British comedian, actor, writer and television presenter

Full Circle with Michael Palin (1997)

William H. P. Blandy photo
John Dryden photo
Marshall McLuhan photo
Yehudi Menuhin photo

“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

Richard Feynman photo
Richard Feynman photo

“The Atomic Theory and the Periodic Law have been given prominence, since their neglect unfailingly leads to obscurity and triviality.”

J. R. Partington (1886–1965) British chemist

A Text-Book of Inorganic Chemistry (1921)

Rajendra Prasad photo

“The atomic theory was not generally accepted in the time of Democritus, largely because of its deterministic character, for it allows no chance, choice, or free will.”

John Freely (1926–2017) American physicist

Source: Before Galileo, The Birth of Modern Science in Medieval Europe (2012), p. 287

Henry Adams photo
John Desmond Bernal photo
Arthur Leonard Schawlow photo

“A diatomic molecule is a molecule with one atom too many.”

Arthur Leonard Schawlow (1921–1999) American physicist

as quoted in [Dave DeMille, Diatomic molecules, a window onto fundamental physics, Physics Today, 2015, December, 34, 68, 12, 10.1063/PT.3.3020]

Richard Bentley photo

“The fortuitous or casual concourse of atoms.”

Richard Bentley (1662–1742) English classical scholar and Master of Trinity College, Cambridge

Sermons, vii. Works, Vol. iii. p. 147 (1692). Compare: "That fortuitous concourse of atoms", "Review of Sir Robert Peel's Address", Quarterly Review, vol. liii. p. 270 (1835); "In this article a party was described as a fortuitous concourse of atoms,—a phrase supposed to have been used for the first time many years afterwards by Lord John Russell", Croker Papers, vol. ii. p. 54.

Fritjof Capra photo
Democritus photo

“Sweet exists by convention, bitter by convention, colour by convention; atoms and Void [alone] exist in reality. (trans. Freeman 1948), p. 92.”

Democritus Ancient Greek philosopher, pupil of Leucippus, founder of the atomic theory

By convention sweet is sweet, bitter is bitter, hot is hot, cold is cold, color is color; but in truth there are only atoms and the void. (trans. Durant 1939), Ch. XVI, §II, p. 353; citing C. Bakewell, Sourcebook in Ancient Philosophy, New York, 1909, "Fragment O" (Diels), p. 60

Kevin Kelly photo

“Bit by bit the logic of the network will overtake every we atom we deal with.”

Kevin Kelly (1952) American author and editor

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995), New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World (1999)

Russell L. Ackoff photo
Ernest Rutherford photo

“Radioactivity is shown to be accompanied by chemical changes in which new types of matter are being continually produced. … The conclusion is drawn that these chemical changes must be sub-atomic in character.”

Ernest Rutherford (1871–1937) New Zealand-born British chemist and physicist

"The Cause and Nature of Radioactivity" in Philosophical Magazine (September 1902)

Antoni Tàpies photo
C. N. R. Rao photo
Vyacheslav Molotov photo
John Moffat photo
Frank Wilczek photo
Ervin László photo
Zia Haider Rahman photo

“…there is a virtue attached to intelligence, but lets suppose that we are all intelligent enough to know that intelligence is not a virtue; that the people who made the atom bomb were very intelligent, and that really virtue resides in how we conduct ourselves…”

Zia Haider Rahman British novelist

"Zia Haider Rahman's In The Light of What We Know" Books& Arts in ABC http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/booksandarts/zia-haider-rahman/6517150?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter June 3, 2015. Retrieved on 2015-06-03.

Mitsumasa Yonai photo
Harvey Mansfield photo
Cass Elliot photo
Harold Innis photo

“The Middle Ages burned its heretics and the modern age threatens them with atom bombs.”

Harold Innis (1894–1952) Canadian professor of political economy

Industrialism and Cultural Values p. 139.
The Bias of Communication (1951)

Thomas Creech photo
Albert Einstein photo

“The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Statement on the Atomic Bomb to Raymond Swing, before 1 October 1945, as reported in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 176, no. 5 (November 1945), in Einstein on Politics, p. 373
1940s

Roger Joseph Boscovich photo