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Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index C > Edward U. Condon Quotes

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Edward U. Condon
(2 Mar 1902 - 26 Mar 1974)

American physicist known for the Franck-Condon principle (1928), development of radar, and contributing to the design of magnetic separation equipment subsequently applied to process uranium for atomic bombs


Science Quotes by Edward U. Condon (7 quotes)

If physics is too difficult for the physicists, the nonphysicist may wonder whether he should try at all to grasp its complexities and ambiguities. It is undeniably an effort, but probably one worth making, for the basic questions are important and the new experimental results are often fascinating. And if the layman runs into serious perplexities, he can be consoled with the thought that the points which baffle him are more than likely the ones for which the professionals have not found satisfactory answers.
— Edward U. Condon
From essay, 'Physics', contributed to James Roy Newman (ed.), What is Science?: Twelve Eminent Scientists and Philosophers Explain Their Various Fields to the Layman (1955), 102.
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In short, the greatest contribution to real security that science can make is through the extension of the scientific method to the social sciences and a solution of the problem of complete avoidance of war.
— Edward U. Condon
In "Science and Security", Science (25 Jun 1948), 107, 665. Written while Director of the U.S. National Bureau of Standards.
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On May 15, 1957 Linus Pauling made an extraordinary speech to the students of Washington University. ... It was at this time that the idea of the scientists' petition against nuclear weapons tests was born. That evening we discussed it at length after dinner at my house and various ones of those present were scribbling and suggesting paragraphs. But it was Linus Pauling himself who contributed the simple prose of the petition that was much superior to any of the suggestions we were making.
— Edward U. Condon
Speech, "The 1962 Nobel Peace Prize," at Unitarian Church, Boulder, Colorado (20 Oct 1963). On Oregon State University Library website.
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On the Enquirer I specialized in news of organized labor. … The dock and timber workers and the migratory farm laborers…were drawn to communism. The California State Legislature had passed a strong bill defining criminal syndicalism and making it a felony. The politicians were looking for a place to use it. On November 9, 1919, I was the only reporter from a conservative paper to cover the organization meeting of the Communist Labor Party of California, as it was then called. I wrote lurid and sensational stories about this small group of…persons, which resulted in indictments against them, and which required that I had to testify against them, in trial after trial, over the next several years. In this connection I became aware of open boasting by a police detective of his having framed some of the defendants in a matter where I knew the facts to be otherwise. The effect of this involvement on me was to wipe out any desire to be…[a] newspaperman; so I entered the university and went into physical science largely as a means of escape from the corruption of the world, in addition to the fact that I was genuinely interested in physical science.
— Edward U. Condon
As a high school student in Oakland, California, Condon had rival interests in journalism and science, and became a reporter for the Oakland Enquirer. That had a lasting effect on his attitude toward government and society. As described in his autobiographical 'Reminiscences of a Life in and out of Quantum Mechanics', Proceedings of the International Symposium on Atomic, Molecular, Solid State Theory and Quantum Biology, Sanibel Island, Florida' (22 Jan 1973), published in International Journal of Quantum Chemistry (1973), 7, 7-22; collected in Asim O. Barut, Halis Odabasi and Alwyn van der Merwe (eds.), Selected Popular Writings of E.U. Condon (1991), 316-317.
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The whole apparatus of using loyalty-security hearings for working off personal political spite has been firmly established as a part of our “way of life” and I do not see anything happening yet to loosen the hold of this machinery on us.
— Edward U. Condon
In letter to Linus Pauling (8 Sep 1955). Cited on Oregon State University Library web site.
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There has come about a general public awareness that America is not automatically, and effortlessly, and unquestionably the leader of the world in science and technology. This comes as no surprise to those of us who have watched and tried to warn against the steady deterioration in the teaching of science and mathematics in the schools for the past quarter century. It comes as no surprise to those who have known of dozens of cases of scientists who have been hounded out of jobs by silly disloyalty charges, and kept out of all professional employment by widespread blacklisting practices.
— Edward U. Condon
Banquet speech at American Physical Society, St. Louis, Missouri. (29 Nov 1957). In "Time to Stop Baiting Scientists", Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Feb 1958), 80.
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What, more petitions! Won't you be, and stay, intimidated? You must really annoy Sen. Dodd. Here it is [my signature], and I hope it does some good.
— Edward U. Condon
Letter to Linus and Ava Helen Pauling (17 Jan 1961). On Oregon State University Library website.
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Quotes by others about Edward U. Condon (3)

Son of a railroad engineer in the western United States, sometimes newspaper man in San Francisco, [Edward] Condon’s scientific career combined the abstract with the practical, theory and observation in a unique way.
From 'Edward Uhler Condon, A Personal Recollection', presented at the Fourth International Conference on Atomic Physics, published in the Proceedings of this conference by G. zu Pulitz et al. (eds.), Atomic Physics (1975), Vol. 4, as collected in Asim O. Barut, Halis Odabasi and Alwyn van der Merwe (eds.), Selected Popular Writings of E.U. Condon (1991), 1.
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Of all the American scientists whose concern about the use of atomic weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki led them to devote themselves to the cause of peace, none was more dedicated nor more effective than [Edward] Condon. His efforts as Science Adviser to the Select Committee on Atomic Energy of the United States Senate after the war had much to do with the decision by the Congress to place government responsibility for atomic energy in a civilian rather than a military agency.
From 'Edward Uhler Condon, A Personal Recollection', presented at the Fourth International Conference on Atomic Physics, published in the Proceedings of this conference by G. zu Pulitz et al. (eds.), Atomic Physics (1975), Vol. 4, as collected in Asim O. Barut, Halis Odabasi and Alwyn van der Merwe (eds.), Selected Popular Writings of E.U. Condon (1991), 2. Branscomb added that there was a “price he paid for his relentless pursuit of this goal.”
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The middle third of the twentieth century was the era of hegemony of physics in American science. During that whole period Edward Uhler Condon was a leader in physics, in research of his own, in stimulating research in others, in applying physics, and in calling attention to the effects on all of us of its indiscriminate and irrational application. When he made his first contribution to theoretical physics in 1926, the word physics was not in the vocabularies of most Americans and the revolutionary concepts of quantum mechanics and relativity were just being worked out in Europe; by 1960 the applications of electronics and solid state physics had begun to change our lives irreversibly, and the implications of nuclear physics were manifest to everyone. Ed Condon contributed to each part of this explosive evolution.
From 'Edward Uhler Condon, 1902-1974', Reviews of Modern Physics (1975), 47, 1; as collected in Asim O. Barut, Halis Odabasi and Alwyn van der Merwe (eds.), Selected Popular Writings of E.U. Condon (1991), 42.
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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
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