Structure of Matter Quotes (2 quotes)
I found out at an early age that science is a haven for the timid, the freaks, the misfits. That is more true perhaps for the past than now. If you were a student in Göttingen in the 1920s and went to the seminar “Structure of Matter” which was under the joint auspices of David Hilbert and Max Born, you could well imagine that you were in a madhouse as you walked in. Every one of the persons there was obviously some kind of a severe case. The least you could do was put on some kind of a stutter. Robert Oppenheimer as a graduate student found it expedient to develop a very elegant kind of stutter, the "njum-njum-njum" technique. Thus, if you were an oddball you felt at home.
Answering the question, “Why did you choose science as your life’s work?” In 'Homo Scientificus According to Beckett," collected in William Beranek, Jr. (ed.)Science, Scientists, and Society, (1972), 135. Excerpted in Ann E. Kammer, Science, Sex, and Society (1979), 278.
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.
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) -- 
