Centrifuge Quotes (1 quote)
Let us ... consider the ovum [egg] as a physical system. Its potentialities are prodigious and one's first impulse is to expect that such vast potentialities would find expression in complexity of
structure. But what do we find? The substance is clouded with particles, but these can be
centrifuged away leaving it optically structureless but still capable of development.... On the
surface of the egg there is a fine membrane, below it fluid of high viscosity, next fluid of
relatively low viscosity, and within this the nucleus, which in the resting stage is simply a bag
of fluid enclosed in a delicate membrane.... The egg's simplicity is not that of a machine or a
crystal, but that of a nebula. Gathered into it are units relatively simple but capable by their
combinations of forming a vast number of dynamical systems...
As guest of honour, closing day address (Jun 1928), Sixth Colloid Symposium, Toronto, Canada, 'Living Matter', printed in Harry Boyer Weiser (ed.), Colloid Symposium Monograph (1928), Vol. 6, 15. Quoted in Joseph Needham, Chemical Embryology (1931), Vol. 1, 612-613.
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) -- 
