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: “The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition, we must lead it... That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God. That�s what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index P > Category: Potential Energy

Potential Energy Quotes (5 quotes)

Dissection … teaches us that the body of man is made up of certain kinds of material, so differing from each other in optical and other physical characters and so built up together as to give the body certain structural features. Chemical examination further teaches us that these kinds of material are composed of various chemical substances, a large number of which have this characteristic that they possess a considerable amount of potential energy capable of being set free, rendered actual, by oxidation or some other chemical change. Thus the body as a whole may, from a chemical point of view, be considered as a mass of various chemical substances, representing altogether a considerable capital of potential energy.
From Introduction to A Text Book of Physiology (1876, 1891), Book 1, 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Actual (118)  |  Altogether (9)  |  Amount (153)  |  Being (1276)  |  Body (557)  |  Capable (174)  |  Capital (16)  |  Certain (557)  |  Change (639)  |  Character (259)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemical Change (8)  |  Compose (20)  |  Consider (428)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Dissection (35)  |  Energy (373)  |  Examination (102)  |  Free (239)  |  Kind (564)  |  Large (398)  |  Made (14)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mass (160)  |  Material (366)  |  Number (710)  |  Optical (11)  |  Other (2233)  |  Oxidation (8)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physiology (101)  |  Point (584)  |  Point Of View (85)  |  Possess (157)  |  Potential (75)  |  Render (96)  |  Represent (157)  |  Set (400)  |  Structural (29)  |  Substance (253)  |  Together (392)  |  Various (205)  |  View (496)  |  Whole (756)

If, again with the light of science, we trace forward into the future the condition of our globe, we are compelled to admit that it cannot always remain in its present condition; that in time, the store of potential energy which now exists in the sun and in the bodies of celestial space which may fall into it will be dissipated in radiant heat, and consequently the earth, from being the theatre of life, intelligence, of moral emotions, must become a barren waste.
Address (Jul 1874) at the grave of Joseph Priestley, in Joseph Henry and Arthur P. Molella, et al. (eds.), A Scientist in American Life: Essays and Lectures of Joseph Henry (1980), 120.
Science quotes on:  |  Barren (33)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Celestial (53)  |  Condition (362)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Energy (373)  |  Exist (458)  |  Fall (243)  |  Forward (104)  |  Future (467)  |  Globe (51)  |  Heat (180)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Moral (203)  |  Must (1525)  |  Planet (402)  |  Potential (75)  |  Present (630)  |  Radiant (15)  |  Remain (355)  |  Space (523)  |  Store (49)  |  Sun (407)  |  Time (1911)  |  Trace (109)  |  Waste (109)  |  Will (2350)

Some of Feynman’s ideas about cosmology have a modern ring. A good example is his attitude toward the origin of matter. The idea of continuous matter creation in the steady state cosmology does not seriously offend him (and he notes … that the big bang cosmology has a problem just as bad, to explain where all the matter came from in the beginning). … He emphasizes that the total energy of the universe could really be zero, and that matter creation is possible because the rest energy of the matter is actually canceled by its gravitational potential energy. “It is exciting to think that it costs nothing to create a new particle, …”
In John Preskill and Kip S. Thorne, 'Foreword to Feynman Lectures on Gravitation' (15 May 1995). Feynman delivered his lectures in 1962–63.
Science quotes on:  |  Attitude (84)  |  Bad (185)  |  Bang (29)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Big Bang (45)  |  Cancel (5)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Continuous Creation (2)  |  Cosmology (26)  |  Cost (94)  |  Create (245)  |  Creation (350)  |  Emphasize (25)  |  Energy (373)  |  Exciting (50)  |  Explain (334)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Richard P. Feynman (125)  |  Good (906)  |  Gravitation (72)  |  Idea (881)  |  Matter (821)  |  Modern (402)  |  New (1273)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Offend (7)  |  Origin (250)  |  Particle (200)  |  Possible (560)  |  Potential (75)  |  Problem (731)  |  Rest (287)  |  State (505)  |  Steady (45)  |  Steady-State (7)  |  Think (1122)  |  Total (95)  |  Universe (900)  |  Zero (38)

The result would inevitably be a state of universal rest and death, if the universe were finite and left to obey existing laws. But it is impossible to conceive a limit to the extent of matter in the universe; and therefore science points rather to an endless progress, through an endless space, of action involving the transformation of potential energy into palpable motion and thence into heat, than to a single finite mechanism, running down like a clock, and stopping for ever.
In 'On the Age of the Sun's Heat' (1862), Popular Lectures and Addresses (1891), Vol. 1, 349-50.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Clock (51)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Death (406)  |  Down (455)  |  Endless (60)  |  Energy (373)  |  Extent (142)  |  Finite (60)  |  Heat (180)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Law (913)  |  Limit (294)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mechanism (102)  |  Motion (320)  |  Obey (46)  |  Palpable (8)  |  Point (584)  |  Potential (75)  |  Progress (492)  |  Rest (287)  |  Result (700)  |  Running (61)  |  Single (365)  |  Space (523)  |  State (505)  |  Through (846)  |  Transformation (72)  |  Universal (198)  |  Universe (900)

There is deposited in them [plants] an enormous quantity of potential energy [Spannkräfte], whose equivalent is provided to us as heat in the burning of plant substances. So far as we know at present, the only living energy [lebendige Kraft] absorbed during plant growth are the chemical rays of sunlight… Animals take up oxygen and complex oxidizable compounds made by plants, release largely as combustion products carbonic acid and water, partly as simpler reduced compounds, thus using a certain amount of chemical potential energy to produce heat and mechanical forces. Since the latter represent a relatively small amount of work in relation to the quantity of heat, the question of the conservation of energy reduces itself roughly to whether the combustion and transformation of the nutritional components yields the same amount of heat released by animals.
Wissenschaftliche Abhandlungen (1847), 66. Trans. Joseph S. Fruton, Proteins, Enzymes, Genes: The Interplay of Chemistry and Biology (1999), 247.
Science quotes on:  |  Absorb (54)  |  Acid (83)  |  Amount (153)  |  Animal (651)  |  Burning (49)  |  Certain (557)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Combustion (22)  |  Complex (202)  |  Component (51)  |  Compound (117)  |  Conservation (187)  |  Conservation Of Energy (30)  |  Energy (373)  |  Equivalent (46)  |  Force (497)  |  Growth (200)  |  Heat (180)  |  Know (1538)  |  Living (492)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Plant (320)  |  Potential (75)  |  Present (630)  |  Product (166)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Question (649)  |  Ray (115)  |  Reduce (100)  |  Release (31)  |  Represent (157)  |  Small (489)  |  Solar Energy (21)  |  Substance (253)  |  Sunlight (29)  |  Transformation (72)  |  Water (503)  |  Work (1402)  |  Yield (86)


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.