Sprectrum Quotes (1 quote)
One thought [spectra are] marvellous, but it is not possible to make progress there. Just as if you have the wing of a butterfly then certainly it is very regular with the colors and so on, but nobody thought one could get the basis of biology from the coloring of the wing of a butterfly.
Quoted from Interviews (I, 7) in 'The Genesis of the Bohr Atom', J.L. Heilbron and T.S. Kuhn, Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences (1969), 257, reprinted in J. L. Heilbron, Historical Studies in the Theory of Atomic Structure (1981), 195.
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) -- 
