Purple Quotes (4 quotes)
A great ball of fire about a mile in diameter, changing colors as it kept shooting upward, from deep purple to orange, expanding, growing bigger, rising as it was expanding, an elemental force freed from its bonds after being chained for billions of years.
On the first atomic explosion in New Mexico, 16 Jul 1945.
On the first atomic explosion in New Mexico, 16 Jul 1945.
From 'Drama of the Atomic Bomb Found Climax in July 16 Test', in New York Times (26 Sep 1945). This was the first of a series of articles by Laurence, who was the only civilian witness of the first bomb test. He was on a flight to see the dropping of a bomb on Nagasaki. Laurence, science writer for the NYT, had been requested for service to the War Department to explain the atomic bomb to the lay public.
An eye critically nice will discern in every colour a tendency to some other colour, according as it is influenced by light, shade, depth or diluteness; nor is this the case only in the inherent colours of pigments, &c. but it is so also in the transient colours of the prism, &c. Hence blue in its depth inclines to purple; deep-yellow to orange, &c.; nor is it practicable to realize these colours to the satisfaction of the critical eye,-since perfect colours, like perfect geometrical figures, are pure ideals. My examples of colours are therefore quite as adequate to their office of illustrating and distinguishing, as the figure of an angle inclining to the acute or obtuse, instead of a perfect right angle, or middle form, would be in illustrating the conception of an angle in general.
In 'On Colors—In Answer to Mr. T. Hargreaves’s Strictures on the Work Entitled “Chromatics; or, An Essay on the Analogy and Harmony of Colours”', The Philosophical Magazine and Journal: Comprehending The Various Branches of Science, The Liberal and Fine Arts, Geology, Agriculture, Manufactures and Commerce (Oct 1817), 50, No. 234, 241.
There is probably no other science which presents such different appearances to one who cultivates it and to one who does not, as mathematics. To this person it is ancient, venerable, and complete; a body of dry, irrefutable, unambiguous reasoning. To the mathematician, on the other hand, his science is yet in the purple bloom of vigorous youth, everywhere stretching out after the “attainable but unattained” and full of the excitement of nascent thoughts; its logic is beset with ambiguities, and its analytic processes, like Bunyan’s road, have a quagmire on one side and a deep ditch on the other and branch off into innumerable by-paths that end in a wilderness.
In 'The Theory of Transformation Groups', (A review of Erster Abschnitt, Theorie der Transformationsgruppen (1888)), Bulletin New York Mathematical Society (1893), 2 (First series), 61.
When God made the color purple, God was just showing off.
Paraphrasing from Alice Walker's book, The Color Purple. From online transcript of TED talk, 'Mae Jemison on teaching arts and sciences together' (2002).
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) -- 
