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 M > Category: Molecule

Molecule Quotes (185 quotes)
Molecules Quotes

… I became captivated by the edifices chemists had raised through experiment and imagination—but still I had a lurking question. Would it not be better if one could really “see” whether molecules as complicated as the sterols, or strychnine were just as experiment suggested?
(11 Dec 1964) The X-ray analysis of complicated molecules, Nobel Lecture.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Edifice (26)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Lurking (7)  |  Question (649)  |  See (1094)  |  Still (614)  |  Through (846)  |  X-ray Crystallography (12)

…the Form or true definition of heat … is in few words as follows: Heat is a motion; expansive, restrained, and acting in its strife upon the smaller particles of bodies. But the expansion is thus modified; while it expands all ways, it has at the same time an inclination upward. And the struggle in the particles is modified also; it is not sluggish, but hurried and with violence.
Novum Organum (1620), Book 2, Aphorism 20. Translated as 'First Vintage Concerning the Form of Heat', The New Organon: Aphorisms Concerning the Interpretation of Nature and the Kingdom of Man), collected in James Spedding, Robert Ellis and Douglas Heath (eds.), The Works of Francis Bacon (1857), Vol. 4, 154-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Definition (238)  |  Expand (56)  |  Expansion (43)  |  Expansive (5)  |  Follow (389)  |  Form (976)  |  Heat (180)  |  Inclination (36)  |  Motion (320)  |  Particle (200)  |  Struggle (111)  |  Time (1911)  |  Upward (44)  |  Violence (37)  |  Way (1214)  |  Word (650)

[About the mechanical properties of the molecules of a chemical substance being studied:] They could be measured, but that would have taken several months. So someone said, ‘Let’s get Teller in and make him guess the data.’ We got him into a room and locked the door, so no one else could get at him, and he asked questions and did some figuring at the blackboard. He got the answers in about two hours, not entirely accurately, of course, but—as we found out when we got around to verifying them—close enough for the purpose.
Recalls the first time she was ever really awed by mental abilities of Edward Teller. She had joined the Manhattan Project, and needed data on the physical properties of molecules of a certain substance to get started on her assigned task of calculating its chemical properties. As quoted in Robert Coughlan, 'Dr. Edward Teller’s Magnificent Obsession', Life (6 Sep 1954), 61.
Science quotes on:  |  Accurate (88)  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Being (1276)  |  Blackboard (11)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Course (413)  |  Data (162)  |  Door (94)  |  Enough (341)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Guess (67)  |  Hour (192)  |  Lock (14)  |  Measure (241)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Month (91)  |  Property (177)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Question (649)  |  Room (42)  |  Study (701)  |  Substance (253)  |  Edward Teller (43)  |  Two (936)  |  Useful (260)  |  Verify (24)

[Beyond natural history] Other biological sciences take up the study at other levels of organization: dissecting the individual into organs and tissues and seeing how these work together, as in physiology; reaching down still further to the level of cells, as in cytology; and reaching the final biological level with the study of living molecules and their interactions, as in biochemistry. No one of these levels can be considered as more important than any other.
In The Nature of Natural History (1961, 2014), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Beyond (316)  |  Biochemistry (50)  |  Biological (137)  |  Biology (232)  |  Cell (146)  |  Consider (428)  |  Cytology (7)  |  Dissection (35)  |  Down (455)  |  Final (121)  |  History (716)  |  Importance (299)  |  Individual (420)  |  Interaction (47)  |  Level (69)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Organ (118)  |  Organization (120)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physiology (101)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Still (614)  |  Study (701)  |  Tissue (51)  |  Together (392)  |  Work (1402)

[John] Dalton was a man of regular habits. For fifty-seven years he walked out of Manchester every day; he measured the rainfall, the temperature—a singularly monotonous enterprise in this climate. Of all that mass of data, nothing whatever came. But of the one searching, almost childlike question about the weights that enter the construction of these simple molecules—out of that came modern atomic theory. That is the essence of science: ask an impertinent question, and you are on the way to the pertinent answer.
The Ascent of Man (1973), 153.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Atomic Theory (16)  |  Climate (102)  |  Construction (114)  |  John Dalton (25)  |  Data (162)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Enter (145)  |  Enterprise (56)  |  Essence (85)  |  Habit (174)  |  Impertinence (4)  |  Impertinent (5)  |  Man (2252)  |  Manchester (6)  |  Mass (160)  |  Modern (402)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Pertinent (4)  |  Question (649)  |  Regular (48)  |  Simple (426)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Walk (138)  |  Way (1214)  |  Weather (49)  |  Weight (140)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Year (963)

[Molecular biology] is concerned particularly with the forms of biological molecules and with the evolution, exploitation and ramification of these forms in the ascent to higher and higher levels of organisation. Molecular biology is predominantly three-dimensional and structural—which does not mean, however, that it is merely a refinement of morphology. It must at the same time inquire into genesis and function.
From Harvey lecture (1951). As cited by John Law in 'The Case of X-ray Protein Crystallography', collected in Gerard Lemaine (ed.), Perspectives on the Emergence of Scientific Disciplines, 1976, 141.
Science quotes on:  |  Biological (137)  |  Biology (232)  |  Concern (239)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exploitation (14)  |  Form (976)  |  Function (235)  |   Genesis (26)  |  Inquire (26)  |  Mean (810)  |  Merely (315)  |  Molecular Biology (27)  |  Morphology (22)  |  Must (1525)  |  Ramification (8)  |  Refinement (19)  |  Structural (29)  |  Structure (365)  |  Three-Dimensional (11)  |  Time (1911)

[Our work on the structure of DNA] was fairly fast, but you know, we were lucky. One must remember, it was based on the X-ray work done here in London started off by Morris Wilkins and carried on by Rosalind Franklin, and we wouldn’t have got to the stage of at least having a molecular model, if it hadn't been for their work.
Quoted and cited from BBC radio (1999) in transcript of Australian ABC radio program PM (30 Jul 2004) on the ABC website.
Science quotes on:  |  DNA (81)  |  Rosalind Franklin (18)  |  Know (1538)  |  Model (106)  |  Must (1525)  |  Ray (115)  |  Remember (189)  |  Stage (152)  |  Start (237)  |  Structure (365)  |  Structure Of DNA (5)  |  Maurice Wilkins (4)  |  Work (1402)  |  X-ray (43)

[Professor W.L. Bragg asserts that] In sodium chloride there appear to be no molecules represented by NaCl. The equality in number of sodium and chlorine atoms is arrived at by a chess-board pattern of these atoms; it is a result of geometry and not of a pairing-off of the atoms.
In Henry E. Armstrong, 'Poor Common Salt!', Nature (1927), 120, 478.
Science quotes on:  |  Assert (69)  |  Atom (381)  |  Sir William Bragg (9)  |  Chess (27)  |  Chlorine (15)  |  Equality (34)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Number (710)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Professor (133)  |  Represent (157)  |  Result (700)  |  Salt (48)  |  Sodium (15)  |  Sodium Chloride (2)

[S]uppose you make a hole in an ordinary evacuated electric light bulb and allow the air molecules to pass in at the rate of 1,000,000 a second, the bulb will become full of air in approximately 100,000,000 years.
In Lecture (1936) on 'Forty Years of Atomic Theory', collected in Needham and Pagel (eds.) in Background to Modern Science: Ten Lectures at Cambridge Arranged by the History of Science Committee, (1938), 99.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Approximate (25)  |  Atomic Size (2)  |  Become (821)  |  Bulb (10)  |  Electric (76)  |  Full (68)  |  Hole (17)  |  Light (635)  |  Light Bulb (6)  |  Million (124)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Pass (241)  |  Rate (31)  |  Second (66)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

[The nanotube] brings those properties you cannot get from other organic molecules. And it’s still carbon, so it has organic chemistry. Here is an object that has, to a superlative degree, the aspects that we hold most central to the inorganic world: hardness, toughness, terrific strength, thermal and electrical conductivity. Things you just can’t do with bone and wood. But it’s made out of carbon. It’s something that plays the game at the same level of perfection as molecules and life.
From interview in 'Wires of Wonder', Technology Review (Mar 2001), 104, No. 2, 88.
Science quotes on:  |  Aspect (129)  |  Bone (101)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Central (81)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Conductivity (4)  |  Degree (277)  |  Do (1905)  |  Electrical (57)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Game (104)  |  Hardness (4)  |  Inorganic (14)  |  Life (1870)  |  Most (1728)  |  Object (438)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organic Chemistry (41)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Property (177)  |  Something (718)  |  Still (614)  |  Strength (139)  |  Terrific (4)  |  Thermal (15)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Wood (97)  |  World (1850)

[The] structural theory is of extreme simplicity. It assumes that the molecule is held together by links between one atom and the next: that every kind of atom can form a definite small number of such links: that these can be single, double or triple: that the groups may take up any position possible by rotation round the line of a single but not round that of a double link: finally that with all the elements of the first short period [of the periodic table], and with many others as well, the angles between the valencies are approximately those formed by joining the centre of a regular tetrahedron to its angular points. No assumption whatever is made as to the mechanism of the linkage. Through the whole development of organic chemistry this theory has always proved capable of providing a different structure for every different compound that can be isolated. Among the hundreds of thousands of known substances, there are never more isomeric forms than the theory permits.
Presidential Address to the Chemical Society (16 Apr 1936), Journal of the Chemical Society (1936), 533.
Science quotes on:  |  Angle (25)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Atom (381)  |  Capability (44)  |  Capable (174)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Compound (117)  |  Definite (114)  |  Development (441)  |  Different (595)  |  Double (18)  |  Element (322)  |  Extreme (78)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Isolated (15)  |  Isomer (6)  |  Joining (11)  |  Kind (564)  |  Known (453)  |  Link (48)  |  Linkage (5)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  More (2558)  |  Never (1089)  |  Next (238)  |  Number (710)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organic Chemistry (41)  |  Other (2233)  |  Period (200)  |  Periodic Table (19)  |  Permit (61)  |  Point (584)  |  Possible (560)  |  Regular (48)  |  Rotation (13)  |  Short (200)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Single (365)  |  Small (489)  |  Structural (29)  |  Structure (365)  |  Substance (253)  |  Table (105)  |  Tetrahedron (4)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Through (846)  |  Together (392)  |  Valency (4)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Whole (756)

[To elucidate using models] the different combining powers in elementary atoms, I … select my illustrations from that most delightful of games, croquet. Let the croquet balls represent our atoms, and let us distinguish the atoms of different elements by different colours. The white balls are hydrogen, the green ones chlorine atoms; the atoms of fiery oxygen are red, those of nitrogen, blue; the carbon atoms, lastly, are naturally represented by black balls. But we have, in addition, exhibit the different combining powers of these atoms … by screwing into the balls a number of metallic arms (tubes and pins), which correspond respectively to the combining powers of the atoms represented … to join the balls … in imitation of the atomic edifices represented.
Paper presented at the Friday Discourse of the the Royal Institution (7 Apr 1865). 'On the Combining Power of Atoms', Proceedings of the Royal Institution (1865), 4, No. 42, 416.
Science quotes on:  |  Addition (70)  |  Arm (82)  |  Arms (37)  |  Atom (381)  |  Ball (64)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Chlorine (15)  |  Croquet (2)  |  Delightful (18)  |  Different (595)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Edifice (26)  |  Element (322)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Game (104)  |  Green (65)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Model (106)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nitrogen (32)  |  Number (710)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Pin (20)  |  Power (771)  |  Represent (157)  |  Respectively (13)  |  Select (45)  |  White (132)

Dass die bis jetzt unzerlegten chemischen Elemente absolut unzerlegbare Stoffe seien, ist gegenwärtig mindestens sehr unwahrscheinlich. Vielmehr scheint es, dass die Atome der Elemente nicht die letzten, sondern nur die näheren Bestandtheile der Molekeln sowohl der Elemente wie der Verbindungen bilden, die Molekeln oder Molecule als Massentheile erster, die Atome als solche zweiter Ordnung anzusehen sind, die ihrerseits wiederum aus Massentheilchen einer dritten höheren Ordnung bestehen werden.
That the as yet undivided chemical elements are absolutely irreducible substances, is currently at least very unlikely. Rather it seems, that the atoms of elements are not the final, but only the immediate constituents of the molecules of both the elements and the compounds—the Molekeln or molecule as foremost division of matter, the atoms being considered as second order, in turn consisting of matter particles of a third higher order.
[Speculating in 1870, on the existence of subatomic particles, in opening remark of the paper by which he became established as co-discoverer of the Periodic Law.]
'Die Natur der chemischen Elemente als Function ihrer Atomgewichte' ('The Nature of the Chemical Elements as a Function of their Atomic Weight'), Annalen der Chemie (1870), supp. b, 354. Original German paper reprinted in Lothar Meyer and Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleyev, Das natürliche System der chemischen Elemente: Abhandlungen (1895), 9. Translation by Webmaster, with punctuation faithful to the original, except a comma was changed to a dash to improve readability.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Atom (381)  |  Being (1276)  |  Both (496)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Compound (117)  |  Consider (428)  |  Consisting (5)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Discoverer (43)  |  Division (67)  |  Element (322)  |  Existence (481)  |  Final (121)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Irreducible (7)  |  Law (913)  |  Matter (821)  |  Order (638)  |  Paper (192)  |  Particle (200)  |  Periodic Law (6)  |  Subatomic (10)  |  Substance (253)  |  Turn (454)  |  Undivided (3)  |  Unlikely (15)

A casual glance at crystals may lead to the idea that they were pure sports of nature, but this is simply an elegant way of declaring one’s ignorance. With a thoughtful examination of them, we discover laws of arrangement. With the help of these, calculation portrays and links up the observed results. How variable and at the same time how precise and regular are these laws! How simple they are ordinarily, without losing anything of their significance! The theory which has served to develop these laws is based entirely on a fact, whose existence has hitherto been vaguely discerned rather than demonstrated. This fact is that in all minerals which belong to the same species, these little solids, which are the crystal elements and which I call their integrant molecules, have an invariable form, in which the faces lie in the direction of the natural fracture surfaces corresponding to the mechanical division of the crystals. Their angles and dimensions are derived from calculations combined with observation.
Traité de mineralogie … Publié par le conseil des mines (1801), Vol. 1, xiii-iv, trans. Albert V. and Marguerite Carozzi.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Belong (168)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Call (781)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Develop (278)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Direction (185)  |  Discern (35)  |  Discover (571)  |  Division (67)  |  Elegant (37)  |  Element (322)  |  Examination (102)  |  Existence (481)  |  Face (214)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Form (976)  |  Fracture (7)  |  Glance (36)  |  Idea (881)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Law (913)  |  Lead (391)  |  Lie (370)  |  Little (717)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mineral (66)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Precise (71)  |  Pure (299)  |  Regular (48)  |  Result (700)  |  Significance (114)  |  Simple (426)  |  Solid (119)  |  Species (435)  |  Sport (23)  |  Surface (223)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thoughtful (16)  |  Time (1911)  |  Variable (37)  |  Way (1214)

A great deal of the universe does not need any explanation. Elephants, for instance. Once molecules have learnt to compete and to create other molecules in their own image, elephants, and things resembling elephants, will in due course be found roaming around the countryside ... Some of the things resembling elephants will be men.
The Creation (1981), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Course (413)  |  Create (245)  |  Creation (350)  |  Deal (192)  |  Due (143)  |  Elephant (35)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Great (1610)  |  Image (97)  |  Man (2252)  |  Other (2233)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Universe (900)  |  Will (2350)

A working definition of life, … could [be] in terms of a large molecule made up of carbon compounds that can replicate, or make copies of itself, and metabolize food and energy…: macromolecule, metabolism, replication.
From interview, 'The Seeds of Life', in The Omni Interviews (1984), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Carbon (68)  |  Compound (117)  |  Definition (238)  |  Energy (373)  |  Food (213)  |  Large (398)  |  Life (1870)  |  Macromolecule (3)  |  Metabolism (15)  |  Replication (10)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thing (1914)

All of today’s DNA, strung through all the cells of the earth, is simply an extension and elaboration of [the] first molecule.
In The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974, 1979), 27.
Science quotes on:  |  Cell (146)  |  DNA (81)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Elaboration (11)  |  Extension (60)  |  First (1302)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  String (22)  |  Through (846)  |  Today (321)

All things on the earth are the result of chemical combination. The operation by which the commingling of molecules and the interchange of atoms take place we can imitate in our laboratories; but in nature they proceed by slow degrees, and, in general, in our hands they are distinguished by suddenness of action. In nature chemical power is distributed over a long period of time, and the process of change is scarcely to be observed. By acts we concentrate chemical force, and expend it in producing a change which occupies but a few hours at most.
In chapter 'Chemical Forces', The Poetry of Science: Or, Studies of the Physical Phenomena of Nature (1848), 235-236. Charles Dicken used this quote, with his own sub-head of 'Relative Importance Of Time To Man And Nature', to conclude his review of the book, published in The Examiner (1848).
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Action (342)  |  Atom (381)  |  Change (639)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Combination (150)  |  Concentrate (28)  |  Concentration (29)  |  Degree (277)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Distinguishing (14)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Force (497)  |  General (521)  |  Hour (192)  |  Imitate (18)  |  Interchange (4)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Long (778)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observed (149)  |  Operation (221)  |  Period (200)  |  Place (192)  |  Power (771)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Proceeding (38)  |  Process (439)  |  Producing (6)  |  Result (700)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Slow (108)  |  Suddenness (6)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)

Almost all aspects of life are engineered at the molecular level, and without understanding molecules we can only have a very sketchy understanding of life itself.
What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View of Scientific Discovery (1988), 61.
Science quotes on:  |  Aspect (129)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Life (1870)  |  Molecular Biology (27)  |  Understanding (527)

Among nonclassical ions the ratio of conceptual difficulty to molecular weight reaches a maximum with the cyclopropylcarbinyl-cyclobutyl system.
Nonclassical Ions (1965), 272.
Science quotes on:  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Ion (21)  |  Ratio (41)  |  System (545)  |  Weight (140)

An anecdote is an historical molecule…. The general form of history is a fusion of anecdotes.
In M.J. Hope (ed., trans.), Novalis: His Life, Thoughts, and Works (1891), 188.
Science quotes on:  |  Anecdote (21)  |  Form (976)  |  Fusion (16)  |  General (521)  |  Historical (70)  |  History (716)

An aromatic compound may be defined as a cyclic compound with a large resonance energy where all the annular atoms take part in a single conjugated system.
Electronic Theory of Organic Chemistry (1949), 160.
Science quotes on:  |  Aromatic (4)  |  Atom (381)  |  Compound (117)  |  Cyclic (3)  |  Energy (373)  |  Large (398)  |  Resonance (7)  |  Single (365)  |  Structure (365)  |  System (545)

An immune system of enormous complexity is present in all vertebrate animals. When we place a population of lymphocytes from such an animal in appropriate tissue culture fluid, and when we add an antigen, the lymphocytes will produce specific antibody molecules, in the absence of any nerve cells. I find it astonishing that the immune system embodies a degree of complexity which suggests some more or less superficial though striking analogies with human language, and that this cognitive system has evolved and functions without assistance of the brain.
'The Generative Grammar of the Immune System', Nobel Lecture, 8 Dec 1984. In Nobel Lectures: Physiology or Medicine 1981-1990 (1993), 223.
Science quotes on:  |  Analogy (76)  |  Animal (651)  |  Antibody (6)  |  Antigen (5)  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Assistance (23)  |  Astonishing (29)  |  Brain (281)  |  Cognitive (7)  |  Complex (202)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Culture (157)  |  Degree (277)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Function (235)  |  Human (1512)  |  Immune System (3)  |  Immunology (14)  |  Language (308)  |  More (2558)  |  More Or Less (71)  |  Nerve (82)  |  Population (115)  |  Present (630)  |  Specific (98)  |  Striking (48)  |  System (545)  |  Tissue (51)  |  Vertebrate (22)  |  Will (2350)

An unelectrified atom is so elusive that unless more than a million million are present we have no means sufficiently sensitive to detect them, or, to put it another way, unless we had a better test for a man than for an unelectrified molecule, we should be unable to find out that the earth was inhabited. … A billion unelectrified atoms may escape our observation, whereas a dozen or so electrified ones are detected without difficulty.
From the Romanes Lecture (10 Jun 1914) delivered in the Sheldonian Theatre, published as The Atomic Theory (1914), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Better (493)  |  Billion (104)  |  Detect (45)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Dozen (10)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Electrified (2)  |  Elusive (8)  |  Escape (85)  |  Find (1014)  |  Inhabit (18)  |  Ion (21)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Million (124)  |  More (2558)  |  Observation (593)  |  Present (630)  |  Sensitive (15)  |  Sufficiently (9)  |  Test (221)  |  Way (1214)

As a well-known sports announcer would have put it: “ATP is the most underrated molecule in the league today.”
In The Wine of Life, and other Essays on Societies, Energy & Living Things (1981), 19.
Science quotes on:  |  ATP (2)  |  Known (453)  |  League (2)  |  Most (1728)  |  Sport (23)  |  Today (321)  |  Underrated (3)

As soon as we touch the complex processes that go on in a living thing, be it plant or animal, we are at once forced to use the methods of this science [chemistry]. No longer will the microscope, the kymograph, the scalpel avail for the complete solution of the problem. For the further analysis of these phenomena which are in flux and flow, the investigator must associate himself with those who have labored in fields where molecules and atoms, rather than multicellular tissues or even unicellular organisms, are the units of study.
'Experimental and Chemical Studies of the Blood with an Appeal for More Extended Chemical Training for the Biological and Medical Investigator', Science (6 Aug 1915), 42, 176.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Animal (651)  |  Associate (25)  |  Atom (381)  |  Biochemistry (50)  |  Biology (232)  |  Cell (146)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Complete (209)  |  Complex (202)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Field (378)  |  Flow (89)  |  Flux (21)  |  Himself (461)  |  Investigator (71)  |  Labor (200)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Method (531)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Multicellular (4)  |  Must (1525)  |  Organism (231)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Plant (320)  |  Problem (731)  |  Process (439)  |  Scalpel (4)  |  Solution (282)  |  Soon (187)  |  Study (701)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Tissue (51)  |  Touch (146)  |  Use (771)  |  Will (2350)

At quite uncertain times and places,
The atoms left their heavenly path,
And by fortuitous embraces,
Engendered all that being hath.
And though they seem to cling together,
And form 'associations' here,
Yet, soon or late, they burst their tether,
And through the depths of space career.
From 'Molecular Evolution', Nature, 8, 1873. In Lewis Campbell and William Garnett, The Life of James Clerk Maxwell (1882), 637.
Science quotes on:  |  Association (49)  |  Atom (381)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bond (46)  |  Burst (41)  |  Career (86)  |  Depth (97)  |  Embrace (47)  |  Form (976)  |  Fortuitous (11)  |  Late (119)  |  Path (159)  |  Poem (104)  |  Soon (187)  |  Space (523)  |  Tether (2)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  Uncertain (45)

At your next breath each of you will probably inhale half a dozen or so of the molecules of Caesar’s last breath.
'Assault on Atoms' (Read 23 Apr 1931 at Symposium—The Changing World) Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society (1931), 70, No. 3, 219.
Science quotes on:  |  Breath (61)  |  Caesar_Julius (2)  |  Inhale (3)  |  Last (425)  |  Next (238)  |  Probably (50)  |  Will (2350)

Atoms and molecules … from their very nature can never be made the objects of sensuous contemplation.
In Ernst Mach and Thomas J. McCormack (trans.), 'Space and Geometry from the Point of View of Physical Inquiry', Space and Geometry in the Light of Physiological, Psychological and Physical Inquiry (1906), 138. Originally written as an article for The Monist (1 Oct 1903), 14, No. 1, Mach believed the realm of science should include only phenomena directly observable by the senses, and rejected theories of unseeable atomic orbitals.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Object (438)  |  Sensuous (5)

Available energy is energy which we can direct into any desired channel. Dissipated energy is energy which we cannot lay hold of and direct at pleasure, such as the energy of the confused agitation of molecules which we call heat. Now, confusion, like the correlative term order, is not a property of material things in themselves, but only in relation to the mind which perceives them. A memorandum-book does not, provided it is neatly written, appear confused to an illiterate person, or to the owner who understands it thoroughly, but to any other person able to read it appears to be inextricably confused. Similarly the notion of dissipated energy could not occur to a being who could not turn any of the energies of nature to his own account, or to one who could trace the motion of every molecule and seize it at the right moment. It is only to a being in the intermediate stage, who can lay hold of some forms of energy while others elude his grasp, that energy appears to be passing inevitably from the available to the dissipated state.
'Diffusion', Encyclopaedia Britannica (1878). In W. D. Niven (ed.), The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (1890), Vol. 2, 646.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Agitation (10)  |  Available (80)  |  Being (1276)  |  Book (413)  |  Call (781)  |  Confusion (61)  |  Diffusion (13)  |  Direct (228)  |  Dissipate (8)  |  Elude (11)  |  Energy (373)  |  Form (976)  |  Heat (180)  |  Illiterate (6)  |  Intermediate (38)  |  Material (366)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moment (260)  |  Motion (320)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Notion (120)  |  Occur (151)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Passing (76)  |  Person (366)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Property (177)  |  Read (308)  |  Right (473)  |  Stage (152)  |  State (505)  |  Term (357)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Trace (109)  |  Turn (454)  |  Understand (648)

Biology as a discipline would benefit enormously if we could bring together the scientists working at the opposite ends of the biological spectrum. Students of organisms who know natural history have abundant questions to offer the students of molecules and cells. And molecular and cellular biologists with their armory of techniques and special insights have much to offer students of organisms and ecology.
In 'The role of natural history in contemporary biology', BioScience (1986), 36, 328-329.
Science quotes on:  |  Abundant (23)  |  Armory (3)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Biological (137)  |  Biologist (70)  |  Biology (232)  |  Bring (95)  |  Cell (146)  |  Cellular (2)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Ecology (81)  |  End (603)  |  Enormously (4)  |  History (716)  |  Insight (107)  |  Know (1538)  |  Molecular (7)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural History (77)  |  Offer (142)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Organism (231)  |  Question (649)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Special (188)  |  Spectrum (35)  |  Student (317)  |  Technique (84)  |  Together (392)  |  Work (1402)

Biology is a science of three dimensions. The first is the study of each species across all levels of biological organization, molecule to cell to organism to population to ecosystem. The second dimension is the diversity of all species in the biosphere. The third dimension is the history of each species in turn, comprising both its genetic evolution and the environmental change that drove the evolution. Biology, by growing in all three dimensions, is progressing toward unification and will continue to do so.
In 'Systematics and the Future of Biology', Systematics and the Origin of Species: on Ernst Mayr's 100th anniversary, Volume 102, Issues 22-26 (2005), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Biological (137)  |  Biology (232)  |  Biosphere (14)  |  Both (496)  |  Cell (146)  |  Change (639)  |  Continue (179)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Do (1905)  |  Ecosystem (33)  |  Environment (239)  |  Evolution (635)  |  First (1302)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Growing (99)  |  Growth (200)  |  History (716)  |  Organism (231)  |  Organization (120)  |  Population (115)  |  Progress (492)  |  Species (435)  |  Study (701)  |  Turn (454)  |  Unification (11)  |  Will (2350)

Biology today is moving in the direction of chemistry. Much of what is understood in the field is based on the structure of molecules and the properties of molecules in relation to their structure. If you have that basis, then biology isn’t just a collection of disconnected facts.
From interview with Neil A. Campbell, in 'Crossing the Boundaries of Science', BioScience (Dec 1986), 36, No. 11, 737.
Science quotes on:  |  Basis (180)  |  Biochemistry (50)  |  Biology (232)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Collection (68)  |  Direction (185)  |  Disconnected (3)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Field (378)  |  Property (177)  |  Relation (166)  |  Structure (365)  |  Today (321)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understood (155)

Built up of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, together with traces of a few other elements, yet of a complexity of structure that has hitherto resisted all attempts at complete analysis, protoplasm is at once the most enduring and the most easily destroyed of substances; its molecules are constantly breaking down to furnish the power for the manifestations of vital phenomena, and yet, through its remarkable property of assimilation, a power possessed by nothing else upon earth, it constantly builds up its substance anew from the surrounding medium.
In History of the Human Body (1919), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Anew (19)  |  Assimilation (13)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Build (211)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Complete (209)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Element (322)  |  Enduring (6)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Manifestation (61)  |  Medium (15)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nitrogen (32)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Other (2233)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Possess (157)  |  Power (771)  |  Property (177)  |  Protoplasm (13)  |  Resistance (41)  |  Structure (365)  |  Substance (253)  |  Through (846)  |  Together (392)  |  Trace (109)  |  Vital (89)

But in the heavens we discover by their light, and by their light alone, stars so distant from each other that no material thing can ever have passed from one to another; and yet this light, which is to us the sole evidence of the existence of these distant worlds, tells us also that each of them is built up of molecules of the same kinds as those which we find on earth. A molecule of hydrogen, for example, whether in Sirius or in Arcturus, executes its vibrations in precisely the same time. Each molecule, therefore, throughout the universe, bears impressed on it the stamp of a metric system as distinctly as does the metre of the Archives at Paris, or the double royal cubit of the Temple of Karnac ... the exact quantity of each molecule to all others of same kind gives it, as Sir John Herschel has well said, the essential character of a manufactured article and precludes the idea of its being external and self-existent.
'Molecules', 1873. In W. D. Niven (ed.), The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (1890), Vol. 2, 375-6.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Arcturus (4)  |  Bear (162)  |  Being (1276)  |  Character (259)  |  Discover (571)  |  Distance (171)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Essential (210)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Execute (7)  |  Existence (481)  |  Find (1014)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Sir John Herschel (24)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Idea (881)  |  Impress (66)  |  Impressed (39)  |  Kind (564)  |  Light (635)  |  Material (366)  |  Metric System (6)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Royal (56)  |  Self (268)  |  Sole (50)  |  Stamp (36)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  System (545)  |  Tell (344)  |  Temple (45)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universe (900)  |  Vibration (26)  |  World (1850)

Cheetah genes cooperate with cheetah genes but not with camel genes, and vice versa. This is not because cheetah genes, even in the most poetic sense, see any virtue in the preservation of the cheetah species. They are not working to save the cheetah from extinction like some molecular World Wildlife Fund.
From Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion, and the Appetite for Wonder (1998), 218.
Science quotes on:  |  Camel (12)  |  Cheetah (2)  |  Cooperate (4)  |  Extinction (80)  |  Fund (19)  |  Gene (105)  |  Most (1728)  |  Poetic (7)  |  Preservation (39)  |  Save (126)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Species (435)  |  Vice (42)  |  Vice Versa (6)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Wildlife (16)  |  Working (23)  |  World (1850)

Chemical biodynamics, involving as it does, the fusion of many scientific disciplines, … [played a role] in the elucidation of the carbon cycle. It can be expected to take an increasingly important place in the understanding of the dynamics of living organisms on a molecular level.
In Nobel Lecture (11 Dec 1961), 'The Path of Carbon in Photosynthesis', Nobel Lectures: Chemistry 1942-1962 (1964).
Science quotes on:  |  Carbon (68)  |  Carbon Cycle (5)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemical Biodynamics (2)  |  Cycle (42)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Dynamics (11)  |  Elucidation (7)  |  Expect (203)  |  Fusion (16)  |  Important (229)  |  Increasingly (4)  |  Living (492)  |  Organism (231)  |  Role (86)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Understanding (527)

Chemistry dissolves the goddess in the alembic,
Venus, the white queen, the universal matrix,
Down to the molecular hexagons and carbon-chains.
'The Human Form Divine', in The Collected Poems of Kathleen Raine (1956), 86.
Science quotes on:  |  Alembic (3)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Chain (51)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Dissolve (22)  |  Down (455)  |  Goddess (9)  |  Hexagon (4)  |  Matrix (14)  |  Queen (14)  |  Universal (198)  |  Venus (21)  |  White (132)

Chemistry must become the astronomy of the molecular world.
Autograph Quotation for a Charity, (1905). In G. B. Kaufman, Alfred Werner (1966), iii.
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Become (821)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Must (1525)  |  World (1850)

Compare ... the various quantities of the same element contained in the molecule of the free substance and in those of all its different compounds and you will not be able to escape the following law: The different quantities of the same element contained in different molecules are all whole multiples of one and the same quantity, which always being entire, has the right to be called an atom.
Sketch of a Course of Chemical Philosophy (1858), Alembic Club Reprint (1910), 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Being (1276)  |  Call (781)  |  Compare (76)  |  Compound (117)  |  Different (595)  |  Element (322)  |  Escape (85)  |  Free (239)  |  Law (913)  |  Multiple (19)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Right (473)  |  Substance (253)  |  Various (205)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)

Each new atom brings something of the personality of its element to the molecule, and this conspiracy of atoms results in a molecule with properties that are richer than those of each atom alone.
In Scientific American Library, Molecules (1987), 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Atom (381)  |  Conspiracy (6)  |  Element (322)  |  Personality (66)  |  Property (177)  |  Richer (2)

Each of us has read somewhere that in New Guinea pidgin the word for 'piano' is (I use English spelling) 'this fellow you hit teeth belonging to him he squeal all same pig'. I am inclined to doubt whether this expression is authentic; it looks just like the kind of thing a visitor to the Islands would facetiously invent. But I accept 'cut grass belong head belong me' for 'haircut' as genuine... Such phrases seem very funny to us, and make us feel very superior to the ignorant foreigners who use long winded expressions for simple matters. And then it is our turn to name quite a simple thing, a small uncomplicated molecule consisting of nothing more than a measly 11 carbons, seven hydrogens, one nitrogen and six oxygens. We sharpen our pencils, consult our rule books and at last come up with 3-[(1, 3- dihydro-1, 3-dioxo-2H-isoindol-2-yl) oxy]-3-oxopropanoic acid. A name like that could drive any self-respecting Papuan to piano-playing.
The Chemist's English (1990), 3rd Edition, 57.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Acid (83)  |  Authentic (9)  |  Belong (168)  |  Belonging (36)  |  Book (413)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Complication (30)  |  Cut (116)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Expression (181)  |  Feel (371)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Foreigner (3)  |  Funny (11)  |  Genuine (54)  |  Grass (49)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Invention (400)  |  Island (49)  |  Kind (564)  |  Last (425)  |  Long (778)  |  Look (584)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Name (359)  |  New (1273)  |  New Guinea (4)  |  Nitrogen (32)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Pencil (20)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Piano (12)  |  Playing (42)  |  Read (308)  |  Rule (307)  |  Self (268)  |  Sharpen (22)  |  Simple (426)  |  Small (489)  |  Spelling (8)  |  Superior (88)  |  Teeth (43)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Turn (454)  |  Use (771)  |  Wind (141)  |  Word (650)

Einstein, twenty-six years old, only three years away from crude privation, still a patent examiner, published in the Annalen der Physik in 1905 five papers on entirely different subjects. Three of them were among the greatest in the history of physics. One, very simple, gave the quantum explanation of the photoelectric effect—it was this work for which, sixteen years later, he was awarded the Nobel prize. Another dealt with the phenomenon of Brownian motion, the apparently erratic movement of tiny particles suspended in a liquid: Einstein showed that these movements satisfied a clear statistical law. This was like a conjuring trick, easy when explained: before it, decent scientists could still doubt the concrete existence of atoms and molecules: this paper was as near to a direct proof of their concreteness as a theoretician could give. The third paper was the special theory of relativity, which quietly amalgamated space, time, and matter into one fundamental unity.
This last paper contains no references and quotes no authority. All of them are written in a style unlike any other theoretical physicist’s. They contain very little mathematics. There is a good deal of verbal commentary. The conclusions, the bizarre conclusions, emerge as though with the greatest of ease: the reasoning is unbreakable. It looks as though he had reached the conclusions by pure thought, unaided, without listening to the opinions of others. To a surprisingly large extent, that is precisely what he had done.
In Variety of Men (1966), 100-101. First published in Commentary magazine.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Authority (99)  |  Award (13)  |  Bizarre (6)  |  Brownian Motion (2)  |  Commentary (3)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Concrete (55)  |  Concreteness (5)  |  Conjuring (3)  |  Crude (32)  |  Deal (192)  |  Decent (12)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Direct (228)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Ease (40)  |  Easy (213)  |  Effect (414)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Albert Einstein (624)  |  Emergence (35)  |  Erratic (4)  |  Examiner (5)  |  Existence (481)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Extent (142)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Good (906)  |  Greatest (330)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Physics (3)  |  Large (398)  |  Last (425)  |  Law (913)  |  Liquid (50)  |  Listening (26)  |  Little (717)  |  Look (584)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Matter (821)  |  Motion (320)  |  Movement (162)  |  Nobel Prize (42)  |  Old (499)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paper (192)  |  Particle (200)  |  Patent (34)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Photoelectric Effect (2)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physics (564)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Privation (5)  |  Proof (304)  |  Publication (102)  |  Pure (299)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quote (46)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Reference (33)  |  Relativity (91)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Show (353)  |  Simple (426)  |  Space (523)  |  Special (188)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Still (614)  |  Subject (543)  |  Suspension (7)  |  Theoretical Physicist (21)  |  Theorist (44)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Trick (36)  |  Unbreakable (3)  |  Unity (81)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

For if there is any truth in the dynamical theory of gases the different molecules in a gas at uniform temperature are moving with very different velocities. Put such a gas into a vessel with two compartments [A and B] and make a small hole in the wall about the right size to let one molecule through. Provide a lid or stopper for this hole and appoint a doorkeeper, very intelligent and exceedingly quick, with microscopic eyes but still an essentially finite being.
Whenever he sees a molecule of great velocity coming against the door from A into B he is to let it through, but if the molecule happens to be going slow he is to keep the door shut. He is also to let slow molecules pass from B to A but not fast ones ... In this way the temperature of B may be raised and that of A lowered without any expenditure of work, but only by the intelligent action of a mere guiding agent (like a pointsman on a railway with perfectly acting switches who should send the express along one line and the goods along another).
I do not see why even intelligence might not be dispensed with and the thing be made self-acting.
Moral The 2nd law of Thermodynamics has the same degree of truth as the statement that if you throw a tumblerful of water into the sea you cannot get the same tumblerful of water out again.
Letter to John William Strutt (6 Dec 1870). In P. M. Hannan (ed.), The Scientific Letters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (1995), Vol. 2, 582-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Against (332)  |  Agent (73)  |  Being (1276)  |  Coming (114)  |  Degree (277)  |  Different (595)  |  Do (1905)  |  Door (94)  |  Dynamical (15)  |  Exceedingly (28)  |  Expenditure (16)  |  Express (192)  |  Eye (440)  |  Finite (60)  |  Gas (89)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Happen (282)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Law (913)  |  Maxwell�s Demon (2)  |  Microscopic (27)  |  Moral (203)  |  Pass (241)  |  Railway (19)  |  Right (473)  |  Sea (326)  |  See (1094)  |  Self (268)  |  Shut (41)  |  Slow (108)  |  Small (489)  |  Statement (148)  |  Still (614)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thermodynamics (40)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)  |  Velocity (51)  |  Vessel (63)  |  Wall (71)  |  Water (503)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whenever (81)  |  Why (491)  |  Work (1402)

For us, an atom shall be a small, spherical, homogeneous body or an essentially indivisible, material point, whereas a molecule shall be a separate group of atoms in any number and of any nature.
Annales de Chimie 1833, 52, 133. Trans. W. H. Brock.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Body (557)  |  Homogeneous (17)  |  Indivisible (22)  |  Material (366)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Number (710)  |  Point (584)  |  Separate (151)  |  Small (489)

Four elements, hydrogen, carbon, oxygen and nitrogen, also provide an example of the astonishing togetherness of our universe. They make up the “organic” molecules that constitute living organisms on a planet, and the nuclei of these same elements interact to generate the light of its star. Then the organisms on the planet come to depend wholly on that starlight, as they must if life is to persist. So it is that all life on the Earth runs on sunlight. [Referring to photosynthesis]
In lecture, 'Life and Mind in the Universe', versions of which George Wald delivered throughout the 1980s. On the website of his son, Elijah Wald, who states it was the last of his father’s major lectures.
Science quotes on:  |  Astonishing (29)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Depend (238)  |  Dependence (46)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Element (322)  |  Fusion (16)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Interaction (47)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Living (492)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nitrogen (32)  |  Nucleus (54)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organism (231)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Photosynthesis (21)  |  Planet (402)  |  Run (158)  |  Star (460)  |  Starlight (5)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sunlight (29)  |  Universe (900)  |  Wholly (88)

From a certain temperature on, the molecules 'condense' without attractive forces; that is, they accumulate at zero velocity. The theory is pretty, but is there some truth in it.
Letter to Ehrenfest (Dec 1924). Quoted in Abraham Pais, Roger Penrose, Subtle Is the Lord: The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein (2005), 432.
Science quotes on:  |  Attractive (25)  |  Certain (557)  |  Force (497)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Velocity (51)  |  Zero (38)

From the intensity of the spots near the centre, we can infer that the protein molecules are relatively dense globular bodies, perhaps joined together by valency bridges, but in any event separated by relatively large spaces which contain water. From the intensity of the more distant spots, it can be inferred that the arrangement of atoms inside the protein molecule is also of a perfectly definite kind, although without the periodicities characterising the fibrous proteins. The observations are compatible with oblate spheroidal molecules of diameters about 25 A. and 35 A., arranged in hexagonal screw-axis. ... At this stage, such ideas are merely speculative, but now that a crystalline protein has been made to give X-ray photographs, it is clear that we have the means of checking them and, by examining the structure of all crystalline proteins, arriving at a far more detailed conclusion about protein structure than previous physical or chemical methods have been able to give.
'X-Ray Photographs of Crystalline Pepsin', Nature (1934), 133, 795.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Atom (381)  |  Bridge (49)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Definite (114)  |  Detail (150)  |  Diameter (28)  |  Event (222)  |  Idea (881)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Kind (564)  |  Large (398)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Merely (315)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  Observation (593)  |  Physical (518)  |  Protein (56)  |  Ray (115)  |  Screw (17)  |  Space (523)  |  Stage (152)  |  Structure (365)  |  Together (392)  |  Valency (4)  |  Water (503)  |  X-ray (43)  |  X-ray Crystallography (12)

Haemoglobin is a very large molecule by ordinary standards, containing about ten thousand atoms, but the chances are that your haemoglobin and mine are identical, and significantly different from that of a pig or horse. You may be impressed by how much human beings differ from one another, but if you were to look into the fine details of the molecules of which they are constructed, you would be astonished by their similarity.
In Of Molecules and Men (1966, 2004), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Astonish (39)  |  Astonishment (30)  |  Atom (381)  |  Being (1276)  |  Chance (244)  |  Construct (129)  |  Construction (114)  |  Detail (150)  |  Differ (88)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Fine (37)  |  Haemoglobin (4)  |  Horse (78)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Identical (55)  |  Impress (66)  |  Impressed (39)  |  Large (398)  |  Look (584)  |  Mine (78)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Pig (8)  |  Significance (114)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Standard (64)  |  Thousand (340)

Heat energy of uniform temperature [is] the ultimate fate of all energy. The power of sunlight and coal, electric power, water power, winds and tides do the work of the world, and in the end all unite to hasten the merry molecular dance.
Matter and Energy (1911), 140.
Science quotes on:  |  Coal (64)  |  Dance (35)  |  Do (1905)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electricity (168)  |  End (603)  |  Energy (373)  |  Entropy (46)  |  Fate (76)  |  Haste (6)  |  Hasten (13)  |  Heat (180)  |  Merry (3)  |  Power (771)  |  Solar Power (10)  |  Sunlight (29)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Thermodynamics (40)  |  Tidal Power (4)  |  Tide (37)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Uniform (20)  |  Unite (43)  |  Water (503)  |  Water Power (6)  |  Wind (141)  |  Wind Power (10)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

I am afraid I am not in the flight for “aerial navigation”. I was greatly interested in your work with kites; but I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning or of expectation of good results from any of the trials we hear of. So you will understand that I would not care to be a member of the aëronautical Society.
Letter (8 Dec 1896) to Baden Powell. This is the full text of the letter. An image of the handwritten original is on the zapatopi.net website
Science quotes on:  |  Aerial (11)  |  Balloon (16)  |  Care (203)  |  Expectation (67)  |  Faith (209)  |  Flight (101)  |  Good (906)  |  Hear (144)  |  Interest (416)  |  Kite (4)  |  Member (42)  |  Navigation (26)  |  Other (2233)  |  Result (700)  |  Smallest (9)  |  Society (350)  |  Trial (59)  |  Understand (648)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

I have lived much of my life among molecules. They are good company. I tell my students to try to know molecules, so well that when they have some question involving molecules, they can ask themselves, What would I do if I were that molecule? I tell them, Try to feel like a molecule; and if you work hard, who knows? Some day you may get to feel like a big molecule!
Nobel banquet speech (10 Dec 1967). In Ragnar Granit (ed.), Les Prix Nobel en 1967 (1968).
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Big (55)  |  Company (63)  |  Do (1905)  |  Feel (371)  |  Good (906)  |  Hard (246)  |  Involvement (4)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Question (649)  |  Student (317)  |  Tell (344)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Try (296)  |  Work (1402)  |  Work Hard (14)

I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning.
From letter (8 Dec 1896) to Baden Powell. The full text of the letter, which begins “I am afraid I am not in the flight for “aerial navigation.”…, is on the Lord Kelvin Quotes page of this website.
Science quotes on:  |  Aerial (11)  |  Balloon (16)  |  Faith (209)  |  Flight (101)  |  Navigation (26)  |  Other (2233)  |  Smallest (9)

I have paid special attention to those Properties of the Positive Rays which seem to throw light on the problems of the structure of molecules and atoms and the question of chemical combination … I am convinced that as yet we are only at the beginning of the harvest of results which will elucidate the process of chemical combination, and thus bridge over the most serious gap which now exists between Physics and Chemistry.
Rays of Positive Electricity and their Application to Chemical Analyses (1921), v.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Attention (196)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Bridge (49)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Combination (150)  |  Exist (458)  |  Gap (36)  |  Harvest (28)  |  Light (635)  |  Most (1728)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Positive (98)  |  Problem (731)  |  Process (439)  |  Question (649)  |  Ray (115)  |  Result (700)  |  Serious (98)  |  Special (188)  |  Structure (365)  |  Will (2350)

I remember, I remember,
When an atom was so small
It really hardly paid you
To think of one at all.
It was so small that anywhere
An atom safe could be
And pass his time in molecules
In elemental glee.
Anonymous
In 'Past and Present' Industrial and Engineering Chemistry: News Edition (20 Apr 1934), 12, No. 3, 161. [No, Virginia, there is no Peter Atkins who wrote this piece published in 1934—he wasn’t born until 1940. That’s a misattribution if ever I saw one. So don’t believe everything you see in poorly curated web collections of quotes. —Webmaster]
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Element (322)  |  Glee (2)  |  Small (489)  |  Think (1122)

I should like to compare this rearrangement which the proteins undergo in the animal or vegetable organism to the making up of a railroad train. In their passage through the body parts of the whole may be left behind, and here and there new parts added on. In order to understand fully the change we must remember that the proteins are composed of Bausteine united in very different ways. Some of them contain Bausteine of many kinds. The multiplicity of the proteins is determined by many causes, first through the differences in the nature of the constituent Bausteine; and secondly, through differences in the arrangement of them. The number of Bausteine which may take part in the formation of the proteins is about as large as the number of letters in the alphabet. When we consider that through the combination of letters an infinitely large number of thoughts may be expressed, we can understand how vast a number of the properties of the organism may be recorded in the small space which is occupied by the protein molecules. It enables us to understand how it is possible for the proteins of the sex-cells to contain, to a certain extent, a complete description of the species and even of the individual. We may also comprehend how great and important the task is to determine the structure of the proteins, and why the biochemist has devoted himself with so much industry to their analysis.
'The Chemical Composition of the Cell', The Harvey Lectures (1911), 7, 45.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Animal (651)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Behind (139)  |  Biochemist (9)  |  Body (557)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cell (146)  |  Certain (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Combination (150)  |  Compare (76)  |  Complete (209)  |  Consider (428)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Determine (152)  |  Devoted (59)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Enable (122)  |  Express (192)  |  Extent (142)  |  First (1302)  |  Formation (100)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Great (1610)  |  Himself (461)  |  Individual (420)  |  Industry (159)  |  Kind (564)  |  Large (398)  |  Letter (117)  |  Making (300)  |  Model (106)  |  Multiplicity (14)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  Occupied (45)  |  Order (638)  |  Organism (231)  |  Passage (52)  |  Possible (560)  |  Protein (56)  |  Railroad (36)  |  Rearrangement (5)  |  Record (161)  |  Remember (189)  |  Sex (68)  |  Small (489)  |  Space (523)  |  Species (435)  |  Structure (365)  |  Task (152)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Train (118)  |  Understand (648)  |  Vast (188)  |  Vegetable (49)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)  |  Why (491)

I think that the formation of [DNA's] structure by Watson and Crick may turn out to be the greatest developments in the field of molecular genetics in recent years.
‘Discussion des rapports de M Pauling’, Rep. Institut International de Chemie Solvay: Conference on Proteins, 6-14 April 1953 (1953), 113.
Science quotes on:  |  Francis Crick (62)  |  Development (441)  |  DNA (81)  |  Field (378)  |  Formation (100)  |  Formulation (37)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Recent (78)  |  Structure (365)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Turn (454)  |  James Watson (33)  |  Year (963)

I venture to assert that the feelings one has when the beautiful symbolism of the infinitesimal calculus first gets a meaning, or when the delicate analysis of Fourier has been mastered, or while one follows Clerk Maxwell or Thomson into the strange world of electricity, now growing so rapidly in form and being, or can almost feel with Stokes the pulsations of light that gives nature to our eyes, or track with Clausius the courses of molecules we can measure, even if we know with certainty that we can never see them I venture to assert that these feelings are altogether comparable to those aroused in us by an exquisite poem or a lofty thought.
In paper (May 1891) read before Bath Branch of the Teachers’ Guild, published in The Practical Teacher (July 1891), reprinted as 'Geometry', in Frederic Spencer, Chapters on the Aims and Practice of Teaching (1897), 194.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Arouse (13)  |  Assert (69)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Being (1276)  |  Calculus (65)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Rudolf Clausius (9)  |  Clerk (13)  |  Comparable (7)  |  Course (413)  |  Delicate (45)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Exquisite (27)  |  Eye (440)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Feelings (52)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Form (976)  |  Growing (99)  |  Infinitesimal (30)  |  Infinitesimal Calculus (2)  |  Know (1538)  |  Light (635)  |  Lofty (16)  |  Master (182)  |  Mathematics As A Fine Art (23)  |  Maxwell (42)  |  James Clerk Maxwell (91)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Measure (241)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Poem (104)  |  Pulsation (4)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  See (1094)  |  Sir George Gabriel Stokes (3)  |  Strange (160)  |  Symbolism (5)  |  Sir J.J. Thomson (18)  |  Thought (995)  |  Track (42)  |  World (1850)

I was led to the conclusion that at the most extreme dilutions all salts would consist of simple conducting molecules. But the conducting molecules are, according to the hypothesis of Clausius and Williamson, dissociated; hence at extreme dilutions all salt molecules are completely disassociated. The degree of dissociation can be simply found on this assumption by taking the ratio of the molecular conductivity of the solution in question to the molecular conductivity at the most extreme dilution.
Letter to Van’t Hoff, 13 April 1887. In J. R. Partington, A History of Chemistry (1961), Vol. 4, 678.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Completely (137)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Conductivity (4)  |  Consist (223)  |  Degree (277)  |  Dilution (5)  |  Electrolyte (4)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Most (1728)  |  Question (649)  |  Ratio (41)  |  Salt (48)  |  Simple (426)  |  Solution (282)

I was sitting writing at my textbook but the work did not progress; my thoughts were elsewhere. I turned my chair to the fire and dozed. Again the atoms were gambolling before my eyes. This time the smaller groups kept modestly in the background. My mental eye, rendered more acute by the repeated visions of the kind, could now distinguish larger structures of manifold confirmation: long rows, sometimes more closely fitted together all twining and twisting in snake like motion. But look! What was that? One of the snakes had seized hold of its own tail, and the form whirled mockingly before my eyes. As if by a flash of lightning I awoke; and this time also I spent the rest of the night in working out the rest of the hypothesis. Let us learn to dream, gentlemen, then perhaps we shall find the truth... But let us beware of publishing our dreams till they have been tested by waking understanding.
Kekule at Benzolfest in Berichte (1890), 23, 1302.
Science quotes on:  |  Aromatic (4)  |  Atom (381)  |  Background (44)  |  Beware (16)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Chair (25)  |  Confirmation (25)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Dream (222)  |  Eye (440)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fire (203)  |  Flash (49)  |  Form (976)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Kind (564)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lightning (49)  |  Long (778)  |  Look (584)  |  Manifold (23)  |  Mental (179)  |  More (2558)  |  Motion (320)  |  Progress (492)  |  Render (96)  |  Rest (287)  |  Ring (18)  |  Sitting (44)  |  Snake (29)  |  Spent (85)  |  Structure (365)  |  Test (221)  |  Textbook (39)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Turn (454)  |  Twisting (3)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Verification (32)  |  Vision (127)  |  Waking (17)  |  Whirl (10)  |  Work (1402)  |  Writing (192)

I would ... change the accepted rule that the nature of a complex molecule is determined by the nature, quantity, and position of its elementary component parts, by the following statement: the chemical nature of a complex molecule is determined by the nature of its elementary component parts, their quantity and chemical structure.
'On the Chemical Structure of Substances' 1861.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Change (639)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Complex (202)  |  Component (51)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Rule (307)  |  Statement (148)  |  Structure (365)

If it be urged that the action of the potato is chemical and mechanical only, and that it is due to the chemical and mechanical effects of light and heat, the answer would seem to lie in an enquiry whether every sensation is not chemical and mechanical in its operation? Whether those things which we deem most purely spiritual are anything but disturbances of equilibrium in an infinite series of levers, beginning with those that are too small for microscopic detection, and going up to the human arm and the appliances which it makes use of? Whether there be not a molecular action of thought, whence a dynamical theory of the passions shall be deducible?
In Erewhon, Or, Over the Range (1872), 192.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Answer (389)  |  Appliance (9)  |  Arm (82)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Biochemistry (50)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Detection (19)  |  Disturbance (34)  |  Due (143)  |  Dynamical (15)  |  Effect (414)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Equilibrium (34)  |  Heat (180)  |  Human (1512)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Infinite Series (8)  |  Lever (13)  |  Lie (370)  |  Light (635)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Microscopic (27)  |  Most (1728)  |  Operation (221)  |  Passion (121)  |  Potato (11)  |  Purely (111)  |  Sensation (60)  |  Series (153)  |  Small (489)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Use (771)

If molecules can be structurally identical and yet possess dissimilar properties, this can be explained only on the ground that the difference is due to a different arrangement of the atoms in space.
In Annalen der Chemie (1873), 166, 47, translated in A. Ihde, The Development of Modern Chemistry (1964), 326.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Atom (381)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Dissimilar (6)  |  Due (143)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Ground (222)  |  Identical (55)  |  Possess (157)  |  Property (177)  |  Space (523)  |  Structure (365)

If the actual order of the bases on one of the pair of chains were given, one could write down the exact order of the bases on the other one, because of the specific pairing. Thus one chain is, as it were, the complement of the other, and it is this feature which suggests how the deoxyribonucleic acid molecule might duplicate itself.
[Co-author with Francis Crick]
In 'Genetic Implications of the Structure of Deoxyribonucleic Acid', Nature (1958), 171, 965-966.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Actual (118)  |  Author (175)  |  Base (120)  |  Chain (51)  |  Complement (6)  |  Deoxyribonucleic Acid (3)  |  Down (455)  |  Duplicate (9)  |  Exact (75)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pair (10)  |  Specific (98)  |  Suggest (38)  |  Write (250)  |  Writing (192)

If the structure that serves as a template (the gene or virus molecule) consists of, say, two parts, which are themselves complementary In structure, then each of these parts can serve as the mould for the production of a replica of the other part, and the complex of two complementary parts thus can serve as the mould for the production of duplicates of itself.
Molecular Architecture and the Processses of Life (1948), 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Complementary (15)  |  Complex (202)  |  Consist (223)  |  Duplicate (9)  |  Gene (105)  |  Mold (37)  |  Other (2233)  |  Part (235)  |  Production (190)  |  Replica (2)  |  Say (989)  |  Structure (365)  |  Template (3)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Two (936)  |  Virus (32)

If there is no God, we are just molecules in motion, and we have no sense and no mind; we are just random firings of chemical in the brain. If our minds are composed only of physical matter, then our thoughts are, as Doug Wilson wittily quipped in his debate with atheist Dan Barker, just “brain gas.”
God Does Exist (2005), 45.
Science quotes on:  |  Atheist (16)  |  Brain (281)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Composition (86)  |  Debate (40)  |  Gas (89)  |  God (776)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Motion (320)  |  Physical (518)  |  Quip (81)  |  Random (42)  |  Sense (785)  |  Thought (995)  |  Wit (61)

In describing a protein it is now common to distinguish the primary, secondary and tertiary structures. The primary structure is simply the order, or sequence, of the amino-acid residues along the polypeptide chains. This was first determined by Sanger using chemical techniques for the protein insulin, and has since been elucidated for a number of peptides and, in part, for one or two other small proteins. The secondary structure is the type of folding, coiling or puckering adopted by the polypeptide chain: the a-helix structure and the pleated sheet are examples. Secondary structure has been assigned in broad outline to a number of librous proteins such as silk, keratin and collagen; but we are ignorant of the nature of the secondary structure of any globular protein. True, there is suggestive evidence, though as yet no proof, that a-helices occur in globular proteins, to an extent which is difficult to gauge quantitatively in any particular case. The tertiary structure is the way in which the folded or coiled polypeptide chains are disposed to form the protein molecule as a three-dimensional object, in space. The chemical and physical properties of a protein cannot be fully interpreted until all three levels of structure are understood, for these properties depend on the spatial relationships between the amino-acids, and these in turn depend on the tertiary and secondary structures as much as on the primary. Only X-ray diffraction methods seem capable, even in principle, of unravelling the tertiary and secondary structures.
Co-author with G. Bodo, H. M. Dintzis, R. G. Parrish, H. Wyckoff, and D. C. Phillips
'A Three-Dimensional Model of the Myoglobin Molecule Obtained by X-ray Analysis', Nature (1958) 181, 662.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Amino Acid (12)  |  Author (175)  |  Capable (174)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Common (447)  |  Depend (238)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Diffraction (5)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Extent (142)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Helix (10)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Insulin (9)  |  Method (531)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Number (710)  |  Object (438)  |  Occur (151)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physical (518)  |  Polypeptide (2)  |  Primary (82)  |  Principle (530)  |  Proof (304)  |  Protein (56)  |  Ray (115)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Residue (9)  |  Frederick Sanger (6)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Silk (14)  |  Small (489)  |  Space (523)  |  Structure (365)  |  Technique (84)  |  Three-Dimensional (11)  |  Turn (454)  |  Two (936)  |  Type (171)  |  Understood (155)  |  Way (1214)  |  X-ray (43)  |  X-ray Diffraction (5)

In design, people like Buckminster Fuller amazed me at the levels at which he could think. He could think molecularly. And he could think at the almost galactic scale. And the idea that somebody could actually talk about molecules and talk about buildings and structures and talk about space just amazed me. As I get older–I’ll be 60 next year–what I’ve discovered is that I find myself in those three realms too.
In interview with Kerry A. Dolan, 'William McDonough On Cradle-to-Cradle Design', Forbes (4 Aug 2010)
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Age (509)  |  Amazement (19)  |  Building (158)  |  Design (203)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Find (1014)  |  R. Buckminster Fuller (16)  |  Galactic (6)  |  Galaxy (53)  |  Idea (881)  |  Level (69)  |  Myself (211)  |  Next (238)  |  People (1031)  |  Realm (87)  |  Scale (122)  |  Space (523)  |  Structure (365)  |  Talk (108)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Three (10)  |  Year (963)

In the beginning there was an explosion. Not an explosion like those familiar on earth, starting from a definite center and spreading out to engulf more and more of the circumambient air, but an explosion which occurred simultaneously everywhere, filling all space from the beginning, with every particle of matter rushing apart from every other particle. ‘All space’ in this context may mean either all of an infinite universe, or all of a finite universe which curves back on itself like the surface of a sphere. Neither possibility is easy to comprehend, but this will not get in our way; it matters hardly at all in the early universe whether space is finite or infinite. At about one-hundredth of a second, the earliest time about which we can speak with any confidence, the temperature of the universe was about a hundred thousand million (1011) degrees Centigrade. This is much hotter than in the center of even the hottest star, so hot, in fact, that none of the components of ordinary matter, molecules, or atoms, or even the nuclei of atoms, could have held together. Instead, the matter rushing apart in this explosion consisted of various types of the so-called elementary particles, which are the subject of modern high­energy nuclear physics.
The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe (1977), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Atom (381)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Back (395)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Call (781)  |  Component (51)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Confidence (75)  |  Consist (223)  |  Context (31)  |  Curve (49)  |  Definite (114)  |  Degree (277)  |  Early (196)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Easy (213)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Energy (373)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Explosion (51)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Finite (60)  |  High (370)  |  Hot (63)  |  Hottest (2)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Million (124)  |  Modern (402)  |  More (2558)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nuclear Physics (6)  |  Nucleus (54)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particle (200)  |  Particle Physics (13)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Possibility (172)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Space (523)  |  Speak (240)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Star (460)  |  Subject (543)  |  Surface (223)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  Type (171)  |  Universe (900)  |  Various (205)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)

In the heavens we discover [stars] by their light, and by their light alone ... the sole evidence of the existence of these distant worlds ... that each of them is built up of molecules of the same kinds we find on earth. A molecule of hydrogen, for example, whether in Sirius or in Arcturus, executes its vibrations in precisely the same time. Each molecule therefore throughout the universe bears impressed upon it the stamp of a metric system as distinctly as does the metre of the Archives at Paris, or the royal cubit of the Temple of Karnac.
[Footnote: Where Maxwell uses the term “molecule” we now use the term “atom.”]
Lecture to the British Association at Bradford (1873), 'Atoms and Molecules'. Quoted by Ernest Rutherford, in 'The Constitution of Matter and the Evolution of the Elements', The Popular Science Monthly (Aug 1915), 112.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Arcturus (4)  |  Atom (381)  |  Bear (162)  |  Cubit (2)  |  Discover (571)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Execute (7)  |  Existence (481)  |  Find (1014)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Impress (66)  |  Impressed (39)  |  Kind (564)  |  Light (635)  |  Maxwell (42)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Metric System (6)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Royal (56)  |  Small (489)  |  Sole (50)  |  Spectroscopy (11)  |  Stamp (36)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  System (545)  |  Temple (45)  |  Term (357)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universe (900)  |  Use (771)  |  Vibration (26)  |  Wavelength (10)  |  World (1850)

In your letter you apply the word imponderable to a molecule. Don’t do that again. It may also be worth knowing that the aether cannot be molecular. If it were, it would be a gas, and a pint of it would have the same properties as regards heat, etc., as a pint of air, except that it would not be so heavy.
Letter to Lewis Campbell (Sep 1874). In Lewis Campbell and William Garnett, The Life of James Clerk Maxwell (1882), 391.
Science quotes on:  |  Aether (13)  |  Air (366)  |  Apply (170)  |  Do (1905)  |  Ether (37)  |  Gas (89)  |  Heat (180)  |  Imponderable (4)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Letter (117)  |  Property (177)  |  Regard (312)  |  Word (650)  |  Worth (172)

Incandescent carbon particles, by the tens of millions, leap free of the log and wave like banners, as flame. Several hundred significantly different chemical reactions are now going on. For example, a carbon atom and four hydrogen atoms, coming out of the breaking cellulose, may lock together and form methane, natural gas. The methane, burning (combining with oxygen), turns into carbon dioxide and water, which also go up the flue. If two carbon atoms happen to come out of the wood with six hydrogen atoms, they are, agglomerately, ethane, which bums to become, also, carbon dioxide and water. Three carbons and eight hydrogens form propane, and propane is there, too, in the fire. Four carbons and ten hydrogens—butane. Five carbons … pentane. Six … hexane. Seven … heptane. Eight carbons and eighteen hydrogens—octane. All these compounds come away in the breaking of the cellulose molecule, and burn, and go up the chimney as carbon dioxide and water. Pentane, hexane, heptane, and octane have a collective name. Logs burning in a fireplace are making and burning gasoline.
In 'Firewood', Pieces of the Frame (1975), 205-206.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Banner (9)  |  Become (821)  |  Break (109)  |  Bum (3)  |  Burn (99)  |  Burning (49)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Carbon Dioxide (25)  |  Cellulose (3)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemical Reaction (17)  |  Chemical Reactions (13)  |  Chimney (4)  |  Collective (24)  |  Combine (58)  |  Coming (114)  |  Compound (117)  |  Different (595)  |  Example (98)  |  Fire (203)  |  Fireplace (3)  |  Five (16)  |  Flame (44)  |  Form (976)  |  Free (239)  |  Gas (89)  |  Gasoline (4)  |  Happen (282)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Incandescent (7)  |  Leap (57)  |  Lock (14)  |  Log (7)  |  Making (300)  |  Methane (9)  |  Millions (17)  |  Name (359)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Gas (2)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Particle (200)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Several (33)  |  Significantly (2)  |  Tens (3)  |  Together (392)  |  Turn (454)  |  Two (936)  |  Water (503)  |  Wave (112)  |  Wood (97)

It has been recognized that hydrogen bonds restrain protein molecules to their native configurations, and I believe that as the methods of structural chemistry are further applied to physiological problems it will be found that the significance of the hydrogen bond for physiology is greater than that of any other single structural feature.
Nature of the Chemical Bond and the Structure of Molecules and Crystals (1939), 265.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (257)  |  Applied (176)  |  Belief (615)  |  Bond (46)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Configuration (8)  |  Feature (49)  |  Greater (288)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Hydrogen Bond (3)  |  Method (531)  |  Native (41)  |  Other (2233)  |  Physiological (64)  |  Physiology (101)  |  Problem (731)  |  Protein (56)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Restraint (16)  |  Significance (114)  |  Single (365)  |  Structural (29)  |  Structure (365)  |  Will (2350)

It is grindingly, creakingly, crashingly obvious that, if Darwinism were really a theory of chance, it couldn’t work. You don't need to be a mathematician or physicist to calculate that an eye or a haemoglobin molecule would take from here to infinity to self-assemble by sheer higgledy-piggledy luck. Far from being a difficulty peculiar to Darwinism, the astronomic improbability of eyes and knees, enzymes and elbow joints and all the other living wonders is precisely the problem that any theory of life must solve, and that Darwinism uniquely does solve. It solves it by breaking the improbability up into small, manageable parts, smearing out the luck needed, going round the back of Mount Improbable and crawling up the gentle slopes, inch by million-year inch. Only God would essay the mad task of leaping up the precipice in a single bound.
In Climbing Mount Improbable (1996), 67-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Assemble (14)  |  Back (395)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bound (120)  |  Calculate (58)  |  Chance (244)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Elbow (3)  |  Enzyme (19)  |  Essay (27)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Eye (440)  |  God (776)  |  Haemoglobin (4)  |  Improbability (11)  |  Infinity (96)  |  Joint (31)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Luck (44)  |  Mad (54)  |  Mount (43)  |  Must (1525)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Other (2233)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Problem (731)  |  Self (268)  |  Single (365)  |  Slope (10)  |  Small (489)  |  Solve (145)  |  Task (152)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Wonder (251)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

It is impossible to predict the velocity of a particular molecule or the length of life of an individual man, but with a sufficient number of molecules or men we can deal with them statistically and say how many will move within certain velocities or how many will die within a given year. Statistical determination, but individual uncertainty.
In A Shorter History of Science (1944), 96.
Science quotes on:  |  Individual (420)  |  Life Expectancy (3)  |  Predict (86)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Uncertainty (58)  |  Velocity (51)

It is possible with … carbon … to form very large molecules that are stable. This results from the stability of the carbon-to-carbon bond. You must have complexity in order to achieve the versatility characteristic of living organisms. You can achieve this complexity with carbon forming the molecular backbone.
From interview with Neil A. Campbell, in 'Crossing the Boundaries of Science', BioScience (Dec 1986), 36, No. 11, 739.
Science quotes on:  |  Backbone (12)  |  Bond (46)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Form (976)  |  Forming (42)  |  Large (398)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Must (1525)  |  Order (638)  |  Organism (231)  |  Possible (560)  |  Result (700)  |  Stability (28)  |  Stable (32)  |  Versatility (5)

It is probable that all organisms now alive are descended from one ancestor, for the following reason. Most of our structural molecules are asymmetrical, as shown by the fact that they rotate the plane of polarized light, and often form asymmetrical crystals. But of the two possible types of any such molecule, related to one another like a right and left boot, only one is found throughout living nature. The apparent exceptions to this rule are all small molecules which are not used in the building of the large structures which display the phenomena of life.
In 'The Origin of Life', The Inequality of Man: And Other Essays (1932), 157.
Science quotes on:  |  Alive (97)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Apparent (85)  |  Building (158)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Descend (49)  |  Display (59)  |  Exception (74)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Form (976)  |  Large (398)  |  Left (15)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Living (492)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Organism (231)  |  Origin Of Life (37)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Plane (22)  |  Possible (560)  |  Reason (766)  |  Right (473)  |  Rotate (8)  |  Rule (307)  |  Small (489)  |  Structural (29)  |  Structure (365)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Two (936)  |  Type (171)

It is probable that serum acts on bacteria by changing the relations of molecular attraction between the bacteria and the surrounding fluid.
In Studies in Immunity (1909), 144.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Action (342)  |  Attraction (61)  |  Bacteria (50)  |  Change (639)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Probability (135)  |  Relation (166)  |  Serum (11)  |  Surrounding (13)

It is the destiny of wine to be drunk, and it is the destiny of glucose to be oxidized. But it was not oxidized immediately: its drinker kept it in his liver for more than a week, well curled up and tranquil, as a reserve aliment for a sudden effort; an effort that he was forced to make the following Sunday, pursuing a bolting horse. Farewell to the hexagonal structure: in the space of a few instants the skein was unwound and became glucose again, and this was dragged by the bloodstream all the way to a minute muscle fiber in the thigh, and here brutally split into two molecules of lactic acid, the grim harbinger of fatigue: only later, some minutes after, the panting of the lungs was able to supply the oxygen necessary to quietly oxidize the latter. So a new molecule of carbon dioxide returned to the atmosphere, and a parcel of the energy that the sun had handed to the vine-shoot passed from the state of chemical energy to that of mechanical energy, and thereafter settled down in the slothful condition of heat, warming up imperceptibly the air moved by the running and the blood of the runner. 'Such is life,' although rarely is it described in this manner: an inserting itself, a drawing off to its advantage, a parasitizing of the downward course of energy, from its noble solar form to the degraded one of low-temperature heat. In this downward course, which leads to equilibrium and thus death, life draws a bend and nests in it.
The Periodic Table (1975), trans. Raymond Rosenthal (1984), 192-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Advantage (144)  |  Air (366)  |  Alcohol (22)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Blood (144)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Carbon Dioxide (25)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemical Energy (3)  |  Condition (362)  |  Conservation Of Energy (30)  |  Course (413)  |  Death (406)  |  Destiny (54)  |  Down (455)  |  Draw (140)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Drunk (10)  |  Effort (243)  |  Energy (373)  |  Equilibrium (34)  |  Fatigue (13)  |  Fiber (16)  |  Form (976)  |  Glucose (2)  |  Heat (180)  |  Horse (78)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Instant (46)  |  Lactic Acid (2)  |  Lead (391)  |  Life (1870)  |  Liver (22)  |  Low (86)  |  Lung (37)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Minute (129)  |  More (2558)  |  Muscle (47)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Nest (26)  |  New (1273)  |  Noble (93)  |  Oxidation (8)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Pass (241)  |  Plant (320)  |  Pursuing (27)  |  Reserve (26)  |  Return (133)  |  Running (61)  |  Settled (34)  |  Space (523)  |  State (505)  |  Structure (365)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Sun (407)  |  Supply (100)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Two (936)  |  Warming (24)  |  Way (1214)  |  Week (73)  |  Wine (39)

It may be argued that to know one kind of beetle is to know them all. But a species is not like a molecule in a cloud of molecules—it is a unique population.
'The Biological Diversity Crisis: A Challenge to Science', Issues in Science and Technology (Fall 1985), 2:1, 22. Reprinted in Nature Revealed: Selected Writings, 1949-2006 (2006), 622.
Science quotes on:  |  Beetle (19)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Kind (564)  |  Know (1538)  |  Population (115)  |  Species (435)  |  Unique (72)

It may be argued that to know one kind of beetle is to know them all. But a species is not like a molecule in a cloud of molecules—it is a unique population.
In 'Edward O. Wilson: The Biological Diversity Crisis: A Challenge to Science', Issues in Science and Technology (Fall 1985), 2, No. 1, 22.
Science quotes on:  |  Beetle (19)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Kind (564)  |  Know (1538)  |  Population (115)  |  Species (435)  |  Unique (72)

It must … be admitted that very simple relations … exist between the volumes of gaseous substances and the numbers of simple or compound molecules which form them. The first hypothesis to present itself in this connection, and apparently even the only admissible one, is the supposition that the number of integral molecules in any gases is always the same for equal volumes, or always proportional to the volumes. Indeed, if we were to suppose that the number of molecules contained in a given volume were different for different gases, it would scarcely be possible to conceive that the law regulating the distance of molecules could give in all cases relations so simple as those which the facts just detailed compel us to acknowledge between the volume and the number of molecules.
In 'Essay on a Manner of Determining the Relative Masses of the Elementary Molecules of Bodies, and the Proportions in which they enter into these Compounds', Journal de Physique, 1811, 73, 58-76. In Foundations of the Molecular Theory; Alembic Club Reprints, Number 4 (1923), 28-9.
Science quotes on:  |  Acknowledge (33)  |  Admissible (6)  |  Compel (31)  |  Compound (117)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Connection (171)  |  Detail (150)  |  Different (595)  |  Distance (171)  |  Exist (458)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Gas (89)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Integral (26)  |  Law (913)  |  Must (1525)  |  Number (710)  |  Possible (560)  |  Present (630)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Simple (426)  |  Substance (253)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Supposition (50)

It turned out that the buckyball, the soccer ball, was something of a Rosetta stone of an infinite new class of molecules.
From interview with National Public Radio (2000), quoted and cited in Nell GreenfieldBoyce, '‘Buckyball’ Nobel Laureate Richard Smalley Dies', All Things Considered (31 Oct 2005). Transcript on NPR website.
Science quotes on:  |  Ball (64)  |  Buckyball (5)  |  Class (168)  |  Infinite (243)  |  New (1273)  |  Rosetta Stone (4)  |  Soccer (3)  |  Something (718)  |  Stone (168)  |  Turn (454)

It will be possible, through the detailed determination of amino-acid sequences of hemoglobin molecules and of other molecules too, to obtain much information about the course of the evolutionary process, and to illuminate the question of the origin of species.
'Molecular Disease and Evolution'. Typescript of the Rudolph Virchow Lecture (5 Nov 1962). Quoted in T. Hager, Force of Nature: The Life of Linus Pauling (1997), 541.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Amino Acid (12)  |  Course (413)  |  Detail (150)  |  Determination (80)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Haemoglobin (4)  |  Hemoglobin (5)  |  Illumination (15)  |  Information (173)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Origin (250)  |  Origin Of Species (42)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Possible (560)  |  Process (439)  |  Question (649)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Species (435)  |  Through (846)  |  Will (2350)

It would not become physical science to see in its self created, changeable, economical tools, molecules and atoms, realities behind phenomena... The atom must remain a tool for representing phenomena.
'The Economical Nature of Physics' (1882), in Popular Scientific Lectures, trans. Thomas J. McConnack (1910), 206-7.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Become (821)  |  Behind (139)  |  Change (639)  |  Creation (350)  |  Economical (11)  |  Must (1525)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Remain (355)  |  See (1094)  |  Self (268)  |  Tool (129)

Knowing what we know from X-ray and related studies of the fibrous proteins, how they are built from long polypeptide chains with linear patterns drawn to a grand scale, how these chains can contract and take up different configurations by intramolecular folding, how the chain- groups are penetrated by, and their sidechains react with, smaller co-operating molecules, and finally how they can combine so readily with nucleic acid molecules and still maintain the fibrous configuration, it is but natural to assume, as a first working hypothesis at least, that they form the long scroll on which is written the pattern of life. No other molecules satisfy so many requirements.
William Thomas Astbury and Florence O. Bell. 'Some Recent Developments in the X-Ray Study of Proteins and Related Structures', Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology, 1938, 6, 1144.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Combine (58)  |  Different (595)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Life (1870)  |  Linear (13)  |  Long (778)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nucleic Acid (23)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Protein (56)  |  Ray (115)  |  Requirement (66)  |  Scale (122)  |  Still (614)  |  Structure (365)  |  X-ray (43)

Leaving aside genetic surgery applied humans, I foresee that the coming century will place in our hands two other forms of biological technology which are less dangerous but still revolutionary enough to transform the conditions of our existence. I count these new technologies as powerful allies in the attack on Bernal's three enemies. I give them the names “biological engineering” and “self-reproducing machinery.” Biological engineering means the artificial synthesis of living organisms designed to fulfil human purposes. Self-reproducing machinery means the imitation of the function and reproduction of a living organism with non-living materials, a computer-program imitating the function of DNA and a miniature factory imitating the functions of protein molecules. After we have attained a complete understanding of the principles of organization and development of a simple multicellular organism, both of these avenues of technological exploitation should be open to us.
From 3rd J.D. Bernal Lecture, Birkbeck College London (16 May 1972), The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1972), 6. Collected in The Scientist as Rebel (2006), 292. (The World, the Flesh & the Devil: An Enquiry into the Future of the Three Enemies of the Rational Soul is the title of a book by J. D Bernal, a scientist who pioneered X-ray crystallography.)
Science quotes on:  |  Applied (176)  |  Attack (86)  |  Attain (126)  |  Avenue (14)  |  Bioengineering (5)  |  Biological (137)  |  Both (496)  |  Century (319)  |  Coming (114)  |  Complete (209)  |  Computer (131)  |  Condition (362)  |  Count (107)  |  Dangerous (108)  |  Design (203)  |  Development (441)  |  DNA (81)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Enough (341)  |  Existence (481)  |  Exploitation (14)  |  Factory (20)  |  Foresee (22)  |  Form (976)  |  Function (235)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Human (1512)  |  Living (492)  |  Machinery (59)  |  Material (366)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Miniature (7)  |  Multicellular (4)  |  Name (359)  |  New (1273)  |  Open (277)  |  Organism (231)  |  Organization (120)  |  Other (2233)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Principle (530)  |  Protein (56)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Revolutionary (31)  |  Self (268)  |  Simple (426)  |  Still (614)  |  Surgery (54)  |  Synthesis (58)  |  Technological (62)  |  Technology (281)  |  Transform (74)  |  Two (936)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Will (2350)

Life ... is a relationship between molecules.
Quoted In T. Hager, Force of Nature: The Life of Linus Pauling (1997), 542.
Science quotes on:  |  Life (1870)  |  Relationship (114)

Life arose as a living molecule or protogene, the progression from this stage to that of the ameba is at least as great as from ameba to man. All the essential problems of living organisms are already solved in the one-celled (or, as many now prefer to say, noncellular) protozoan and these are only elaborated in man or the other multicellular animals. The step from nonlife to life may not have been so complex, after all, and that from cell to multicellular organism is readily comprehensible. The change from protogene to protozoan was probably the most complex that has occurred in evolution, and it may well have taken as long as the change from protozoan to man.
The Meaning of Evolution: A Study of the History of Life and of its Significance for Man (1949), 16
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Amoeba (21)  |  Animal (651)  |  Cell (146)  |  Change (639)  |  Complex (202)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Elaborated (7)  |  Elaboration (11)  |  Essential (210)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Great (1610)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Most (1728)  |  Multicellular (4)  |  Nonlife (2)  |  Occurrence (53)  |  Organism (231)  |  Other (2233)  |  Problem (731)  |  Progression (23)  |  Protozoan (3)  |  Say (989)  |  Solution (282)  |  Stage (152)  |  Step (234)

Edwin Grant Conklin quote: Life is not found in atoms or molecules or genes as such, but in organization; not in symbiosis but i
Life is not found in atoms or molecules or genes as such, but in organization; not in symbiosis but in synthesis.
In 'Cell and Protoplasm Concepts: Historical Account', The Cell and the Protoplasm: Publication of the American Association of Science (1940), No. 114, 18.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Gene (105)  |  Life (1870)  |  Organization (120)  |  Symbiosis (4)  |  Synthesis (58)

Life is order, death is disorder. A fundamental law of Nature states that spontaneous chemical changes in the universe tend toward chaos. But life has, during milliards of years of evolution, seemingly contradicted this law. With the aid of energy derived from the sun it has built up the most complicated systems to be found in the universe—living organisms. Living matter is characterized by a high degree of chemical organisation on all levels, from the organs of large organisms to the smallest constituents of the cell. The beauty we experience when we enjoy the exquisite form of a flower or a bird is a reflection of a microscopic beauty in the architecture of molecules.
The Nobel Prize for Chemistry: Introductory Address'. Nobel Lectures: Chemistry 1981-1990 (1992), 69.
Science quotes on:  |  Aid (101)  |  Architecture (50)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Bird (163)  |  Build (211)  |  Cell (146)  |  Change (639)  |  Chaos (99)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemical Change (8)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Contradict (42)  |  Contradiction (69)  |  Death (406)  |  Degree (277)  |  Disorder (45)  |  Energy (373)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Experience (494)  |  Exquisite (27)  |  Flower (112)  |  Form (976)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  High (370)  |  Large (398)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Matter (821)  |  Microscopic (27)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Order (638)  |  Organ (118)  |  Organism (231)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Seemingly (28)  |  Spontaneous (29)  |  State (505)  |  Sun (407)  |  System (545)  |  Tend (124)  |  Universe (900)  |  Year (963)

Life is water, dancing to the tune of solids.
From Perspect. Biol. Med. (1971), 12, 239. As cited by John G Watterson, 'The Wave-Cluster Model of Water-Protein Interactions',in David G Green, Complex Systems: From Biology to Computation (1993), 36. Also quoted as "Life is water, dancing to the tune of macro molecules," by Gerald H. Pollack and Ivan L. Cameron, in Water and the Cell (2006), viii.
Science quotes on:  |  Dance (35)  |  Life (1870)  |  Macromolecule (3)  |  Solid (119)  |  Tune (20)  |  Water (503)

Man, the molecule of society, is the subject of social science.
The Unity of Law: As exhibited in the relations of physical, social, mental and moral science (1872), 77.
Science quotes on:  |  Man (2252)  |  Social (261)  |  Social Science (37)  |  Society (350)  |  Subject (543)

MOLECULE, n. The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. It is distinguished from the corpuscle, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter, by a closer resemblance to the atom, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. Three great scientific theories of the structure of the universe are the molecular, the corpuscular and the atomic. A fourth affirms, with Haeckel, the condensation or precipitation of matter from ether—whose existence is proved by the condensation or precipitation. The present trend of scientific thought is toward the theory of ions. The ion differs from the molecule, the corpuscle and the atom in that it is an ion. A fifth theory is held by idiots, but it is doubtful if they know any more about the matter than the others.
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce (1911), Vol. 7, The Devil's Dictionary,  220-221.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Closer (43)  |  Condensation (12)  |  Corpuscle (14)  |  Differ (88)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Doubtful (30)  |  Ether (37)  |  Existence (481)  |  Great (1610)  |  Humour (116)  |  Idiot (22)  |  Indivisible (22)  |  Ion (21)  |  Know (1538)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Other (2233)  |  Precipitation (7)  |  Present (630)  |  Resemblance (39)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Theory (24)  |  Scientific Thought (17)  |  Structure (365)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thought (995)  |  Trend (23)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Universe (900)

Natural causes, as we know, are at work, which tend to modify, if they do not at length destroy, all the arrangements and dimensions of the earth and the whole solar system. But though in the course of ages catastrophes have occurred and may yet occur in the heavens, though ancient systems may be dissolved and new systems evolved out of their ruins, the molecules [i.e. atoms] out of which these systems are built—the foundation stones of the material universe—remain unbroken and unworn. They continue to this day as they were created—perfect in number and measure and weight.
Lecture to the British Association at Bradford, 'Molecules', Nature (1873), 8, 437-441. Reprinted in James Clerk Maxwell and W. D. Niven, editor, The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (2003), 377. By
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Atom (381)  |  Catastrophe (35)  |  Cause (561)  |  Conservation Of Mass (2)  |  Continue (179)  |  Course (413)  |  Creation (350)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Know (1538)  |  Material (366)  |  Measure (241)  |  Natural (810)  |  New (1273)  |  Number (710)  |  Occur (151)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Remain (355)  |  Ruin (44)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Stone (168)  |  System (545)  |  Tend (124)  |  Universe (900)  |  Weight (140)  |  Whole (756)  |  Work (1402)

Not every collision,
not every punctilious trajectory
by which billiard-ball complexes
arrive at their calculable meeting places
lead to reaction. ...
Men (and women) are not
as different from molecules
as they think.
Hoffmann, as a chemist-turned-poet is making the analogy of random intermolecular interactions to those of humans. From poem, 'Men and Molecules', The Metamict State (1984), 43. Cited as an epigraph in William L. Masterton and Cecile N. Hurley Chemistry: Principles and Reactions, Updated Edition (2005), 282.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrive (40)  |  Ball (64)  |  Billiard (4)  |  Collision (16)  |  Complex (202)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Lead (391)  |  Man (2252)  |  Meeting (22)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Think (1122)  |  Trajectory (5)  |  Woman (160)

Now that we locate them [genes] in the chromosomes are we justified in regarding them as material units; as chemical bodies of a higher order than molecules? Frankly, these are questions with which the working geneticist has not much concern himself, except now and then to speculate as to the nature of the postulated elements. There is no consensus of opinion amongst geneticists as to what the genes are—whether they are real or purely fictitious—because at the level at which the genetic experiments lie, it does not make the slightest difference whether the gene is a hypothetical unit, or whether the gene is a material particle. In either case the unit is associated with a specific chromosome, and can be localized there by purely genetic analysis. Hence, if the gene is a material unit, it is a piece of chromosome; if it is a fictitious unit, it must be referred to a definite location in a chromosome—the same place as on the other hypothesis. Therefore, it makes no difference in the actual work in genetics which point of view is taken. Between the characters that are used by the geneticist and the genes that his theory postulates lies the whole field of embryonic development.
'The Relation of Genetics to Physiology and Medicine', Nobel Lecture (4 Jun 1934). In Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine 1922-1941 (1965), 315.
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Character (259)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chromosome (23)  |  Chromosomes (17)  |  Concern (239)  |  Consensus (8)  |  Definite (114)  |  Development (441)  |  Difference (355)  |  Element (322)  |  Embryo (30)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Field (378)  |  Gene (105)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Geneticist (16)  |  Himself (461)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Lie (370)  |  Location (15)  |  Material (366)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particle (200)  |  Point (584)  |  Point Of View (85)  |  Postulate (42)  |  Purely (111)  |  Question (649)  |  Specific (98)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Theory (1015)  |  View (496)  |  Whole (756)  |  Work (1402)

On the basis of the results recorded in this review, it can be claimed that the average sand grain has taken many hundreds of millions of years to lose 10 per cent. of its weight by abrasion and become subangular. It is a platitude to point to the slowness of geological processes. But much depends on the way things are put. For it can also be said that a sand grain travelling on the bottom of a river loses 10 million molecules each time it rolls over on its side and that representation impresses us with the high rate of this loss. The properties of quartz have led to the concentration of its grains on the continents, where they could now form a layer averaging several hundred metres thick. But to my mind the most astounding numerical estimate that follows from the present evaluations, is that during each and every second of the incredibly long geological past the number of quartz grains on earth has increased by 1,000 million.
'Sand-its Origin, Transportation, Abrasion and Accumulation', The Geological Society of South Africa (1959), Annexure to Volume 62, 31.
Science quotes on:  |  Astounding (9)  |  Average (89)  |  Basis (180)  |  Become (821)  |  Claim (154)  |  Concentration (29)  |  Continent (79)  |  Depend (238)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Evaluation (10)  |  Follow (389)  |  Form (976)  |  Geology (240)  |  Grain (50)  |  High (370)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Layer (41)  |  Long (778)  |  Lose (165)  |  Loss (117)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Number (710)  |  Numerical (39)  |  Past (355)  |  Point (584)  |  Present (630)  |  Process (439)  |  Quartz (2)  |  Record (161)  |  Representation (55)  |  Result (700)  |  Review (27)  |  River (140)  |  Roll (41)  |  Sand (63)  |  Side (236)  |  Slowness (6)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Travelling (17)  |  Way (1214)  |  Weight (140)  |  Year (963)

Once a molecule is asymmetric, its extension proceeds also in an asymmetrical sense. This concept completely eliminates the difference between natural and artificial synthesis. The advance of science has removed the last chemical hiding place for the once so highly esteemed vis vitalis.
‘Synthesen in der Zuckergruppe', Berichte der deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft, 1894, 27, 3189.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Completely (137)  |  Concept (242)  |  Difference (355)  |  Extension (60)  |  Hiding (12)  |  Last (425)  |  Life (1870)  |  Natural (810)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Sense (785)  |  Stereochemistry (2)  |  Synthesis (58)

One can ask: “If I crystallize a virus to obtain a crystal consisting of the molecules that make up the virus, are those molecules lifeless or not?” … The properties of living organisms are those of aggregates of molecules. It’s very difficult to draw a line between molecules that are lifeless and molecules that are not lifeless.
From interview with Neil A. Campbell, in 'Crossing the Boundaries of Science', BioScience (Dec 1986), 36, No. 11, 738.
Science quotes on:  |  Aggregate (24)  |  Ask (420)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Crystallize (12)  |  Definition (238)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Draw (140)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lifeless (15)  |  Living (492)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Organism (231)  |  Virus (32)

One of the most immediate consequences of the electrochemical theory is the necessity of regarding all chemical compounds as binary substances. It is necessary to discover in each of them the positive and negative constituents... No view was ever more fitted to retard the progress of organic chemistry. Where the theory of substitution and the theory of types assume similar molecules, in which some of the elements can be replaced by others without the edifice becoming modified either in form or outward behaviour, the electrochemical theory divides these same molecules, simply and solely, it may be said, in order to find in them two opposite groups, which it then supposes to be combined with each other in virtue of their mutual electrical activity... I have tried to show that in organic chemistry there exist types which are capable, without destruction, of undergoing the most singular transformations according to the nature of the elements.
Traité de Chemie Appliquée aux Arts, Vol. I (1828), 53. Trans. J. R. Partington, A History of Chemistry, Vol. 4, 366.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Activity (218)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Behaviour (42)  |  Binary (12)  |  Capable (174)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Compound (117)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Discover (571)  |  Divide (77)  |  Edifice (26)  |  Electrical (57)  |  Electrochemical (4)  |  Electrochemistry (5)  |  Element (322)  |  Exist (458)  |  Find (1014)  |  Form (976)  |  Immediate (98)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mutual (54)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Negative (66)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Order (638)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organic Chemistry (41)  |  Other (2233)  |  Positive (98)  |  Progress (492)  |  Show (353)  |  Singular (24)  |  Substance (253)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Transformation (72)  |  Two (936)  |  Type (171)  |  View (496)  |  Virtue (117)

One of the most striking evidences of the reliability of the organic chemist's methods of determining molecular structure is the fact that he has never been able to derive satisfactory structures for supposed molecules which are in fact nonexistent.
Physical Organic Chemistry; Reaction Rates, Equilibria, and Mechanisms (1940),38.
Science quotes on:  |  Chemist (169)  |  Derive (70)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Method (531)  |  Molecular Structure (9)  |  Most (1728)  |  Never (1089)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organic Chemistry (41)  |  Reliability (18)  |  Striking (48)  |  Structure (365)

One or two atoms can convert a fuel to a poison, change a color, render an inedible substance edible, or replace a pungent odor with a fragrant one. That changing a single atom can have such consequences is the wonder of the chemical world.
In Scientific American Library, Molecules (1987), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Color (155)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Edible (7)  |  Fuel (39)  |  Inedible (2)  |  Odor (11)  |  Poison (46)  |  Single (365)  |  Wonder (251)

One reason which has led the organic chemist to avert his mind from the problems of Biochemistry is the obsession that the really significant happenings in the animal body are concerned in the main with substances of such high molecular weight and consequent vagueness of molecular structure as to make their reactions impossible of study by his available and accurate methods. There remains, I find, pretty widely spread, the feeling—due to earlier biological teaching—that, apart from substances which are obviously excreta, all the simpler products which can be found in cells or tissues are as a class mere objects, already too remote from the fundamental biochemical events to have much significance. So far from this being the case, recent progress points in the clearest way to the fact that the molecules with which a most important and significant part of the chemical dynamics of living tissues is concerned are of a comparatively simple character.
In 'The Dynamic Side of Biochemistry', Address (11 Sep 1913) in Report on the 83rd Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1914), 657-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Accurate (88)  |  Already (226)  |  Animal (651)  |  Available (80)  |  Being (1276)  |  Biochemistry (50)  |  Biological (137)  |  Body (557)  |  Character (259)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Class (168)  |  Concern (239)  |  Consequent (19)  |  Due (143)  |  Event (222)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Happening (59)  |  High (370)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Living (492)  |  Metabolism (15)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Molecular Structure (9)  |  Most (1728)  |  Object (438)  |  Obsession (13)  |  Organic (161)  |  Point (584)  |  Problem (731)  |  Product (166)  |  Progress (492)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Reason (766)  |  Recent (78)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remote (86)  |  Significance (114)  |  Significant (78)  |  Simple (426)  |  Spread (86)  |  Structure (365)  |  Study (701)  |  Substance (253)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Tissue (51)  |  Vagueness (15)  |  Way (1214)  |  Weight (140)

Our atom of carbon enters the leaf, colliding with other innumerable (but here useless) molecules of nitrogen and oxygen. It adheres to a large and complicated molecule that activates it, and simultaneously receives the decisive message from the sky, in the flashing form of a packet of solar light; in an instant, like an insect caught by a spider, it is separated from its oxygen, combined with hydrogen and (one thinks) phosphorus, and finally inserted in a chain, whether long or short does not matter, but it is the chain of life. All this happens swiftly, in silence, at the temperature and pressure of the atmosphere, and gratis: dear colleagues, when we learn to do likewise we will be sicut Deus [like God], and we will have also solved the problem of hunger in the world.
Levi Primo and Raymond Rosenthal (trans.), The Periodic Table (1975, 1984), 227-228. In this final section of his book, Levi imagines the life of a carbon atom. He calls this his first “literary dream”. It came to him at Auschwitz.
Science quotes on:  |  Activate (3)  |  Activation (6)  |  Adherence (2)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Atom (381)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Catch (34)  |  Chain (51)  |  Colleague (51)  |  Collision (16)  |  Combination (150)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Decisive (25)  |  Do (1905)  |  Enter (145)  |  Flash (49)  |  Form (976)  |  God (776)  |  Gratis (2)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happening (59)  |  Hunger (23)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Insect (89)  |  Insertion (2)  |  Instant (46)  |  Large (398)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learning (291)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Likewise (2)  |  Long (778)  |  Matter (821)  |  Message (53)  |  Nitrogen (32)  |  Other (2233)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Packet (3)  |  Phosphorus (18)  |  Photon (11)  |  Photosynthesis (21)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Problem (731)  |  Receive (117)  |  Separation (60)  |  Short (200)  |  Silence (62)  |  Simultaneity (3)  |  Sky (174)  |  Solar (8)  |  Solution (282)  |  Spider (14)  |  Sun (407)  |  Swiftness (5)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Think (1122)  |  Uselessness (22)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

Our conception of a native protein molecule (showing specific properties) is the following. The molecule consists of one polypeptide chain which continues without interruption throughout the molecule (or, in certain cases, of two or more such chains); this chain is folded into a uniquely defined configuration, in which it is held by hydrogen bonds between the peptide nitrogen and oxygen atoms and also between the free amino and carboxyl groups of the diamino and dicarboxyl amino acid residues.
The characteristic specific properties of native proteins we attribute to their uniquely defined configurations.
The denatured protein molecule we consider to be characterized by the absence of a uniquely defined configuration.
[Co-author with American chemist, Linus Pauling (1901-94)]
'On the Structure of Native, Denatured, and Coagulated Proteins', Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (1936), 22, 442-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Amino Acid (12)  |  Atom (381)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Author (175)  |  Bond (46)  |  Certain (557)  |  Chain (51)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Conception (160)  |  Consider (428)  |  Consist (223)  |  Continue (179)  |  Free (239)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Hydrogen Bond (3)  |  Interruption (5)  |  More (2558)  |  Native (41)  |  Nitrogen (32)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Polypeptide (2)  |  Property (177)  |  Protein (56)  |  Residue (9)  |  Specific (98)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Two (936)

Perhaps the most impressive illustration of all is to suppose that you could label the molecules in a tumbler of water. ... threw it anywhere you please on the earth, and went away from the earth for a few million years while all the water on the earth, the oceans, rivers, lakes and clouds had had time to mix up perfectly. Now supposing that perfect mixing had taken place, you come back to earth and draw a similar tumbler of water from the nearest tap, how many of those marked molecules would you expect to find in it? Well, the answer is 2000. There are 2000 times more molecules in a tumbler of water than there are tumblers of water in the whole earth.
In Lecture (1936) on 'Forty Years of Atomic Theory', collected in Needham and Pagel (eds.) in Background to Modern Science: Ten Lectures at Cambridge Arranged by the History of Science Committee, (1938), 99-100.
Science quotes on:  |  2000 (15)  |  Answer (389)  |  Back (395)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Draw (140)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Expect (203)  |  Find (1014)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Impressive (27)  |  Lake (36)  |  Marked (55)  |  Million (124)  |  Mix (24)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Please (68)  |  River (140)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Water (503)  |  Whole (756)  |  Year (963)

Phenomena unfold on their own appropriate scales of space and time and may be invisible in our myopic world of dimensions assessed by comparison with human height and times metered by human lifespans. So much of accumulating importance at earthly scales ... is invisible by the measuring rod of a human life. So much that matters to particles in the microscopic world of molecules ... either averages out to stability at our scale or simply stands below our limits of perception.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Accumulate (30)  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Assess (4)  |  Average (89)  |  Below (26)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Dimension (64)  |  Earthly (8)  |  Height (33)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Life (32)  |  Importance (299)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lifespan (9)  |  Limit (294)  |  Matter (821)  |  Measure (241)  |  Meter (9)  |  Microscopic (27)  |  Myopic (2)  |  Particle (200)  |  Perception (97)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Rod (6)  |  Scale (122)  |  Simply (53)  |  Space (523)  |  Space And Time (38)  |  Stability (28)  |  Stand (284)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unfold (15)  |  World (1850)

Physicist Isador Isaac Rabi, who won a Nobel Prize for inventing a technique that permitted scientists to probe the structure of atoms and molecules in the 1930s, attributed his success to the way his mother used to greet him when he came home from school each day. “Did you ask any good questions today, Isaac?” she would say.
Thomas J. Peters, Liberation Management: Necessary Disorganization for the Nanosecond Nineties (1992).
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Atom (381)  |  Good (906)  |  Greet (7)  |  Home (184)  |  Invention (400)  |  Mother (116)  |  Nobel Prize (42)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Probe (12)  |  Question (649)  |  Say (989)  |  School (227)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Structure (365)  |  Success (327)  |  Technique (84)  |  Today (321)  |  Way (1214)

Reagents are regarded as acting by virtue of a constitutional affinity either for electrons or for nuclei... the terms electrophilic (electron-seeking) and nucleophilic (nucleus-seeking) are suggested... and the organic molecule, in the activation necessary for reaction, is therefore required to develop at the seat of attack either a high or low electron density as the case may be.
'Significance of Tautomerism and of the Reactions of Aromatic Compounds in the Electronic Theory of Organic Relations', Journal of the Chemical Society (1933), 136, 1121, fn.
Science quotes on:  |  Activation (6)  |  Affinity (27)  |  Attack (86)  |  Density (25)  |  Develop (278)  |  Electron (96)  |  High (370)  |  Low (86)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Nucleus (54)  |  Organic (161)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Reagent (8)  |  Regard (312)  |  Required (108)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Virtue (117)

Recently, we’ve reported that we have made all five bases, the compounds that spell out the instructions for all life and are a part of the nucleic acids, RNA and DNA. Not only did we make all five bases but we found them in a meteorite! So that these two things coming together really assure us that the molecules necessary for life can be found in the absence of life. This was the biggest stumbling block.
In Space World (1985), 5, 25.
Science quotes on:  |  Absence (21)  |  Acid (83)  |  Base (120)  |  Coming (114)  |  Compound (117)  |  DNA (81)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Life (1870)  |  Meteorite (9)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Nucleic Acid (23)  |  Origin Of Life (37)  |  RNA (5)  |  Stumbling Block (6)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Together (392)  |  Two (936)

Recognize that the very molecules that make up your body, the atoms that construct the molecules, are traceable to the crucibles that were once the centers of high mass stars that exploded their chemically rich guts into the galaxy, enriching pristine gas clouds with the chemistry of life. So that we are all connected to each other biologically, to the earth chemically and to the rest of the universe atomically. That’s kinda cool! That makes me smile and I actually feel quite large at the end of that. It’s not that we are better than the universe, we are part of the universe. We are in the universe and the universe is in us.
From a History Channel TV show, (?) The Universe.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Better (493)  |  Biologically (4)  |  Body (557)  |  Center (35)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Connect (126)  |  Connected (8)  |  Construct (129)  |  Crucible (8)  |  Earth (1076)  |  End (603)  |  Enriching (2)  |  Exploded (11)  |  Feel (371)  |  Galaxy (53)  |  Gas (89)  |  Guts (2)  |  High (370)  |  Large (398)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mass (160)  |  Other (2233)  |  Part (235)  |  Pristine (5)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Rest (287)  |  Rich (66)  |  Smile (34)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Traceable (5)  |  Universe (900)

Science tries to answer the question: ‘How?’ How do cells act in the body? How do you design an airplane that will fly faster than sound? How is a molecule of insulin constructed? Religion, by contrast, tries to answer the question: ‘Why?’ Why was man created? Why ought I to tell the truth? Why must there be sorrow or pain or death? Science attempts to analyze how things and people and animals behave; it has no concern whether this behavior is good or bad, is purposeful or not. But religion is precisely the quest for such answers: whether an act is right or wrong, good or bad, and why.
Science and Imagination, ch. 4, Basic Books (1967).
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Airplane (43)  |  Analyze (12)  |  Animal (651)  |  Answer (389)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Bad (185)  |  Behave (18)  |  Behavior (95)  |  Body (557)  |  Cell (146)  |  Concern (239)  |  Construct (129)  |  Contrast (45)  |  Create (245)  |  Death (406)  |  Design (203)  |  Do (1905)  |  Fast (49)  |  Faster (50)  |  Fly (153)  |  Good (906)  |  Insulin (9)  |  Man (2252)  |  Must (1525)  |  Pain (144)  |  People (1031)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Purposeful (2)  |  Quest (39)  |  Question (649)  |  Religion (369)  |  Right (473)  |  Sorrow (21)  |  Sound (187)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Try (296)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wrong (246)

See, plastic Nature working to this End,
The single Atoms each to other tend,
Attract, attracted to, the next in place,
Form’d, and impell’d, its Neighbour to embrace.
In 'Epistle III', Essay on Man,: Being the First Book of Ethic Epistles (1734), 38.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Attraction (61)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Neighbour (7)  |  Plastic (30)

She [Rosalind Franklin] discovered in a series of beautifully executed researches the fundamental distinction between carbons that turned on heating into graphite and those that did not. Further she related this difference to the chemical constitution of the molecules from which carbon was made. She was already a recognized authority in industrial physico-chemistry when she chose to abandon this work in favour of the far more difficult and more exciting fields of biophysics.
Comment in The Times, 19 Apr 1958, shortly after Franklin's death. In Jenifer Glynn, 'Rosalind Franklin', in E. Shils and C. Blacker (eds.), Cambridge Women: Twelve Portraits (1996), 206.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Already (226)  |  Authority (99)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Difference (355)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Discover (571)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Exciting (50)  |  Field (378)  |  Rosalind Franklin (18)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  More (2558)  |  Series (153)  |  Turn (454)  |  Work (1402)

Simple molecules combine to make powerful chemicals. Simple cells combine to make powerful life-forms. Simple electronics combine to make powerful computers. Logically, all things are created by a combination of simpler, less capable components. Therefore, a supreme being must be in our future, not our origin. What if “God” is the consciousness that will be created when enough of us are connected by the Internet?!!
Thoughts by character Dogbert in Dilbert cartoon strip (11 Feb 1996).
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Capability (44)  |  Capable (174)  |  Cell (146)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Combination (150)  |  Combine (58)  |  Component (51)  |  Computer (131)  |  Connect (126)  |  Connection (171)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Creation (350)  |  Electronics (21)  |  Enough (341)  |  Form (976)  |  Future (467)  |  God (776)  |  Internet (24)  |  Life (1870)  |  Life-Form (6)  |  Logic (311)  |  Must (1525)  |  Origin (250)  |  Power (771)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Supreme (73)  |  Supreme Being (8)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Will (2350)

Since many cases are known in which the specificities of antigens and enzymes appear to bear a direct relation to gene specificities, it seems reasonable to suppose that the gene’s primary and possibly sole function is in directing the final configurations of protein molecules.
Assuming that each specific protein of the organism has its unique configuration copied from that of a gene, it follows that every enzyme whose specificity depends on a protein should be subject to modification or inactivation through gene mutation. This would, of course, mean that the reaction normally catalyzed by the enzyme in question would either have its rate or products modified or be blocked entirely.
Such a view does not mean that genes directly “make” proteins. Regardless of precisely how proteins are synthesized, and from what component parts, these parts must themselves be synthesized by reactions which are enzymatically catalyzed and which in turn depend on the functioning of many genes. Thus in the synthesis of a single protein molecule, probably at least several hundred different genes contribute. But the final molecule corresponds to only one of them and this is the gene we visualize as being in primary control.
In 'Genetics and Metabolism in Neurospora', Physiological Reviews, 1945, 25, 660.
Science quotes on:  |  Antigen (5)  |  Bear (162)  |  Being (1276)  |  Component (51)  |  Control (182)  |  Course (413)  |  Depend (238)  |  Different (595)  |  Direct (228)  |  Enzyme (19)  |  Final (121)  |  Follow (389)  |  Function (235)  |  Gene (105)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Known (453)  |  Mean (810)  |  Modification (57)  |  Must (1525)  |  Mutation (40)  |  Organism (231)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Precisely (93)  |  Primary (82)  |  Product (166)  |  Protein (56)  |  Question (649)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Single (365)  |  Sole (50)  |  Specific (98)  |  Subject (543)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Synthesis (58)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Through (846)  |  Turn (454)  |  Unique (72)  |  View (496)

Some say that everything that is called a psychical law is nothing but the psychological reflex of physical combinations, which is made up of sensations joined to certain central cerebral processes... It is contradicted by the fact of consciousness itself, which cannot possibly be derived from any physical qualities of material molecules or atoms.
An Introduction to Psychology (1912)
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Call (781)  |  Central (81)  |  Certain (557)  |  Combination (150)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Contradict (42)  |  Everything (489)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Law (913)  |  Material (366)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Physical (518)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Psychological (42)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Reflex (14)  |  Say (989)  |  Sensation (60)

Suppose we divide the space into little volume elements. If we have black and white molecules, how many ways could we distribute them among the volume elements so that white is on one side and black is on the other? On the other hand, how many ways could we distribute them with no restriction on which goes where? Clearly, there are many more ways to arrange them in the latter case. We measure “disorder” by the number of ways that the insides can be arranged, so that from the outside it looks the same. The logarithm of that number of ways is the entropy. The number of ways in the separated case is less, so the entropy is less, or the “disorder” is less.
In 'Order And Entropy', The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1964), 46-7.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrange (33)  |  Disorder (45)  |  Distribute (16)  |  Divide (77)  |  Element (322)  |  Entropy (46)  |  Little (717)  |  Logarithm (12)  |  Look (584)  |  Measure (241)  |  More (2558)  |  Number (710)  |  Other (2233)  |  Outside (141)  |  Restriction (14)  |  Side (236)  |  Space (523)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Way (1214)  |  White (132)

That Brobdingnagian molecule, tobacco mosaic virus.
In 'Synthesis', in A. Todd (ed.), Perspectives in Organic Chemistry (1956), 175.
Science quotes on:  |  Brobdingnag (2)  |  Tobacco (19)  |  Virus (32)

The artificial products do not have any molecular dissymmetry; and I could not indicate the existence of a more profound separation between the products born under the influence of life and all the others.
Quoted in Joseph S. Fruton, Proteins, Enzymes, Genes: The Interplay of Chemistry and Biology (1999), 135.
Science quotes on:  |  Artificiality (2)  |  Do (1905)  |  Existence (481)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Indication (33)  |  Influence (231)  |  Life (1870)  |  More (2558)  |  Organic Chemistry (41)  |  Other (2233)  |  Product (166)  |  Profound (105)  |  Separation (60)  |  Symmetry (44)

The Astonishing Hypothesis is that “You,” your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll’s Alice might have phrased it: “You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.”
In 'Introduction', The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for Soul (1994), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Ambition (46)  |  Assembly (13)  |  Astonishing (29)  |  Behaviour (42)  |  Brain (281)  |  Lewis Carroll (48)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Free (239)  |  Free Will (15)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Identity (19)  |  Joy (117)  |  Memory (144)  |  More (2558)  |  Nerve (82)  |  Neuron (10)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sorrow (21)  |  Vast (188)  |  Will (2350)

The cell, this elementary keystone of living nature, is far from being a peculiar chemical giant molecule or even a living protein and as such is not likely to fall prey to the field of an advanced chemistry. The cell is itself an organism, constituted of many small units of life.
Quoted in Joseph S. Fruton, Proteins, Enzymes, Genes: The Interplay of Chemistry and Biology (1999), 59.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Cell (146)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Fall (243)  |  Field (378)  |  Giant (73)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Organism (231)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Protein (56)  |  Small (489)

The chemical differences among various species and genera of animals and plants are certainly as significant for the history of their origins as the differences in form. If we could define clearly the differences in molecular constitution and functions of different kinds of organisms, there would be possible a more illuminating and deeper understanding of question of the evolutionary reactions of organisms than could ever be expected from morphological considerations.
'Uber das Vorkommen von Haemoglobin in den Muskeln der Mollusken und die Verbreitung desselben in den lebenden Organismen', Pflügers Archiv für die gesamte Physiologie des Menschen und der Tiere, 1871, 4, 318-9. Trans. Joseph S. Fruton, Proteins, Enzymes, Genes: The Interplay of Chemistry and Biology (1999), 270.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Define (53)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Expect (203)  |  Form (976)  |  Function (235)  |  Genus (27)  |  History (716)  |  Illuminating (12)  |  Kind (564)  |  More (2558)  |  Morphology (22)  |  Organism (231)  |  Origin (250)  |  Plant (320)  |  Possible (560)  |  Question (649)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Significance (114)  |  Significant (78)  |  Species (435)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Various (205)

The curiosity remains… to grasp more clearly how the same matter, which in physics and chemistry displays orderly and reproducible and relatively simple properties, arranges itself in the most astounding fashions as soon as it is drawn into the orbit of the living organism. The closer one looks at these performances of matter in living organisms the more impressive the show becomes. The meanest living cell becomes a magic puzzle box full of elaborate and changing molecules.
From 'Life: The Magic Puzzle Box', Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences (Dec 1949), 38, 173-190.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrange (33)  |  Astound (9)  |  Biochemistry (50)  |  Cell (146)  |  Change (639)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Curiosity (138)  |  Elaborate (31)  |  Fashion (34)  |  Impressive (27)  |  Magic (92)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Order (638)  |  Organism (231)  |  Performance (51)  |  Physics (564)  |  Property (177)  |  Puzzle Box (2)  |  Relatively (8)  |  Reproducible (9)  |  Show (353)  |  Simple (426)

The discovery of an interaction among the four hemes made it obvious that they must be touching, but in science what is obvious is not necessarily true. When the structure of hemoglobin was finally solved, the hemes were found to lie in isolated pockets on the surface of the subunits. Without contact between them how could one of them sense whether the others had combined with oxygen? And how could as heterogeneous a collection of chemical agents as protons, chloride ions, carbon dioxide, and diphosphoglycerate influence the oxygen equilibrium curve in a similar way? It did not seem plausible that any of them could bind directly to the hemes or that all of them could bind at any other common site, although there again it turned out we were wrong. To add to the mystery, none of these agents affected the oxygen equilibrium of myoglobin or of isolated subunits of hemoglobin. We now know that all the cooperative effects disappear if the hemoglobin molecule is merely split in half, but this vital clue was missed. Like Agatha Christie, Nature kept it to the last to make the story more exciting. There are two ways out of an impasse in science: to experiment or to think. By temperament, perhaps, I experimented, whereas Jacques Monod thought.
From essay 'The Second Secret of Life', collected in I Wish I'd Made You Angry Earlier (1998), 263-5.
Science quotes on:  |  Agent (73)  |  Binding (9)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Carbon Dioxide (25)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Agatha Christie (7)  |  Clue (20)  |  Collection (68)  |  Combination (150)  |  Common (447)  |  Contact (66)  |  Cooperation (38)  |  Curve (49)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Effect (414)  |  Equilibrium (34)  |  Excitement (61)  |  Exciting (50)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Half (63)  |  Hemoglobin (5)  |  Heterogeneity (4)  |  Impasse (2)  |  Influence (231)  |  Interaction (47)  |  Ion (21)  |  Isolation (32)  |  Know (1538)  |  Last (425)  |  Lie (370)  |  Merely (315)  |  Miss (51)  |  Jacques Monod (22)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Other (2233)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Plausibility (7)  |  Plausible (24)  |  Pocket (11)  |  Proton (23)  |  Sense (785)  |  Site (19)  |  Solution (282)  |  Split (15)  |  Story (122)  |  Structure (365)  |  Surface (223)  |  Temperament (18)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Touch (146)  |  Touching (16)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Turn (454)  |  Two (936)  |  Vital (89)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wrong (246)

The discovery that these soccer-ball-like molecules can be made in large quantities will have an effect on chemistry like the sowing of a bucket of flower seeds—the results will spring up everywhere from now on. I’d be surprised if we don’t see thousands of new fullerene compounds in the next few years, some of which are almost certain to have important uses.
As quoted in Malcolm W. Browne, 'Bizarre New Class of Molecules Spawns Its Own Branch of Chemistry', New York Times (25 Dec 1990), Late Edition (East Coast), L37.
Science quotes on:  |  Ball (64)  |  Bucket (4)  |  Buckyball (5)  |  Certain (557)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Compound (117)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Effect (414)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Flower (112)  |  Fullerene (4)  |  Important (229)  |  Large (398)  |  New (1273)  |  Next (238)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Result (700)  |  See (1094)  |  Seed (97)  |  Soccer (3)  |  Sow (11)  |  Sowing (9)  |  Spring (140)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Use (771)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

The dogma of the impossibility of determining the atomic constitution of substances, which until recently was advocated with such fervor by the most able chemists, is beginning to be abandoned and forgotten; and one can predict that the day is not far in the future when a sufficient collection of facts will permit determination of the internal architecture of molecules. A series of experiments directed toward such a goal is the object of this paper.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Architecture (50)  |  Atom (381)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Collection (68)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Determination (80)  |  Direct (228)  |  Dogma (49)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fervor (8)  |  Forgotten (53)  |  Future (467)  |  Goal (155)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Internal (69)  |  Most (1728)  |  Object (438)  |  Paper (192)  |  Permit (61)  |  Predict (86)  |  Series (153)  |  Substance (253)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Will (2350)

The elements of the living body have the chemical peculiarity of forming with each other most numerous combinations and very large molecules, consisting of five, six or even seven different elements.
In discourse (10 Dec 1893) to General Meeting, Nassau Association for Natural Science, Wiesbaden, Germany. Printed in 'The Distribution of the Organic Elements', The Chemical News and Journal of Industrial Science (1895), 71, No. 1832, 19.
Science quotes on:  |  Biochemistry (50)  |  Body (557)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Combination (150)  |  Different (595)  |  Element (322)  |  Forming (42)  |  Large (398)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Most (1728)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Organic Chemistry (41)  |  Other (2233)  |  Peculiarity (26)

The equations of dynamics completely express the laws of the historical method as applied to matter, but the application of these equations implies a perfect knowledge of all the data. But the smallest portion of matter which we can subject to experiment consists of millions of molecules, not one of which ever becomes individually sensible to us. We cannot, therefore, ascertain the actual motion of anyone of these molecules; so that we are obliged to abandon the strict historical method, and to adopt the statistical method of dealing with large groups of molecules … Thus molecular science teaches us that our experiments can never give us anything more than statistical information, and that no law derived from them can pretend to absolute precision. But when we pass from the contemplation of our experiments to that of the molecules themselves, we leave a world of chance and change, and enter a region where everything is certain and immutable.
'Molecules' (1873). In W. D. Niven (ed.), The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (1890), Vol. 2, 374.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Absolute (153)  |  Actual (118)  |  Application (257)  |  Applied (176)  |  Ascertain (41)  |  Become (821)  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Chance (244)  |  Change (639)  |  Completely (137)  |  Consist (223)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Data (162)  |  Derivation (15)  |  Dynamics (11)  |  Enter (145)  |  Equation (138)  |  Everything (489)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Express (192)  |  Historical (70)  |  History (716)  |  Immutable (26)  |  Information (173)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Large (398)  |  Law (913)  |  Matter (821)  |  Method (531)  |  More (2558)  |  Motion (320)  |  Never (1089)  |  Pass (241)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Portion (86)  |  Precision (72)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Subject (543)  |  Themselves (433)  |  World (1850)

The essential molecule of reproduction, DNA, … is composed of only four nitrogen bases (adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine), the sugar deoxyribose, and a phosphate. DNA’s intermediary, RNA, differs only by the substitution of the sugar ribose for deoxyribose and the nitrogen base uracil for thymine. The proteins of living organisms are made with a mere 20 amino acids, all arranged in a “left-handed” configuration. Taking into account all 28 building blocks, or “letters” (20 amino acids, five bases, two sugars, and one phosphate), the message is clear: With such a limited alphabet, all life must have had a common chemical origin.
In 'Cosmochemistry The Earliest Evolution', The Science Teacher (Oct 1983), 50, No. 7, 35.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Adenine (6)  |  Alphabet (14)  |  Amino Acid (12)  |  Base (120)  |  Building Block (9)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Clear (111)  |  Common (447)  |  Compose (20)  |  Configuration (8)  |  Cytosine (6)  |  Differ (88)  |  DNA (81)  |  Essential (210)  |  Guanine (5)  |  Intermediary (3)  |  Letter (117)  |  Life (1870)  |  Message (53)  |  Nitrogen (32)  |  Organism (231)  |  Origin (250)  |  Phosphate (6)  |  Protein (56)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  RNA (5)  |  Substitution (16)  |  Sugar (26)  |  Thymine (6)

The examination of crystal structure, with the aid of X-rays has given us for the first time an insight into the actual arrangement of the atoms in solid bodies. The study of structure by means of a microscope is limited by the coarseness of the light which illuminates the object, for we can never hope to see details smaller than the wavelength of the light. By using X-rays with their very short wavelengths, this limit of minuteness has at one step been decreased ten thousand times, for the wavelength of the X-rays is of a smaller order than the dimensions of the atomic structure. We are actually looking into the interior of the molecule and the atom with this fine-grained form of light.
In Nobel Lecture (6 Sep 1922). Published in Nobel Lectures, Physics 1901-1921 (1967), 377-378; and on the nobelprize.org website.
Science quotes on:  |  Atomic Structure (4)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Examination (102)  |  Microscope (85)  |  Structure (365)  |  Wavelength (10)  |  X-ray Diffraction (5)

The fact that, with respect to size, the viruses overlapped with the organisms of the biologist at one extreme and with the molecules of the chemist at the other extreme only served to heighten the mystery regarding the nature of viruses. Then too, it became obvious that a sharp line dividing living from non-living things could not be drawn and this fact served to add fuel for discussion of the age-old question of “What is life?”
Nobel Lecture (12 Dec 1946), 'The Isolation and Properties of Crystalline Tobacco Mosaic Virus', collected in Nobel Lectures in Chemistry (1999), 140.
Science quotes on:  |  Add (42)  |  Age (509)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Become (821)  |  Biologist (70)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Discussion (78)  |  Divide (77)  |  Draw (140)  |  Extreme (78)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fuel (39)  |  Life (1870)  |  Line (100)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Non-Living (3)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Old (499)  |  Organism (231)  |  Other (2233)  |  Overlap (9)  |  Question (649)  |  Regard (312)  |  Respect (212)  |  Serve (64)  |  Sharp (17)  |  Size (62)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Virus (32)

The fertilized ovum of a mouse and a whale look much alike, but differences quickly show up in the course of their development. If we could study their molecules with the naked eyes, we would see the differences from the start.
Epigraph in Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 73.
Science quotes on:  |  Alike (60)  |  Course (413)  |  Development (441)  |  Difference (355)  |  Embryology (18)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fertilize (4)  |  Look (584)  |  Mouse (33)  |  Naked Eye (12)  |  Ovum (4)  |  See (1094)  |  Show (353)  |  Start (237)  |  Study (701)  |  Whale (45)

The fertilized ovum of a mouse and a whale look much alike, but differences quickly show up in the course of their development. If we could study their molecules with the naked eyes, we would see the differences from the start.
Epigraph in Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 73.
Science quotes on:  |  Alike (60)  |  Course (413)  |  Development (441)  |  Difference (355)  |  Eye (440)  |  Look (584)  |  Mouse (33)  |  Naked Eye (12)  |  See (1094)  |  Show (353)  |  Start (237)  |  Study (701)  |  Whale (45)

THE fundamental questions in chemistry,—those questions the answers to which would convert chemistry into a branch of exact science, and enable us to predict with absolute certainty the result of every reaction—are (1) What is the nature of the forces which retain the several molecules or atoms of a compound together? and (2) How may their direction and amount be determined? We may safely say that, in the present state of the science, these questions cannot be answered; and it is extremely doubtful whether any future advances will render their solution possible.
Opening paragraph of his University of Edinburgh M.D. thesis, 'On the Theory of Chemical Combination' (1861).
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Answer (389)  |  Atom (381)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Chemical Bond (7)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Compound (117)  |  Direction (185)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Exact (75)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Question (649)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Result (700)  |  Solution (282)

The greatest single achievement of nature to date was surely the invention of the molecule DNA.
In The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974, 1979), 27.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  DNA (81)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Invention (400)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Single (365)  |  Surely (101)

The human brain is a machine which alone accounts for all our actions, our most private thoughts, our beliefs. ... To choose a spouse, a job, a religious creed—or even choose to rob a bank—is the peak of a causal chain that runs back to the origin of life and down to the nature of atoms and molecules.
The Mind Machine (1998), 145. In Vinoth Ramachandra, Subverting Global Myths: Theology and the Public Issues Shaping our World (2008), 179.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Action (342)  |  Alone (324)  |  Atom (381)  |  Back (395)  |  Bank (31)  |  Belief (615)  |  Brain (281)  |  Causal (7)  |  Chain (51)  |  Choose (116)  |  Creed (28)  |  Down (455)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Brain (4)  |  Job (86)  |  Life (1870)  |  Machine (271)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Origin (250)  |  Origin Of Life (37)  |  Peak (20)  |  Private (29)  |  Religious (134)  |  Rob (6)  |  Run (158)  |  Thought (995)

The ingenuity and effective logic that enabled chemists to determine complex molecular structures from the number of isomers, the reactivity of the molecule and of its fragments, the freezing point, the empirical formula, the molecular weight, etc., is one of the outstanding triumphs of the human mind.
'Trends in Chemistry', Chemical Engineering News, 7 Jan 1963, 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Complex (202)  |  Determine (152)  |  Effective (68)  |  Empirical (58)  |  Formula (102)  |  Fragment (58)  |  Freezing (16)  |  Freezing Point (3)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Ingenuity (42)  |  Isomer (6)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Molecular Structure (9)  |  Number (710)  |  Outstanding (16)  |  Point (584)  |  Structure (365)  |  Triumph (76)  |  Weight (140)

The messages that DNA molecules contain are all but eternal when seen against the time scale of individual lifetimes. The lifetimes of DNA messages (give or take a few mutations) are measured in units ranging from millions of years to hundreds of millions of years; or, in other words, ranging from 10,000 individual lifetimes to a trillion individual lifetimes. Each individual organism should be seen as a temporary vehicle, in which DNA messages spend a tiny fraction of their geological lifetimes.
The Blind Watchmaker (1996), 126.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  DNA (81)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Individual (420)  |  Message (53)  |  Mutation (40)  |  Organism (231)  |  Other (2233)  |  Scale (122)  |  Spend (97)  |  Temporary (24)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tiny (74)  |  Vehicle (11)  |  Word (650)  |  Year (963)

The most stable arrangement for an assemblage of molecules is one in which the component atoms and groups are packed together so that (a) the distances between neighbors are close to the equilibrium distance, (b) each atom or group has as many close neighbors as possible, and (c) there are no large unoccupied regions. In other words, each structure tends to be as 'close-packed' as possible, consistent with the 'sizes' of its component atoms or groups.
'The Structure of Fibrous Proteins', Chemical Reviews (1943), 32, 198.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Assemblage (17)  |  Atom (381)  |  Component (51)  |  Consistent (50)  |  Distance (171)  |  Equilibrium (34)  |  Large (398)  |  Most (1728)  |  Other (2233)  |  Packing (3)  |  Possible (560)  |  Radical (28)  |  Stability (28)  |  Stable (32)  |  Structure (365)  |  Tend (124)  |  Together (392)  |  Word (650)

The nature of heredity is based upon the transmission of nuclear substance with a specific molecular constitution. This substance is the specific nucleoplasm of the germ-cell, to which I have given the name of germ-plasm.
Trans. Joseph S. Froton, Proteins, Enzymes, Genes: The Interplay of Chemistry and Biology (1999), 391.
Science quotes on:  |  Basis (180)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Germ (54)  |  Germ Cell (2)  |  Germ-Plasm (2)  |  Heredity (62)  |  Name (359)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nucleoplasm (2)  |  Nucleus (54)  |  Specific (98)  |  Substance (253)  |  Transmission (34)

The nature of the atoms, and the forces called into play in their chemical union; the interactions between these atoms and the non-differentiated ether as manifested in the phenomena of light and electricity; the structures of the molecules and molecular systems of which the atoms are the units; the explanation of cohesion, elasticity, and gravitation—all these will be marshaled into a single compact and consistent body of scientific knowledge.
In Light Waves and Their Uses? (1902), 163.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Body (557)  |  Call (781)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Cohesion (7)  |  Compact (13)  |  Consistent (50)  |  Elasticity (8)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Ether (37)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Force (497)  |  Gravitation (72)  |  Interaction (47)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Light (635)  |  Manifest (21)  |  Marshal (4)  |  Molecular (7)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Play (116)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Knowledge (11)  |  Single (365)  |  Structure (365)  |  System (545)  |  Union (52)  |  Unit (36)  |  Will (2350)

The nucleic acids, as constituents of living organisms, are comparable In importance to proteins. There is evidence that they are Involved In the processes of cell division and growth, that they participate In the transmission of hereditary characters, and that they are important constituents of viruses. An understanding of the molecular structure of the nucleic acids should be of value In the effort to understand the fundamental phenomena of life.
[Co-author with American chemist, B. Corey (1897-1971)]
'A Proposed Structure for the Nucleic Acids', Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (1953), 39, 84.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Author (175)  |  Cell (146)  |  Cell Division (6)  |  Character (259)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Division (67)  |  Effort (243)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Growth (200)  |  Heredity (62)  |  Importance (299)  |  Involved (90)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Molecular Structure (9)  |  Nucleic Acid (23)  |  Organism (231)  |  Participation (15)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Protein (56)  |  Structure (365)  |  Transmission (34)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Value (393)  |  Virus (32)

The separate atoms of a molecule are not connected all with all, or all with one, but, on the contrary, each one is connected only with one or with a few neighbouring atoms, just as in a chain link is connected with link.
'The Scientific Aims and Achievements of Chemistry', Nature (1878), 18, 212.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Bond (46)  |  Chain (51)  |  Connect (126)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Separate (151)

The stars are laboratories in which the evolution of matter proceeds in the direction of large molecules.
In Teilhard de Chardin and Bernard Wall (trans.), The Phenomenon of Man (1959, 2008), 50. Originally published in French as Le Phénomene Humain (1955).
Science quotes on:  |  Direction (185)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Large (398)  |  Matter (821)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)

The story is told of Lord Kelvin, a famous Scotch physicist of the last century, that after he had given a lecture on atoms and molecules, one of his students came to him with the question, “Professor, what is your idea of the structure of the atom.”
“What,” said Kelvin, “The structure of the atom? Why, don’t you know, the very word ‘atom’ means the thing that can’t be cut. How then can it have a structure?”
“That,” remarked the facetious young man, “shows the disadvantage of knowing Greek.”
As described in 'Assault on Atoms' (Read 23 Apr 1931 at Symposium—The Changing World) Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society (1931), 70, No. 3, 219.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Century (319)  |  Cut (116)  |  Disadvantage (10)  |  Facetious (2)  |  Greek (109)  |  Idea (881)  |  Baron William Thomson Kelvin (74)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Last (425)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Lord (97)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Professor (133)  |  Question (649)  |  Scottish (4)  |  Show (353)  |  Story (122)  |  Structure (365)  |  Student (317)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Why (491)  |  Word (650)  |  Young (253)

The study of mathematics is apt to commence in disappointment. … We are told that by its aid the stars are weighed and the billions of molecules in a drop of water are counted. Yet, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, this greatest science eludes the efforts of our mental weapons to grasp it.
Opening of Chap 1, in An Introduction to Mathematics (1911), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Aid (101)  |  Apt (9)  |  Billion (104)  |  Commencement (14)  |  Count (107)  |  Disappointment (18)  |  Drop (77)  |  Effort (243)  |  Elude (11)  |  Father (113)  |  Ghost (36)  |  Grasp (65)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Hamlet (10)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mental (179)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Study (701)  |  Water (503)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Weapons (57)  |  Weigh (51)  |  Weighing (2)

The study of mathematics is apt to commence in disappointment. The important applications of the science, the theoretical interest of its ideas, and the logical rigour of its methods all generate the expectation of a speedy introduction to processes of interest. We are told that by its aid the stars are weighed and the billions of molecules in a drop of water are counted. Yet, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, this great science eludes the efforts of our mental weapons to grasp it.
Opening to An Introduction to Mathematics (1911), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Aid (101)  |  Application (257)  |  Billion (104)  |  Commencement (14)  |  Count (107)  |  Disappointment (18)  |  Drop (77)  |  Effort (243)  |  Elude (11)  |  Eluding (2)  |  Expectation (67)  |  Father (113)  |  Ghost (36)  |  Grasping (2)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hamlet (10)  |  Idea (881)  |  Importance (299)  |  Interest (416)  |  Introduction (37)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mental (179)  |  Method (531)  |  Process (439)  |  Rigour (21)  |  Speedy (2)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Study (701)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Water (503)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Weapons (57)  |  Weigh (51)

The swelling and towering omnibuses, the huge trucks and wagons and carriages, the impetuous hansoms and the more sobered four-wheelers, the pony-carts, donkey-carts, hand-carts, and bicycles which fearlessly find their way amidst the turmoil, with foot-passengers winding in and out, and covering the sidewalks with their multitude, give the effect of a single monstrous organism, which writhes swiftly along the channel where it had run in the figure of a flood till you were tired of that metaphor. You are now a molecule of that vast organism.
Describing streets in London, from 'London Films', Harper’s Magazine (), 110, No. 655, 72.
Science quotes on:  |  Bicycle (10)  |  Carriage (11)  |  Cart (3)  |  Channel (23)  |  Covering (14)  |  Donkey (2)  |  Effect (414)  |  Figure (162)  |  Find (1014)  |  Flood (52)  |  Foot (65)  |  Hand (149)  |  Metaphor (37)  |  Monstrous (7)  |  More (2558)  |  Multitude (50)  |  Omnibus (2)  |  Organism (231)  |  Passenger (10)  |  Pony (2)  |  Run (158)  |  Sidewalk (2)  |  Single (365)  |  Swelling (5)  |  Swiftly (5)  |  Tired (13)  |  Towering (11)  |  Truck (3)  |  Turmoil (8)  |  Vast (188)  |  Wagon (10)  |  Way (1214)  |  Winding (8)  |  Writhe (3)

The universe is asymmetric and I am persuaded that life, as it is known to us, is a direct result of the asymmetry of the universe or of its indirect consequences. The universe is asymmetric.
Acknowledging the role of molecules that have stereoisomers, some the mirror image of the others, and microorganisms whose chemistry prefers only one of those forms.
Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Science (1 Jun 1874). Reprinted in Oeuvres, Vol. 1, 361. In J.B.S. Haldane, Nature, 185, 87. As cited in Alan L. Mackay,The Harvest of a Quiet Eye (1977), 117. Pasteur's application of a microorganism with a chemical behaviour preferring a specific stereoisomer is in Sven Klussmann, The Aptamer Handbook (2006), 420.
Science quotes on:  |  Asymmetry (6)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Direct (228)  |  Form (976)  |  Image (97)  |  Indirect (18)  |  Known (453)  |  Life (1870)  |  Microorganism (29)  |  Mirror (43)  |  Other (2233)  |  Persuade (11)  |  Result (700)  |  Role (86)  |  Universe (900)

The varieties of chemical substances actually found in living things are vastly more restricted than the possible varieties. A striking illustration is that if one molecule each of all the possible types of proteins were made, they would together weigh more than the observable universe. Obviously there are a fantastically large number of protein types that are not made by living cells.
In The Closing Circle: Nature, Man, and Technology (2014).
Science quotes on:  |  Cell (146)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Large (398)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  More (2558)  |  Number (710)  |  Observable (21)  |  Possible (560)  |  Protein (56)  |  Restricted (2)  |  Striking (48)  |  Substance (253)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Together (392)  |  Type (171)  |  Universe (900)  |  Variety (138)  |  Vast (188)  |  Weigh (51)

The words are strung together, with their own special grammar—the laws of quantum theory—to form sentences, which are molecules. Soon we have books, entire libraries, made out of molecular “sentences.” The universe is like a library in which the words are atoms. Just look at what has been written with these hundred words! Our own bodies are books in that library, specified by the organization of molecules—but the universe and literature are organizations of identical, interchangeable objects; they are information systems.
In The Cosmic Code: Quantum Physics as the Language of Nature (1983), 255.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Body (557)  |  Book (413)  |  Element (322)  |  Entire (50)  |  Form (976)  |  Formation (100)  |  Grammar (15)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Identical (55)  |  Information (173)  |  Law (913)  |  Library (53)  |  Literature (116)  |  Look (584)  |  Object (438)  |  Organization (120)  |  Quantum (118)  |  Quantum Theory (67)  |  Sentence (35)  |  Soon (187)  |  Special (188)  |  Specification (7)  |  String (22)  |  System (545)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Together (392)  |  Universe (900)  |  Word (650)  |  Writing (192)

Their specific effect on the glucosides might thus be explained by assuming that the intimate contact between the molecules necessary for the release of the chemical reaction is possible only with similar geometrical configurations. To give an illustration I will say that enzyme and glucoside must fit together like lock and key in order to be able to exercise a chemical action on each other. This concept has undoubtedly gained in probability and value for stereochemical research, after the phenomenon itself was transferred from the biological to the purely chemical field. It is an extension of the theory of asymmetry without being a direct consequence of it: for the conviction that the geometrical structure of the molecule even for optical isomers exercises such a great influence on the chemical affinities, in my opinion could only be gained by new actual observations.
'Einfluss der Configuration auf die wirkung der Enzyme', Berichte der deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft, 1894, 27, 2985-93. Trans. B. Holmstedt and G. Liljestrand (eds.) Readings in Pharmacology (1963), 251.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Actual (118)  |  Asymmetry (6)  |  Being (1276)  |  Biological (137)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemical Reaction (17)  |  Concept (242)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Contact (66)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Direct (228)  |  Effect (414)  |  Enzyme (19)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Explain (334)  |  Extension (60)  |  Field (378)  |  Fit (139)  |  Gain (146)  |  Great (1610)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Influence (231)  |  Isomer (6)  |  Must (1525)  |  Necessary (370)  |  New (1273)  |  Observation (593)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Optical (11)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Possible (560)  |  Probability (135)  |  Purely (111)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Release (31)  |  Research (753)  |  Say (989)  |  Specific (98)  |  Stereochemistry (2)  |  Structure (365)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Together (392)  |  Value (393)  |  Will (2350)

There are living systems; there is no living “matter.” No substance, no single molecule, extracted and isolated from a living being possess, of its own, the aforementioned paradoxical properties. They are present in living systems only; that is to say, nowhere below the level of the cell.
Inaugural lecture on taking the chair of molecular biology, Collège de France (3 Nov 1967). From Biology to Ethics (1969), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Biochemistry (50)  |  Cell (146)  |  Extract (40)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Matter (821)  |  Molecular Biology (27)  |  Possess (157)  |  Present (630)  |  Say (989)  |  Single (365)  |  Substance (253)  |  System (545)

There is beauty in discovery. There is mathematics in music, a kinship of science and poetry in the description of nature, and exquisite form in a molecule. Attempts to place different disciplines in different camps are revealed as artificial in the face of the unity of knowledge. All illiterate men are sustained by the philosopher, the historian, the political analyst, the economist, the scientist, the poet, the artisan, and the musician.
From address (1958), upon being appointed Chancellor of the University of California.
Science quotes on:  |  Analyst (8)  |  Artificial (38)  |  Artisan (9)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Camp (12)  |  Description (89)  |  Different (595)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Economist (20)  |  Exquisite (27)  |  Face (214)  |  Form (976)  |  Historian (59)  |  Illiterate (6)  |  Kinship (5)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Music (133)  |  Musician (23)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Poet (97)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Political (124)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  Science And Poetry (17)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Sustain (52)  |  Unity (81)

To Avogadro and Cannizzaro, as to Couper and Kekulé, the molecules and atoms considered in this great theory were real objects: they were thought of the same way as one thinks of tables and chairs.
On the Operational Interpretation of Classical Chemistry', British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (1955), 6, 32. In Mary Jo Nye, From Chemical Philosophy to Theoretical Chemistry (1993), 58
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Count of Quaregna Amedeo Avogadro (3)  |  Stanislao Cannizzaro (2)  |  Chair (25)  |  Consider (428)  |  Great (1610)  |  August Kekulé (14)  |  Object (438)  |  Table (105)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Way (1214)

To be born, to live and to die is merely to change forms... And what does one form matter any more than another?... Each form has its own sort of happiness and unhappiness. From the elephant down to the flea... from the flea down to the sensitive and living molecule which is the origin of all, there is not a speck in the whole of nature that does not feel pain or pleasure.
D'Alembert's Dream (1769), in Rameau's Nephew and D' Alembert's Dream, trans. Leonard Tancock (Penguin edition 1966), 182.
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Down (455)  |  Elephant (35)  |  Feel (371)  |  Flea (11)  |  Form (976)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Matter (821)  |  Merely (315)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Origin (250)  |  Pain (144)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Speck (25)  |  Unhappiness (9)  |  Whole (756)

To pick a hole–say in the 2nd law of Ωcs, that if two things are in contact the hotter cannot take heat from the colder without external agency.
Now let A & B be two vessels divided by a diaphragm and let them contain elastic molecules in a state of agitation which strike each other and the sides. Let the number of particles be equal in A & B but let those in A have equal velocities, if oblique collisions occur between them their velocities will become unequal & I have shown that there will be velocities of all magnitudes in A and the same in B only the sum of the squares of the velocities is greater in A than in B.
When a molecule is reflected from the fixed diaphragm CD no work is lost or gained.
If the molecule instead of being reflected were allowed to go through a hole in CD no work would be lost or gained, only its energy would be transferred from the one vessel to the other.
Now conceive a finite being who knows the paths and velocities of all the molecules by simple inspection but who can do no work, except to open and close a hole in the diaphragm, by means of a slide without mass.
Let him first observe the molecules in A and when lie sees one coming the square of whose velocity is less than the mean sq. vel. of the molecules in B let him open a hole & let it go into B. Next let him watch for a molecule in B the square of whose velocity is greater than the mean sq. vel. in A and when it comes to the hole let him draw and slide & let it go into A, keeping the slide shut for all other molecules.
Then the number of molecules in A & B are the same as at first but the energy in A is increased and that in B diminished that is the hot system has got hotter and the cold colder & yet no work has been done, only the intelligence of a very observant and neat fingered being has been employed. Or in short if heat is the motion of finite portions of matter and if we can apply tools to such portions of matter so as to deal with them separately then we can take advantage of the different motion of different portions to restore a uniformly hot system to unequal temperatures or to motions of large masses. Only we can't, not being clever enough.
Letter to Peter Guthrie Tait (11 Dec 1867). In P. M. Harman (ed.), The Scientific Letters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (1995), Vol. 2, 331-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (144)  |  Agitation (10)  |  Apply (170)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Clever (41)  |  Cold (115)  |  Collision (16)  |  Coming (114)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Contact (66)  |  Deal (192)  |  Different (595)  |  Divided (50)  |  Do (1905)  |  Draw (140)  |  Employ (115)  |  Energy (373)  |  Enough (341)  |  Finite (60)  |  First (1302)  |  Gain (146)  |  Greater (288)  |  Heat (180)  |  Hot (63)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Know (1538)  |  Large (398)  |  Law (913)  |  Lie (370)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Mass (160)  |  Matter (821)  |  Maxwell�s Demon (2)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Motion (320)  |  Next (238)  |  Number (710)  |  Observe (179)  |  Occur (151)  |  Open (277)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particle (200)  |  Path (159)  |  Portion (86)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Short (200)  |  Shut (41)  |  Side (236)  |  Simple (426)  |  Square (73)  |  State (505)  |  Strike (72)  |  Sum (103)  |  System (545)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Thermodynamics (40)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Tool (129)  |  Two (936)  |  Unequal (12)  |  Velocity (51)  |  Vessel (63)  |  Watch (118)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

To take one of the simplest cases of the dissipation of energy, the conduction of heat through a solid—consider a bar of metal warmer at one end than the other and left to itself. To avoid all needless complication, of taking loss or gain of heat into account, imagine the bar to be varnished with a substance impermeable to heat. For the sake of definiteness, imagine the bar to be first given with one half of it at one uniform temperature, and the other half of it at another uniform temperature. Instantly a diffusing of heat commences, and the distribution of temperature becomes continuously less and less unequal, tending to perfect uniformity, but never in any finite time attaining perfectly to this ultimate condition. This process of diffusion could be perfectly prevented by an army of Maxwell’s ‘intelligent demons’* stationed at the surface, or interface as we may call it with Prof. James Thomson, separating the hot from the cold part of the bar.
* The definition of a ‘demon’, according to the use of this word by Maxwell, is an intelligent being endowed with free will, and fine enough tactile and perceptive organisation to give him the faculty of observing and influencing individual molecules of matter.
In 'The Kinetic Theory of the Dissipation of Energy', Nature (1874), 9, 442.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Account (195)  |  Army (35)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Call (781)  |  Cold (115)  |  Complication (30)  |  Condition (362)  |  Conduction (8)  |  Consider (428)  |  Definition (238)  |  Diffusion (13)  |  Distribution (51)  |  End (603)  |  Endowed (52)  |  Energy (373)  |  Enough (341)  |  Finite (60)  |  First (1302)  |  Free (239)  |  Free Will (15)  |  Gain (146)  |  Heat (180)  |  Hot (63)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Individual (420)  |  Instantly (20)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Loss (117)  |  Matter (821)  |  Maxwell (42)  |  Metal (88)  |  Never (1089)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perceptive (3)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Process (439)  |  Sake (61)  |  Solid (119)  |  Station (30)  |  Substance (253)  |  Surface (223)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Unequal (12)  |  Uniformity (38)  |  Use (771)  |  Varnish (2)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)

To-day, science has withdrawn into realms that are hardly understanded of the people. Biology means very largely histology, the study of the cell by difficult and elaborate microscopical processes. Chemistry has passed from the mixing of simple substances with ascertained reactions, to an experimentation of these processes under varying conditions of temperature, pressure, and electrification—all requiring complicated apparatus and the most delicate measurement and manipulation. Similarly, physics has outgrown the old formulas of gravity, magnetism, and pressure; has discarded the molecule and atom for the ion, and may in its recent generalizations be followed only by an expert in the higher, not to say the transcendental mathematics.
Anonymous
‘Exit the Amateur Scientist.’ Editorial, The Nation, 23 August 1906, 83, 160.
Science quotes on:  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Ascertain (41)  |  Atom (381)  |  Biology (232)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Condition (362)  |  Delicate (45)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Discard (32)  |  Elaborate (31)  |  Expert (67)  |  Follow (389)  |  Formula (102)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Histology (4)  |  Ion (21)  |  Magnetism (43)  |  Manipulation (19)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Most (1728)  |  Old (499)  |  Pass (241)  |  People (1031)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Realm (87)  |  Recent (78)  |  Research (753)  |  Say (989)  |  Simple (426)  |  Study (701)  |  Substance (253)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Transcendental (11)  |  Understand (648)

We are at the beginning of a new era of immunochemistry, namely the production of “antibody based” molecules.
From Nobel Lecture (8 Dec 1984), collected in Tore Frängsmyr and Jan Lindsten (eds.), Nobel Lectures in Physiology Or Medicine: 1981-1990 (1993), 266.
Science quotes on:  |  Antibody (6)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Era (51)  |  Immunochemistry (2)  |  New (1273)  |  New Era (2)  |  Production (190)

We are just beginning to understand how molecular reaction systems have found a way to “organize themselves”. We know that processes of this nature ultimately led to the life cycle, and that (for the time being?) Man with his central nervous system, i.e. his memory, his mind, and his soul, stands at the end of this development and feels compelled to understand this development. For this purpose he must penetrate into the smallest units of time and space, which also requires new ideas to make these familiar concepts from physics of service in understanding what has, right into our century, appeared to be beyond the confines of space and time.
Answering “Where Now?” as the conclusion of his Nobel Lecture (11 Dec 1967) on 'Immeasurably Fast Reactions', published in Nobel Lectures, Chemistry 1963-1970 (1972).
Science quotes on:  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Central (81)  |  Century (319)  |  Concept (242)  |  Confine (26)  |  Cycle (42)  |  Development (441)  |  End (603)  |  Familiar (47)  |  Feel (371)  |  Idea (881)  |  Know (1538)  |  Life (1870)  |  Life Cycle (5)  |  Man (2252)  |  Memory (144)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nervous System (35)  |  New (1273)  |  Organize (33)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Process (439)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Require (229)  |  Right (473)  |  Service (110)  |  Small (489)  |  Soul (235)  |  Space (523)  |  Space And Time (38)  |  Stand (284)  |  System (545)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Time (1911)  |  Time And Space (39)  |  Ultimately (56)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Unit (36)  |  Way (1214)

We are survival machines—robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes. This is a truth which still fills me with astonishment.
From Preface to The Selfish Gene (1976, 2006), xxi.
Science quotes on:  |  Astonishment (30)  |  Gene (105)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Known (453)  |  Machine (271)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Robot (14)  |  Selfish (12)  |  Still (614)  |  Survival (105)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Vehicle (11)

We believe that each molecular vibration disturbs the ether; that spectra are thus begotten, each wavelength of light resulting from a molecular tremor of corresponding wavelength. The molecule is, in fact, the sender, the ether the wire, and the eye the receiving instrument, in this new telegraphy.
In Studies in Spectrum Analysis (1878), 118-119.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Correspond (13)  |  Disturb (31)  |  Ether (37)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Light (635)  |  New (1273)  |  Receive (117)  |  Result (700)  |  Spectrum (35)  |  Telegraphy (3)  |  Tremor (3)  |  Vibration (26)  |  Wavelength (10)  |  Wire (36)

We define thermodynamics ... as the investigation of the dynamical and thermal properties of bodies, deduced entirely from the first and second law of thermodynamics, without speculation as to the molecular constitution.
The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (2003), 664-665.
Science quotes on:  |  Constitution (78)  |  Dynamical (15)  |  First (1302)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Law (913)  |  Second Law Of Thermodynamics (14)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Thermal (15)  |  Thermodynamics (40)

We have come a long way on that old molecule [DNA].
In The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974, 1979), 28.
Science quotes on:  |  Coming (114)  |  DNA (81)  |  Long (778)  |  Old (499)  |  Way (1214)

We have seen that the cytoplasm of nerve has a fluid consistency. Hence its molecules are free to move. According to the thermodynamic principle known as the Gibbs-Thompson rule, any substance in the interior of a liquid which will reduce the free energy of the surface of the liquid, will be concentrated in the surface. The composition of the surface is, therefore, determined by the composition of the fluid from which it is formed; and as the rule is one having universal application, it must hold also for the cytoplasm of nerve. We must think of the surface membrane, then, as a structure which is in equilibrium with the interior of the axon, or at least as one which deviates from equilibrium only because, for dynamic reasons, equilibrium cannot be attained.
With Joseph Erlanger (1874-1965), American physiologist.
Joseph Erlanger and Herbert S. Gasser (eds.), Electrical Signs of Nervous Activity (1937), 136.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Application (257)  |  Attain (126)  |  Composition (86)  |  Consistency (31)  |  Cytoplasm (6)  |  Energy (373)  |  Equilibrium (34)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Form (976)  |  Free (239)  |  Interior (35)  |  Known (453)  |  Liquid (50)  |  Membrane (21)  |  Move (223)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nerve (82)  |  Physiologist (31)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Rule (307)  |  Structure (365)  |  Substance (253)  |  Surface (223)  |  Think (1122)  |  Universal (198)  |  Will (2350)

We knew that DNA was important. We knew it was an important molecule. And we knew that its shape was likely to be important. But we didn’t realise I think just how important it would be. Put in other words, we didn’t realise that the shape would give us a clue to the replication mechanism. And this turned out to be really an unexpected dividend from finding out what the shape was.
From Transcript of BBC TV program, The Prizewinners (1962).
Science quotes on:  |  Clue (20)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Dividend (3)  |  DNA (81)  |  Important (229)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  Other (2233)  |  Realize (157)  |  Replication (10)  |  Shape (77)  |  Think (1122)  |  Turn (454)  |  Unexpected (55)  |  Word (650)

We must ascribe to all cells an independent vitality; that is, such combinations of molecules as occur in any single cell are capable of setting free the power by which it is enabled to take up fresh molecules.
In Theodor Schwann and Henry Smith (trans.), 'Theory of the Cells', Microscopical Researches Into the Accordance in the Structure and Growth of Animals and Plants (1839, 1847), 192.
Science quotes on:  |  Biology (232)  |  Capable (174)  |  Cell (146)  |  Combination (150)  |  Free (239)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Must (1525)  |  Occur (151)  |  Power (771)  |  Setting (44)  |  Single (365)  |  Vitality (24)

We set out, therefore, with the supposition that an organised body is not produced by a fundamental power which is guided in its operation by a definite idea, but is developed, according to blind laws of necessity, by powers which, like those of inorganic nature, are established by the very existence of matter. As the elementary materials of organic nature are not different from those of the inorganic kingdom, the source of the organic phenomena can only reside in another combination of these materials, whether it be in a peculiar mode of union of the elementary atoms to form atoms of the second order, or in the arrangement of these conglomerate molecules when forming either the separate morphological elementary parts of organisms, or an entire organism.
Mikroskopische Untersuchungen über die Uebereinstimmung in der Struktur und dem Wachsthum der Thiere und Pflanzen (1839). Microscopic Researches into the Accordance in the Structure and Growth of Animals and Plants, trans. Henry Smith (1847), 190-1.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Atom (381)  |  Blind (98)  |  Body (557)  |  Combination (150)  |  Conglomerate (2)  |  Definite (114)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Existence (481)  |  Form (976)  |  Forming (42)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Idea (881)  |  Inorganic (14)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Law (913)  |  Material (366)  |  Matter (821)  |  Morphology (22)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Operation (221)  |  Order (638)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organism (231)  |  Organization (120)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Power (771)  |  Produced (187)  |  Reside (25)  |  Separate (151)  |  Set (400)  |  Supposition (50)  |  Union (52)

We should first look at the evidence that DNA itself is not the direct template that orders amino acid sequences. Instead, the genetic information of DNA is transferred to another class of molecules which then serve as the protein templates. These intermediate templates are molecules of ribonucleic acid (RNA), large polymeric molecules chemically very similar to DNA. Their relation to DNA and protein is usually summarized by the central dogma, a How scheme for genetic information first proposed some twenty years ago.
In Molecular Biology of the Gene (1965), 281-282.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Amino Acid (12)  |  Biochemistry (50)  |  Central (81)  |  Class (168)  |  Direct (228)  |  DNA (81)  |  Dogma (49)  |  Evidence (267)  |  First (1302)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Information (173)  |  Intermediate (38)  |  Large (398)  |  Look (584)  |  Order (638)  |  Polymer (4)  |  Protein (56)  |  RNA (5)  |  Scheme (62)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Summarize (10)  |  Template (3)  |  Transfer (21)  |  Usually (176)  |  Year (963)

We suppose ... that the constituent molecules of any simple gas whatever (i.e., the molecules which are at such a distance from each other that they cannot exercise their mutual action) are not formed of a solitary elementary molecule, but are made up of a certain number of these molecules united by attraction to form a single one.
'Essay on a Manner of Determining the Relative Masses of the Elementary Molecules of Bodies, and the Proportions in which they enter into these Compounds', Journal de Physique, 1811, 73, 58-76. In Foundations of the Molecular Theory: Alembic Club Reprints, Number 4 (1923), 31.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Attraction (61)  |  Certain (557)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Distance (171)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Form (976)  |  Gas (89)  |  Mutual (54)  |  Number (710)  |  Other (2233)  |  Simple (426)  |  Single (365)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Whatever (234)

We think of something that has four legs and wags its tail as being alive. We look at a rock and say it’s not living. Yet when we get down to the no man’s land of virus particles and replicating molecules, we are hard put to define what is living and what is non-living.
From interview, 'The Seeds of Life', in The Omni Interviews (1984), 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Alive (97)  |  Being (1276)  |  Define (53)  |  Down (455)  |  Hard (246)  |  Leg (35)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Look (584)  |  Man (2252)  |  Non-Living (3)  |  Particle (200)  |  Replicating (3)  |  Rock (176)  |  Say (989)  |  Something (718)  |  Tail (21)  |  Think (1122)  |  Virus (32)

We…know…that the smallest units of many materials are not atoms but molecules, which are groups of atoms, closely bound to each other. If we are to understand the structure of matter, we must understand not only the structure of atoms but also the reason atoms join and form molecules. We must understand what is called the chemical bond, which keeps the atoms together within the molecule, and we must get acquainted with a few typical molecules and their properties. The chemical bond and the properties of molecules are the subjects of chemistry.
In 'The Chemical Bond', Knowledge and Wonder (1962, Rev. ed. 1966), 142.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Call (781)  |  Chemical Bond (7)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Form (976)  |  Join (32)  |  Material (366)  |  Property (177)  |  Reason (766)  |  Structure (365)  |  Structure of Matter (2)  |  Subject (543)  |  Understand (648)  |  Unit (36)

We’re inquiring into the deepest nature of our constitutions: How we inherit from each other. How we can change. How our minds think. How our will is related to our thoughts. How our thoughts are related to our molecules.
Newsweek 4 Jul 76
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Deep (241)  |  Inherit (35)  |  Inquire (26)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Relate (26)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Will (2350)

What attracted me to immunology was that the whole thing seemed to revolve around a very simple experiment: take two different antibody molecules and compare their primary sequences. The secret of antibody diversity would emerge from that. Fortunately at the time I was sufficiently ignorant of the subject not to realise how naive I was being.
From Nobel Lecture (8 Dec 1984), collected in Tore Frängsmyr and Jan Lindsten (eds.), Nobel Lectures in Physiology Or Medicine: 1981-1990 (1993), 248.
Science quotes on:  |  Antibody (6)  |  Attraction (61)  |  Autobiography (58)  |  Being (1276)  |  Compare (76)  |  Comparison (108)  |  Different (595)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fortunately (9)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Immunology (14)  |  Naive (13)  |  Primary (82)  |  Realisation (4)  |  Revolve (26)  |  Secret (216)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Simple (426)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Subject (543)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Whole (756)

What is there about fire that's so lovely? ... It's perpetual motion; the thing man wanted to invent but never did. Or almost perpetual motion. ... What is fire? It's a mystery. Scientists give us gobbledegook about friction and molecules. But they don't really know.
[Fahrenheit 451 refers to the temperature at which book paper burns. In the short novel of this title 'firemen' burn books forbidden by the totalitaran regime.]
Fahrenheit 451 (1953, 1996), 115.
Science quotes on:  |  Book (413)  |  Burn (99)  |  Fire (203)  |  Forbidden (18)  |  Friction (14)  |  Invention (400)  |  Know (1538)  |  Man (2252)  |  Motion (320)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Never (1089)  |  Novel (35)  |  Paper (192)  |  Perpetual (59)  |  Perpetual Motion (14)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Short (200)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Want (504)

What molecules and atoms and electrons are to the physicist and chemist, chromosomes and genes are to the biologist.
From Penrose Memorial Lecture to the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia (20 Apr 1934), published as 'A Generation's Progress in the Study of Evolution', Science (17 Aug 1934), 80, No 2068, 151.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Biologist (70)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Chromosome (23)  |  Chromosomes (17)  |  Electron (96)  |  Gene (105)  |  Physicist (270)

When carbon (C), Oxygen (o) and hydrogen (H) atoms bond in a certain way to form sugar, the resulting compound has a sweet taste. The sweetness resides neither in the C, nor in the O, nor in the H; it resides in the pattern that emerges from their interaction. It is an emergent property. Moreover, strictly speaking, is not a property of the chemical bonds. It is a sensory experience that arises when the sugar molecules interact with the chemistry of our taste buds, which in turns causes a set of neurons to fire in a certain way. The experience of sweetness emerges from that neural activity.
In The Hidden Connections (2002), 116-117.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Arise (162)  |  Atom (381)  |  Bond (46)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Cause (561)  |  Certain (557)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemical Bond (7)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Compound (117)  |  Emergence (35)  |  Experience (494)  |  Fire (203)  |  Form (976)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Interaction (47)  |  Neuron (10)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Property (177)  |  Reside (25)  |  Result (700)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sensory (16)  |  Set (400)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Sugar (26)  |  Sweet (40)  |  Sweetness (12)  |  Taste (93)  |  Turn (454)  |  Way (1214)

When ultra-violet light acts on a mixture of water, carbon dioxide, and ammonia, a vast variety of organic substances are made, including sugars and apparently some of the materials from which proteins are built up…. But before the origin of life they must have accumulated till the primitive oceans reached the consistency of hot dilute soup…. The first living or half-living things were probably large molecules synthesized under the influence of the sun’s radiation, and only capable of reproduction in the particularly favorable medium in which they originated….
In 'The Origin of Life', The Inequality of Man: And Other Essays (1932, 1937), 152.
Science quotes on:  |  Accumulate (30)  |  Act (278)  |  Ammonia (15)  |  Capable (174)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Carbon Dioxide (25)  |  Compound (117)  |  Consistency (31)  |  Favorable (24)  |  First (1302)  |  Hot (63)  |  Influence (231)  |  Large (398)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Living (492)  |  Material (366)  |  Medium (15)  |  Mixture (44)  |  Must (1525)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Organic (161)  |  Origin (250)  |  Origin Of Life (37)  |  Originate (39)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Protein (56)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Soup (10)  |  Substance (253)  |  Sugar (26)  |  Sun (407)  |  Synthesize (3)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Variety (138)  |  Vast (188)  |  Violet (11)  |  Water (503)

Who then can calculate the path of the molecule? how do we know that the creations of worlds are not determined by the fall of grains of sand?
Victor Hugo and Charles E. Wilbour (trans.), Les Misérables (1862), 41.
Science quotes on:  |  Butterfly Effect (6)  |  Calculate (58)  |  Calculation (134)  |  Chance (244)  |  Chaos (99)  |  Creation (350)  |  Determination (80)  |  Fall (243)  |  Grain (50)  |  Know (1538)  |  Path (159)  |  Sand (63)  |  World (1850)

Why are atoms so small? ... Many examples have been devised to bring this fact home to an audience, none of them more impressive than the one used by Lord Kelvin: Suppose that you could mark the molecules in a glass of water, then pour the contents of the glass into the ocean and stir the latter thoroughly so as to distribute the marked molecules uniformly throughout the seven seas; if you then took a glass of water anywhere out of the ocean, you would find in it about a hundred of your marked molecules.
What is life?: the Physical Aspect of the Living Cell (1944). Collected in What is Life? with Mind And Matter & Autobiographical Sketches (1967, 1992), 6-7.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Audience (28)  |  Distribute (16)  |  Distribution (51)  |  Example (98)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Find (1014)  |  Glass (94)  |  Home (184)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Impressive (27)  |  Baron William Thomson Kelvin (74)  |  Lord (97)  |  Mark (47)  |  Marked (55)  |  More (2558)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Sea (326)  |  Size (62)  |  Small (489)  |  Stir (23)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Water (503)  |  Why (491)

Why can the chemist not take the requisite numbers of atoms and simply put them together? The answer is that the chemist never has atoms at his disposal, and if he had, the direct combination of the appropriate numbers of atoms would lead only to a Brobdingnagian potpourri of different kinds of molecules, having a vast array of different structures. What the chemist has at hand always consists of substances, themselves made up of molecules, containing defined numbers of atoms in ordered arrangements. Consequently, in order to synthesize anyone substance, his task is that of combining, modifying, transforming, and tailoring known substances, until the total effect of his manipulations is the conversion of one or more forms of matter into another.
In 'Art and Science in the Synthesis of Organic Compounds: Retrospect and Prospect', in Maeve O'Connor (ed.), Pointers and Pathways in Research (1963), 28.
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Atom (381)  |  Brobdingnag (2)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Combination (150)  |  Consist (223)  |  Conversion (17)  |  Different (595)  |  Direct (228)  |  Effect (414)  |  Form (976)  |  Kind (564)  |  Known (453)  |  Lead (391)  |  Manipulation (19)  |  Matter (821)  |  Modification (57)  |  More (2558)  |  Never (1089)  |  Number (710)  |  Order (638)  |  Structure (365)  |  Substance (253)  |  Synthesis (58)  |  Task (152)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Together (392)  |  Total (95)  |  Vast (188)  |  Why (491)

Without any doubt, the regularity which astronomy shows us in the movements of the comets takes place in all phenomena. The trajectory of a simple molecule of air or vapour is regulated in a manner as certain as that of the planetary orbits; the only difference between them is that which is contributed by our ignorance. Probability is relative in part to this ignorance, and in part to our knowledge.
Philosophical Essay on Probabilities (1814), 5th edition (1825), trans. Andrew I. Dale (1995), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Certain (557)  |  Comet (65)  |  Difference (355)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Movement (162)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Planetary (29)  |  Plant (320)  |  Probability (135)  |  Regularity (40)  |  Regulation (25)  |  Show (353)  |  Simple (426)  |  Trajectory (5)  |  Vapour (16)


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.