{"quotes":[{"text":"To say that life is nothing but a property of certain peculiar combinations of atoms is like saying that Shakespeare's Hamlet is nothing but a property of a peculiar combination of letters.","author":"Ernst F. Schumacher","tags":["atoms","design","life","meaning"],"id":9659,"author_id":"Ernst+F.+Schumacher"},{"text":"When you do the math and examine how much energy is produced per atomic union, you find that fusing anything to iron’s twenty-six protons costs energy. That means post-ferric fusion* does an energy-hungry star no good. Iron is the final peal of a star’s natural life.","author":"Sam Kean","tags":["atoms","elements","energy","iron","stars"],"id":11897,"author_id":"Sam+Kean"},{"text":"It is a slightly arresting notion that if you were to pick yourself apart with tweezers, one atom at a time, you would produce a mound of fine atomic dust, none of which had ever been alive but all of which had once been you.","author":"Bill Bryson","tags":["atoms","science","self-awareness"],"id":12467,"author_id":"Bill+Bryson"},{"text":"I have tried to read philosophers of all ages and have found many illuminating ideas but no steady progress toward deeper knowledge and understanding. Science, however, gives me the feeling of steady progress: I am convinced that theoretical physics is actual philosophy. It has revolutionized fundamental concepts, e.G., about space and time (relativity), about causality (quantum theory), and about substance and matter (atomistics), and it has taught us new methods of thinking (complementarity) which are applicable far beyond physics.","author":"Max Born","tags":["atoms","causality","ideas","illuminating","knowledge","matter","philosophers","philosophy","physics","progress","quantum-theory","revolution-relativity","science","space","theoretical-physics","thinking","time","understanding"],"id":36550,"author_id":"Max+Born"},{"text":"The dogma of the impossibility of determining the atomic constitution of substances, which until recently was advocated with such fervor by the most able chemists, is beginning to be abandoned and forgotten; and one can predict that the day is not far in the future when a sufficient collection of facts will permit determination of the internal architecture of molecules. A series of experiments directed toward such a goal is the object of this paper.","author":"Wilhelm Körner","tags":["atoms","chemistry","dogma","matter","molecules","physics","science","structure"],"id":39169,"author_id":"Wilhelm+K%C3%B6rner"},{"text":"The chemists who uphold dualism are far from being agreed among themselves; nevertheless, all of them in maintaining their opinion, rely upon the phenomena of chemical reactions. For a long time the uncertainty of this method has been pointed out: it has been shown repeatedly, that the atoms put into movement during a reaction take at that time a new arrangement, and that it is impossible to deduce the old arrangement from the new one. It is as if, in the middle of a game of chess, after the disarrangement of all the pieces, one of the players should wish, from the inspection of the new place occupied by each piece, to determine that which it originally occupied.","author":"Auguste Laurent","tags":["atoms","chemical-reactions","chemistry","chemists","chess","dualism","opinion","science"],"id":45574,"author_id":"Auguste+Laurent"},{"text":"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.","author":"Weike Wang","tags":["atoms","science"],"id":52471,"author_id":"Weike+Wang"},{"text":"Originally, the atoms of carbon from which we’re made were floating in the air, part of a carbon dioxide molecule. The only way to recruit these carbon atoms for the molecules necessary to support life—the carbohydrates, amino acids, proteins, and lipids—is by means of photosynthesis. Using sunlight as a catalyst the green cells of plants combine carbon atoms taken from the air with water and elements drawn from the soil to form the simple organic compounds that stand at the base of every food chain. It is more than a figure of speech to say that plants create life out of thin air.","author":"Michael Pollan","tags":["atoms","biology","carbon","corn","food","photosynthesis","plants","science"],"id":53779,"author_id":"Michael+Pollan"},{"text":"The more doors you open to the mysteries, or sacred knowledge, the smaller you feel. And because you begin to feel smaller and smaller until your ego disappears, the more humble you become. Therefore, any man who behaves arrogantly with what little he knows, or claims to know all, only reveals to all that he really knows nothing. Real greatness does not reside inside those who feel large. The truly wise are meek. Yet being small and meek do not make one weak. Arming oneself with true knowledge generates strong confidence and a bold spirit that makes you a lion of God. The Creator does not want you to suffer, yet we are being conditioned by society to accept suffering, weak and passive dispositions under the belief that such conditions are favorable by God. Weakness is not a virtue praised by God. How could he desire for you to be weak if he tells us to stand by our conscience? Doing so requires strength. However, there is a difference between arrogance when inflating your ego, and confidence when one truly gets closer to God. One feels large, while the other feels small. Why? Because a man of wisdom understands that he is just a small pea in a sea of infinite atoms, and that in the end — we are all connected. And did you not know that the smaller a creature is, the bolder its spirit?","author":"Suzy Kassem","tags":["arrogance","arrogant","atoms","bold-spirit","confidence","creator","doors","ego","god","humble","knowledge","lion","meek","mysteries","religion","sacred-knowledge","small","spirit","strength","truth","weak","wisdom","wise"],"id":70260,"author_id":"Suzy+Kassem"},{"text":"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.","author":"Arnold Sommerfeld","tags":["atomic-structure","atomic-theory","atoms","bohr","max-planck","niels-bohr","nobel-laureates","nucleus","physics","planck","röntgen","science","spectra","spectroscopy","wilhelm-conrad-röntgen","wilhelm-röntgen"],"id":77575,"author_id":"Arnold+Sommerfeld"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":54,"pages":6,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}