Quotes About Atoms

Nanoengineering is learning how to make devices as small as 10 to 100 atoms in width. Much of the work is going on in the electronics industry, where there is great demand to pack more components onto computer chips.

According to Democritus, the fundamental nature of the universe consists of indivisible atoms in constant motion and travelling in an infinite void. Material objects are temporary concatenations of these atoms, made and destroyed as atoms come together or disperse according to natural forces, whilst the atoms themselves are eternal and indestructible.

In answer to Zeno, Democritus held that whilst atoms could be geometrically divided, it is only matter containing spaces – literally, parts of the void between the atoms – that can be physically divided. An atom itself could not be physically divided since it is perfectly solid, completely excluding the void, and thereby indivisible.

That the universe was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, I will no more believe than that the accidental jumbling of the alphabet would fall into a most ingenious treatise of philosophy.

A]s Norman Mailer pointed out decades ago, and Philip Roth not long afterwards, niceness is the enemy. Every soft stroke from society is like the pfft of an aerosol can as it eats up a few more atoms of our brain's delicate ozone, and furthers our personal cretinization.

In 1958, I was a delegate to the Atoms for Peace conference in Geneva.

If you had to sum up chemistry in one sentence, it might be this: Atoms need to have full shells of electrons to feel satisfied, and different elements steal, shed, or borrow different numbers of electrons to achieve a full shell.

The radical novelty of modern science lies precisely in the rejection of the belief... that the forces which move the stars and atoms are contingent upon the preferences of the human heart.

Monism: The metaphysical position that ultimately the cosmos and everything in it is One Thing with a single unified set of natural laws that guide it. Saying that the entire universe is composed of only atoms that are managed by the universal laws of physics is a monistic statement. Materialism is a form of Monism.

Epicurus (341–270 B.C.) suggested that the individual just needed tranquillity and peace of mind to be happy. As a follower of Democritus, he maintained that death was nothing to fear – it was simply the inevitable melting of our souls and bodies into atoms.

this determinism says that in every case the result is determined by the previous condition of the subject we are looking at. Our free will at the best is like that of Lucretius's atoms — which at quite uncertain times and places deviate in an uncertain manner from their course. the atoms can swerve so there's always the small possibility even for air molecules of not being forced to follow the determined laws. - ESSAY FOR THE ERANUS CLUB ON SCIENCE AND FREE WILL

The key to Linus' success was his reliance on the simple laws of structural chemistry. The ?-helix had not been found by only staring at X-ray pictures; the essential trick, instead, was to ask which atoms like to sit next to each other. In place of pencil and paper, the main working tools were a set of molecular models superficially resembling the toys of preschool children

We hang here, inquisitive carbon-based life forms, knowing that every atom of carbon now in our bodies was once in the interior of a star.

13 "The Skylark of Space," Edward Elmer Smith, with Lee Hawkins Garby (uncredited) (The Buffalo Book Co., 1946); first serialized in Amazing Stories, 1928. 15 "this theory predicted results that were nonsensical": Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles, Robert Eisberg and Robert Resnick (John Wiley and Sons, 1974). 16

The atoms in my head were spinning apart; the sparkle of the bump had already begun to turn, apprehension and disquiet moving in subtly like dark air before a thunderstorm. For a long, somber moment we looked at each other: high chemical frequency, solitude to solitude, like two Tibetan monks on a mountaintop.

The Heart of Gold fled on silently through the night of space, now on conventional photon drive. Its crew of four were ill as ease knowing that they had been brought together not of their own volition or by simple coincidence, but by some curious perversion of physics- as if relationships between people were susceptible to the same laws that governed the relationships between atoms and molecules

As if relationships between people were susceptible to the same laws that governed the relationships between atoms and molecules.

brought together not of their own volition or by simple coincidence, but by some curious perversion of physics—as if relationships between people were susceptible to the same laws that governed the relationships between atoms and molecules.

they had been brought together not of their own volition or by simple coincidence, but by some curious perversion of physics – as if relationships between people were susceptible to the same laws that governed the relationships between atoms and molecules.

sapevano di essersi trovate insieme non di oro propria volontà, o per semplice coincidenza, ma per qualche incomprensibile bizzarria della fisica, quasi che i rapporti fra le persone fossero soggetti alle stesse leggi che governano i rapporti tra gli atomi e le molecole.

if relationships between people were susceptible to the same laws that governed the relationships between atoms and molecules.

been brought together not of their own volition or by simple coincidence, but by some curious perversion of physics—as if relationships between people were susceptible to the same laws that governed the relationships between atoms and molecules

Sabiendo que estaban reunidos [...] por una curiosa perversión de la física, como si las relaciones entre la gente estuvieran sujetas a las mismas leyes que regían la relación entre átomos y moléculas.

The laws of physics should allow us to arrange things molecule by molecule and even atom by atom, and at some point it was inevitable that we would develop a technology that would let us do this.