Best 331 quotes in «atoms quotes» category

We are the gods of the atoms that make up ourselves but we are also the atoms of the gods that make up the universe.

We do not understand much of anything, from... the "big bang" , all the way down to the particles in the atoms of a bacterial cell. We have a wilderness of mystery to make our way through in the centuries ahead.

We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the sermon on the mount.

We have here a proof that there is in the atom a fundamental quantity, which increases by regular steps as one passes from one element to the next. This quantity can only be the charge on the central positive nucleus, of the existence of which we already have definite proof.

We have learnt through experience that when an electrical ray strikes the surface of an atom, an electron, and in some circumstances a second and even a third electron, can be detached.

We hope that this honor you have done us will bring the time of further realization of these benefits closer and will help all mankind to live better and be happier through the atom and isotopes.

Well, I’ve had my fun; I’ve had it, he thought, looking up at the swinging baskets of pale geraniums. And it was smashed to atoms—his fun, for it was half made up, as he knew very well; invented, this escapade with the girl; made up, as one makes up the better part of life, he thought—making onself up; making her up; creating an exquisite amusement, and something more. But odd it was, and quite true; all this one could never share—it smashed to atoms.

We may say that a basic substance is one which has a lone pair of electrons which may be used to complete the stable group of another atom, and that an acid is one which can employ a lone pair from another molecule in completing the stable group of one of its own atoms.

We're all nothing but unified arrangements of atoms and particles, drifting around, enjoying consciousness every now and then for a second or so before splitting up to become bits and pieces of trees and stars and french fries.

We operate with nothing but things which do not exist, with lines, planes, bodies, atoms, divisible time, divisible space - how should explanation even be possible when we first make everything into an image, into our own image!

We should note that this latter type of shift was successfully amplified to a considerable extent by Russian physicists using the intense light of a ruby laser whose wavelength is close to that of a transition of the potassium atom.

We shall use the terms morality, behavior, conduct, or constructive action in the same broad way. It may sound strange to speak of the morals of an atom, or of the way in which a molecule conducts itself. But in the last analysis, science can draw no fundamental distinction between the conduct of an animal, a bullet, or a freshman, although there may be more unknown factors involved in one case than in the other.

We've begun at last to wonder about our origins, star stuff contemplating the stars, organized collections of ten billion billion billion atoms contemplating the evolution of matter, tracing that long path by which it arrived at consciousness here on the planet Earth and perhaps throughout the cosmos.  Our obligation to survive and flourish is owed not just to ourselves but also to that cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring.

We spend our lives on a thin slice between the unimaginably small scales of the atoms that compose us and the infinitely large scales of galaxies.

What are these fundamental principles, if they are not atoms?" "Stories. And they give me hope.

When we have found how the nucleus of atoms is built up we shall have found the greatest secret of all — except life. We shall have found the basis of everything — of the earth we walk on, of the air we breathe, of the sunshine, of our physical body itself, of everything in the world, however great or however small — except life.

When it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images and establishing mental connections.

When it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry.

When you die, you are extinguished. From being you will be transformed to non-being. A god does not necessarily dwell among our capricious atoms.

With the new weapons like the atom bomb, Russia would have it, too, and use it first. It is a very difficult world. But that trouble is imminent is obvious.

With this in mind, for some twenty years I have set myself as my particular task the experimental investigation of the connexion between change in the structure and change in the spectra of chemical atoms.

Within your physical atoms the origins of all consciousness still sings.

You cannot take away one atom of matter or one foot-pound of force. You cannot add to the universe one atom of matter or one foot-pound of force. As such, evolution does not come out of zero; then, where does it come from? From previous involution.

Yes, Jenna, I love you with all my heart. And with my atoms and molecules and electrons and whatever further breakdown you require.

You can split atoms, but you can't split true love.

You must squeeze every atom of impure air from lungs until they are almost as free of air as a vacuum.

You know, 'power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely'? It's the same with powerlessness. Absolute powerlessness corrupts absolutely. Einstein said everything had changed since the atom was split, except the way we think. We have to think anew.

You know what's truly weird about any financial crisis? We made it up. Currency, money, finance, they're all social inventions. When the sun comes up in the morning it's shining on the same physical landscape, all the atoms are in place.

After a while the Senior Wrangler said, "Do you know, I read the other day that every atom in your body is changed every seven years? New ones keep getting attached and old ones keep on dropping off. It goes on all the time. Marvelous, really." The Senior Wrangler could do to a conversation what it takes quite thick treacle to do to the pedals of a precision watch. "Yes? What happens to the old ones?" said Ridcully, interested despite himself. "Dunno. They just float around in the air, I suppose, until they get attached to someone else." The Archchancellor looked affronted. "What, even wizards?" "Oh, yes. Everyone. It's part of the miracle of existence." "Is it? Sounds like bad hygiene to me," said the Archchancellor. "I suppose there's no way of stopping it?" "I shouldn't think so," said the Senior Wrangler, doubtfully. "I don't think you're supposed to stop miracles of existence." "But that means everythin' is made up of everythin' else," said Ridcully. "Yes. Isn't it amazing?

After our negotiations were completed, the dome would be imploded and launched toward the nearest black hole, so that none of its atoms would ever contaminate this particular universe again. I thought that last part was overkill.

21. Take in a great breath of air and then blow it out. Contained in that single breath were at least three nitrogen atoms that were breathed by every human being who ever lived, including Jesus Christ, William Shakespeare, Winston Churchill, and every president of the United States. This illustrates the fact that everything we do affects other people, positively or negatively. That’s why it is foolish to say, “Do your own thing if it doesn’t hurt anybody else.” Everything we do affects other people.

[About describing atomic models in the language of classical physics:] We must be clear that when it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images and establishing mental connections.

After the discovery of spectral analysis no one trained in physics could doubt the problem of the atom would be solved when physicists had learned to understand the language of spectra. So manifold was the enormous amount of material that has been accumulated in sixty years of spectroscopic research that it seemed at first beyond the possibility of disentanglement. An almost greater enlightenment has resulted from the seven years of Röntgen spectroscopy, inasmuch as it has attacked the problem of the atom at its very root, and illuminates the interior. What we are nowadays hearing of the language of spectra is a true 'music of the spheres' in order and harmony that becomes ever more perfect in spite of the manifold variety. The theory of spectral lines will bear the name of Bohr for all time. But yet another name will be permanently associated with it, that of Planck. All integral laws of spectral lines and of atomic theory spring originally from the quantum theory. It is the mysterious organon on which Nature plays her music of the spectra, and according to the rhythm of which she regulates the structure of the atoms and nuclei.

A good example of the archetypal ideas which the archetypes produce are natural numbers or integers. With the aid of the integers the shaping and ordering of our experiences becomes exact. Another example is mathematical group theory. ...important applications of group theory are symmetries which can be found in most different connections both in nature and among the 'artifacts' produced by human beings. Group theory also has important applications in mathematics and mathematical physics. For example, the theory of elementary particles and their interactions can in essential respects be reduced to abstract symmetries. [The Message of the Atoms: Essays on Wolfgang Pauli and the Unspeakable]

Epicurus... supposes not only all mixt bodies, but all others to be produced by the various and casual occursions of atoms, moving themselves to and fro by an internal principle in the immense or rather infinite vacuum.

At the atomic level, matter does not even exist with certainty; it only exists as a tendency to exist.

Also unlike a planet, an electron—if excited by heat or light—can leap from its low-energy shell to an empty, high-energy shell. The electron cannot stay in the high-energy state for long, so it soon crashes back down. But this isn’t a simple back-and-forth motion, because as it crashes, the electron jettisons energy by emitting light.

An atom is mostly made up of empty space. If you remove the empty space from every atom, the entire world's human population could fit inside a sugar cube.

Atoms are round balls of wood invented by Dr. Dalton. (Answer given by a pupil to a question on atomic theory, as reported by Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe.)

A long time ago, there was diddly-squat. Just nothing at all, except... one tiny dot.

Chess is a game with simple rules and pieces, a small sixty-four-space board, but there are more possible chess games than there are atoms in the universe.

A writer observes. A writer records for posterity. The moments in the transience of the labyrinth of time that would go unrecorded otherwise! A writer records for value. A writer records for sentimentalism. A writer tries in earnest to carry the emotions and sentiments that make us what we ultimately are. For what are we? Empty spaces in an atom!

Because they are so long-lived, atoms really get around. Every atom you possess has almost certainly passed through several stars and been part of millions of organisms on its way to becoming you. We are each so atomically numerous and so vigorously recycled at death that a significant number of our atoms—up to a billion for each of us, it has been suggested—probably once belonged to Shakespeare. A billion more each came from Buddha and Genghis Khan and Beethoven, and any other historical figure you care to name. (The personages have to be historical, apparently, as it takes the atoms some decades to become thoroughly redistributed; however much you may wish it, you are not yet one with Elvis Presley.) So we are all reincarnations—though short-lived ones. When we die our atoms will disassemble and move off to find new uses elsewhere—as part of a leaf or other human being or drop of dew. Atoms, however, go on practically forever.

By convention sweet and by convention bitter, by convention hot, by convention cold, by convention color; but in reality atoms and void.

Every atom in your body spins and dances like a bee around the queen, like a whirling dervish, like the stars spiraling in a galaxy. Yet why do you sit motionlessly watching Dancing With the Stars?

Each cell within its atom is a raw, formless idea that exists beyond mortality. It is the wild state constantly creating your world, the one word in a collective equation that is you becoming written from nothing into something — and so it knows, ultimately, annihilation is an essential instrument of becoming new to all that can be known.

Everyone should be very grateful radioactivity exists at all. It can kill you, yes, but without it you wouldn't have been born in the first place. On Earth, deep under your feet, our planet happens to contain many atoms that do decay, all the time. Less so now than in the past, but still, Earth's mantle is radioactive. When atoms decay there, the particles they emit bump into their neighbours and generate heat, the very heat that contributes to keeping our planet warm. Without radioactivity, there would be no seismic or volcanic activity. The surface of the Earth would have been dead cold billions of yeras ago. Life as we know it would probably not exist at all.

Human beings are nothing but intellectually organized closely interconnected interestingly and independently functioning trillions of atoms. We manipulate these atoms by our thoughts. At the same time, thoughts are the byproducts of complex interactions of these intelligent atoms.

Fact: You are part Shakespeare. You are part Jack the Ripper. You are part dinosaur. You are part of a star that exploded way back at the beginning of time. On one level, you've already lived forever,. There is no separation.

Give us matter and a little motion and we will construct the universe. It is not enough that we should have matter, we must also have a single impulse, one shove to launch the mass and generate the harmony of the centrifugal and centripetal forces.’ ... There is no end to the consequences of the act. That famous aboriginal push propagates itself through all the balls of the system, and through every atom of every ball.