TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY ®  •  TODAYINSCI ®
Celebrating 24 Years on the Web
Find science on or your birthday

Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: “As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index F > Category: Fission

Fission Quotes (10 quotes)

Ode to The Amoeba
Recall from Time's abysmal chasm
That piece of primal protoplasm
The First Amoeba, strangely splendid,
From whom we're all of us descended.
That First Amoeba, weirdly clever,
Exists today and shall forever,
Because he reproduced by fission;
He split himself, and each division
And subdivision deemed it fitting
To keep on splitting, splitting, splitting;
So, whatsoe'er their billions be,
All, all amoebas still are he.
Zoologists discern his features
In every sort of breathing creatures,
Since all of every living species,
No matter how their breed increases
Or how their ranks have been recruited,
From him alone were evoluted.
King Solomon, the Queen of Sheba
And Hoover sprang from that amoeba;
Columbus, Shakespeare, Darwin, Shelley
Derived from that same bit of jelly.
So famed is he and well-connected,
His statue ought to be erected,
For you and I and William Beebe
Are undeniably amoebae!
(1922). Collected in Gaily the Troubadour (1936), 18.
Science quotes on:  |  Abyss (30)  |  Alone (324)  |  Amoeba (21)  |  William Beebe (5)  |  Billion (104)  |  Breathing (23)  |  Breed (26)  |  Chasm (9)  |  Clever (41)  |  Christopher Columbus (16)  |  Connect (126)  |  Creature (242)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Descend (49)  |  Discern (35)  |  Division (67)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exist (458)  |  First (1302)  |  Forever (111)  |  Himself (461)  |  Herbert Hoover (13)  |  Increase (225)  |  Jelly (6)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Matter (821)  |  Ode (3)  |  Poem (104)  |  Primal (5)  |  Protoplasm (13)  |  Rank (69)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  William Shakespeare (109)  |   Mary Shelley (9)  |  Species (435)  |  Splendid (23)  |  Split (15)  |  Statue (17)  |  Still (614)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)  |  Zoologist (12)

In the discussion of the. energies involved in the deformation of nuclei, the concept of surface tension of nuclear matter has been used and its value had been estimated from simple considerations regarding nuclear forces. It must be remembered, however, that the surface tension of a charged droplet is diminished by its charge, and a rough estimate shows that the surface tension of nuclei, decreasing with increasing nuclear charge, may become zero for atomic numbers of the order of 100. It seems therefore possible that the uranium nucleus has only small stability of form, and may, after neutron capture, divide itself into two nuclei of roughly equal size (the precise ratio of sizes depending on liner structural features and perhaps partly on chance). These two nuclei will repel each other and should gain a total kinetic energy of c. 200 Mev., as calculated from nuclear radius and charge. This amount of energy may actually be expected to be available from the difference in packing fraction between uranium and the elements in the middle of the periodic system. The whole 'fission' process can thus be described in an essentially classical way, without having to consider quantum-mechanical 'tunnel effects', which would actually be extremely small, on account of the large masses involved.
[Co-author with Otto Robert Frisch]
Lise Meitner and O. R. Frisch, 'Disintegration of Uranium by Neutrons: a New Type of Nuclear Reaction', Nature (1939), 143, 239.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Amount (153)  |  Atomic Number (3)  |  Author (175)  |  Available (80)  |  Become (821)  |  Chance (244)  |  Charge (63)  |  Classical (49)  |  Concept (242)  |  Consider (428)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Deformation (3)  |  Difference (355)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Divide (77)  |  Effect (414)  |  Element (322)  |  Energy (373)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Expect (203)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Gain (146)  |  Involved (90)  |  Kinetic (12)  |  Kinetic Energy (3)  |  Large (398)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Must (1525)  |  Neutron (23)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nucleus (54)  |  Number (710)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possible (560)  |  Precise (71)  |  Process (439)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quantum Theory (67)  |  Radius (5)  |  Ratio (41)  |  Remember (189)  |  Repulsion (7)  |  Show (353)  |  Simple (426)  |  Small (489)  |  Stability (28)  |  Structural (29)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Tension (2)  |  System (545)  |  Tension (24)  |  Total (95)  |  Tunnel (13)  |  Two (936)  |  Uranium (21)  |  Value (393)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)  |  Zero (38)

It is hard to think of fissionable materials when fashioned into bombs as being a source of happiness. However this may be, if with such destructive weapons men are to survive, they must grow rapidly in human greatness. A new level of human understanding is needed. The reward for using the atom’s power towards man’s welfare is great and sure. The punishment for its misuse would seem to be death and the destruction of the civilization that has been growing for a thousand years. These are the alternatives that atomic power, as the steel of Daedalus, presents to mankind. We are forced to grow to greater manhood.
Atomic Quest: A Personal Narrative (1956), xix.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Atomic Power (9)  |  Being (1276)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Death (406)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Greatness (55)  |  Grow (247)  |  Growing (99)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Hard (246)  |  Human (1512)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Material (366)  |  Misuse (12)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  Power (771)  |  Present (630)  |  Punishment (14)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Reward (72)  |  Steel (23)  |  Survive (87)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Understanding (527)  |  War (233)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Weapons (57)  |  Welfare (30)  |  Year (963)

It is probable that all heavy matter possesses—latent and bound up with the structure of the atom—a similar quantity of energy to that possessed by radium. If it could be tapped and controlled, what an agent it would be in shaping the world's destiny! The man who puts his hand on the lever by which a parsimonious nature regulates so jealously the output of this store of energy would possess a weapon by which he could destroy the Earth if he chose.
A prescient remark on atomic energy after the discovery of radioactivity, but decades before the harnessing of nuclear fission in an atomic bomb became a reality.
Lecture to the Corps of Royal Engineers, Britain (19040. In Rodney P. Carlisle, Scientific American Inventions and Discoveries (2004), 373.
Science quotes on:  |  Agent (73)  |  Atom (381)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Atomic Energy (25)  |  Bound (120)  |  Decade (66)  |  Destiny (54)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Energy (373)  |  Lever (13)  |  Man (2252)  |  Matter (821)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nuclear Energy (18)  |  Parsimonious (3)  |  Possess (157)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Radioactivity (33)  |  Radium (29)  |  Reality (274)  |  Store (49)  |  Structure (365)  |  Weapon (98)  |  World (1850)

No-one really thought of fission before its discovery.
Oral History Interview with Thomas S. Kuhn where Otto Robert Frisch was also present (12 May 1963), Archive for the History of Quantum Physics, 18-20. Ruth Sime, Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics (1996), 371.
Science quotes on:  |  Discovery (837)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)

O. Hahn and F. Strassmann have discovered a new type of nuclear reaction, the splitting into two smaller nuclei of the nuclei of uranium and thorium under neutron bombardment. Thus they demonstrated the production of nuclei of barium, lanthanum, strontium, yttrium, and, more recently, of xenon and caesium. It can be shown by simple considerations that this type of nuclear reaction may be described in an essentially classical way like the fission of a liquid drop, and that the fission products must fly apart with kinetic energies of the order of hundred million electron-volts each.
'Products of the Fission of the Urarium Nucleus', Nature (1939), 143, 471.
Science quotes on:  |  Barium (4)  |  Bombardment (3)  |  Classical (49)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Discover (571)  |  Drop (77)  |  Electron (96)  |  Fly (153)  |  Otto Hahn (2)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Kinetic (12)  |  Kinetic Energy (3)  |  Lanthanum (2)  |  Liquid (50)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Neutron (23)  |  New (1273)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nuclear Reaction (2)  |  Nucleus (54)  |  Order (638)  |  Product (166)  |  Production (190)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Simple (426)  |  Strontium (2)  |  Thorium (5)  |  Two (936)  |  Type (171)  |  Uranium (21)  |  Way (1214)  |  Xenon (5)  |  Yttrium (3)

The pace of science forces the pace of technique. Theoretical physics forces atomic energy on us; the successful production of the fission bomb forces upon us the manufacture of the hydrogen bomb. We do not choose our problems, we do not choose our products; we are pushed, we are forced—by what? By a system which has no purpose and goal transcending it, and which makes man its appendix.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Appendix (5)  |  Atomic Energy (25)  |  Bomb (20)  |  Choose (116)  |  Do (1905)  |  Energy (373)  |  Force (497)  |  Goal (155)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Hydrogen Bomb (16)  |  Man (2252)  |  Manufacture (30)  |  Pace (18)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Problem (731)  |  Product (166)  |  Production (190)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Push (66)  |  Successful (134)  |  System (545)  |  Technique (84)  |  Theoretical Physics (26)  |  Transcend (27)

The technologists claim that if everything works [in a nuclear fission reactor] according to their blueprints, fission energy will be a safe and very attractive solution to the energy needs of the world. ... The real issue is whether their blueprints will work in the real world and not only in a “technological paradise.”...
Opponents of fission energy point out a number of differences between the real world and the “technological paradise.” ... No acts of God can be permitted.
'Energy and Environment', Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (May 1972), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Act (278)  |  Attractive (25)  |  Blueprint (9)  |  Claim (154)  |  Critic (21)  |  Difference (355)  |  Energy (373)  |  Everything (489)  |  God (776)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Number (710)  |  Opponent (23)  |  Paradise (15)  |  Point (584)  |  Reactor (3)  |  Reality (274)  |  Safe (61)  |  Safety (58)  |  Solution (282)  |  Technological (62)  |  Technologist (7)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

Today, nothing is unusual about a scientific discovery's being followed soon after by a technical application: The discovery of electrons led to electronics; fission led to nuclear energy. But before the 1880's, science played almost no role in the advances of technology. For example, James Watt developed the first efficient steam engine long before science established the equivalence between mechanical heat and energy.
Edward Teller with Judith L. Shoolery, Memoirs: A Twentieth-Century Journey in Science and Politics (2001), 42.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Application (257)  |  Being (1276)  |  Develop (278)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Electron (96)  |  Electronics (21)  |  Energy (373)  |  Engine (99)  |  Equivalence (7)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Heat (180)  |  Long (778)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nuclear Energy (18)  |  Role (86)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Soon (187)  |  Steam (81)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Technology (281)  |  Today (321)  |  Unusual (37)

With the unlocking of the atom, mankind crossed one of the great watersheds of history. We have entered uncharted lands. The maps of strategy and diplomacy by which we guided ourselves until yesterday no longer reveal the way. Fusion and fission revolutionized the whole foundation of human affairs.
In a speech to the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, May 24, 1955.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Enter (145)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Fusion (16)  |  Great (1610)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Map (50)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Strategy (13)  |  Uncharted (10)  |  Watershed (3)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)  |  Yesterday (37)


Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
Quotations by:Albert EinsteinIsaac NewtonLord KelvinCharles DarwinSrinivasa RamanujanCarl SaganFlorence NightingaleThomas EdisonAristotleMarie CurieBenjamin FranklinWinston ChurchillGalileo GalileiSigmund FreudRobert BunsenLouis PasteurTheodore RooseveltAbraham LincolnRonald ReaganLeonardo DaVinciMichio KakuKarl PopperJohann GoetheRobert OppenheimerCharles Kettering  ... (more people)

Quotations about:Atomic  BombBiologyChemistryDeforestationEngineeringAnatomyAstronomyBacteriaBiochemistryBotanyConservationDinosaurEnvironmentFractalGeneticsGeologyHistory of ScienceInventionJupiterKnowledgeLoveMathematicsMeasurementMedicineNatural ResourceOrganic ChemistryPhysicsPhysicianQuantum TheoryResearchScience and ArtTeacherTechnologyUniverseVolcanoVirusWind PowerWomen ScientistsX-RaysYouthZoology  ... (more topics)
Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages:
Visit our Science and Scientist Quotations index for more Science Quotes from archaeologists, biologists, chemists, geologists, inventors and inventions, mathematicians, physicists, pioneers in medicine, science events and technology.

Names index: | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Categories index: | 1 | 2 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
Thank you for sharing.
- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton


by Ian Ellis
who invites your feedback
Thank you for sharing.
Today in Science History
Sign up for Newsletter
with quiz, quotes and more.