Thick Quotes (6 quotes)
~~[Unverified]~~ [Louis Pasteur’s] … theory of germs is a ridiculous fiction. How do you think that these germs in the air can be numerous enough to develop into all these organic infusions? If that were true, they would be numerous enough to form a thick fog, as dense as iron.
Webmaster has not yet been able to verify this quote - and is very suspicious of it - but includes it to provide this cautionary note. It appears in several books, such as Rob Kaplan, Science Says (2001), 201-202, which cites “Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, The Universe: The Infinitely Great and the Infinitely Small (1872).” Webmaster has not yet found any information on Pierre Pochet as a 19th-century scientist, anywhere. A similar book title was found as The Universe: The Infinitely Great and the Infinitely Little (1870) but that author is Félix-Archimède Pochet, Director of the Natural History Museum at Rouen. This book, translated from the French, presents germs in the normal way, with no trace of the subject quote to be found in it. The Preface (dated 1867) begins, “My sole object in writing this work was…” implying it was totally authored by F.A. Pochet with no reference to taking over from earlier work by another person. It does, however, have this curious statement: “One of my learned colleagues at the Academy of Sciences lately brought out a similar work, but under a fictitious name,” which F.A. Pochet thought was a questionable practice, and did not provide any name of the individual involved. If you find more definitive information, please contact Webmaster.
A man was famous according as he had lifted up axes upon the thick trees.
— Bible
Psalms 74:5 in Church of Scotland, The Book of Common-Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments; and Other Parts of Divine Service For the Use of the Church of Scotland. With A Praphrase of the Psalms in Metre by King James the VI (1637), 250.
Carbon has this genius of making a chemically stable two-dimensional, one-atom-thick membrane in a three-dimensional world. And that, I believe, is going to be very important in the future of chemistry and technology in general.
From Nobel Lecture (7 Dec 1996), 'Discovering the Fullerenes', collected in Ingmar Grenthe (ed.), Nobel Lectures, Chemistry 1996-2000 (2003).
Dublin University contains the cream of Ireland—rich and thick.
As quoted in William Reville, 'The Science of Writing a Good Joke', The Irish Times (5 Jun 2000).
It is unlikely that we will ever see a star being born. Stars are like animals in the wild. We may see the very young, but never their actual birth, which is a veiled and secret event. Stars are born inside thick clouds of dust and gas in the spiral arms of the galaxy, so thick that visible light cannot penetrate them.
Perfect Symmetry: The Search for the Beginning of Time (1985), 44.
Suddenly, from behind the rim of the moon, in long, slow-motion moments of immense majesty, there emerges a sparkling blue and white jewel, a light, delicate sky-blue sphere laced with slowly swirling veils of white, rising gradually like a small pearl in a thick sea of black mystery. It takes more than a moment to fully realize this is Earth . . . home.
…...
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) -- 
